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1942. That is the important date to bear in mind when watching this film. That was when the film was made, and when the UK cinema auidences watching it knew that all that separated them from invasion was a few miles of sea. Imagine the impact it must have had!! Plucky Brits, living in the rural English idyll, threatened by the Hun. Having witnessed their brave fight, the auidences must have come out of the flicks wanting to take on the German army on their own. The comparisons with 'The Eagle Has Landed' are easy to make, but just remember that date of 1942. The threat was real to the people watching it, unlike those watching 'The Eagle' for the very first time. Cracking afternoon entertainment, with a message of its time.

In WWII England a troop of surveyors are dispatched into a characteristically happy-go-lucky and scenic village, though really they are a select assemblage of German officers with orders to seize control of the township on the horizon of a covert German attack in a few days. Director Alberto Cavalcani is smart. Rather than this information creeping up on us like a twist, we grasp this from the start. When one of the villagers grows suspicious, we are in an enhanced state of tension. The Germans hijack the parish, a handful among which refuse to lose hope of alerting the unsuspecting free world around them.

Do not make the mistake of presuming that it is an insincere propaganda yarn, considering its era. This is in fact quite an electrifying tale of survival. If so many can overlook the propaganda of obsolete films like Battleship Potemkin, there is certainly room for this picture. It stands out, owing much to its unexpected flashes of violence that are sincerely exhilarating and often frank and uncompromising in terms of the drama. It is not gritty like most modern war films. The quaintly timeless English ambiance, and the consistent theme of it maintaining its spry morale, is a clever and natural juxtaposition to the taut aggression of the conflict, which is thus more well-defined. The relatively unfamiliar cast is plainly high- quality.

At its hub, yes, it's a work of propaganda exploiting a thriller story to enrapture its WWII-era British spectators. But mind you, it is based on a story by English writer and WWII MI6 spy Graham Greene. Nevertheless, the English were righteous in that war, remaining the only European country the Germans intended to occupy but never could. This piece grows to be as riveting as any other good movie, and what's more, its unexpected violence causes it to project with particular prominence.

An ahead-of-its-time film if ever there was one, WENT THE DAY WELL? is still a chilling wartime thriller even watched today. It begins deceptively genteel, with Mervyn Johns talking to the camera (a great device) and leading us into a story which times out to be both hard hitting and inspirational.

Like the later film, THE EAGLE HAS LANDED, this fictional movie poses the 'what if?' question - what if the much-mooted Nazi invasion of England had really taken place? The answer is limited to a single rural village in the English countryside which soon finds itself taken over by ruthless German soldiers.

What follows is expertly paced and supremely directed, with the villagers harried, hassled and murdered and eventually fighting back against their oppressors. It's still a violent and grim film, with axe murders, knifings and all manner of shootings put on the screen, although in my mind a scene involving a hand grenade marks the most shocking moment. An excellent cast, topped by THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME's Leslie Banks as a sinister collaborater, help make this a British classic.

For a film made in 1942 this film is fairly hard hitting as it does not shy away from the realities and emotions of warfare. The plot gradually gains pace and the atmosphere is tense as the ordinary English folk rally round to face the professional soldiers of Nazi Germany. The quality of acting is superb throughout and although there are signs of propaganda, it is kept to a minimum and is not overly biased. Highly recommended and very cheap to buy (at least in England it is).

Alberto Cavalcanti's outstanding piece of wartime propaganda is worthy of Hitchcock at his best. It's a surprisingly bleak and sometimes vicious study of British resilience, light years away from the dull Hollywood sentimentality of "Mrs Miniver". It's about a group of Fifth Columnists who take over a small British village in 1942 in preparation for the German invasion and of how the villagers fight back.

It has all the usual stereotypical villagers, (the post-mistress, the squire etc), but these clichéd parts are turned on their heads with surprisingly suspenseful results. Good performances, too, from everybody in a film that is largely undervalued, certainly in this country where we are inclined to acknowledge our 'heroism' but draw the line at going beyond that, as this film does, somewhat uncomfortably.