È andata bene la giornata?

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.

I saw 'Went the Day Well' in 1943, as a 12 year old in war-time England.What I remember most about the film is that it was utterly convincing, both in the authenticity of the setting and the quality of the acting,My friends and I were, of course, perhaps less sophisticated and streetwise than the 12 year olds of today, nevertheless, the film left a lasting impression and I, at least, can remember it in a fair amount of detail, even after the passage of nearly sixty years. The least convincing part to us was the fight between the soldiers,English and German, towards the end of the film,located in and around the church - perhaps this was because we had watched too many carefully staged propanganda epics belittling the ability of the Germans ! All in all,though, a film which brought home the fact that the freedom we take for granted can so easily be lost unless we are eternally vigilant.

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).

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.

A still chilling story of german invasion to an ordinary sleepy english village sixty years ago. This brilliantly captured the very real possibility of what could have happened during the first years of world war 2. If you tend to stay away from "older" films because they're too distant and difficult to relate to I strongly recommend this, the characters are believable and the way the story is told is very realistic and not at all sentimental. There are some quite powerful scenes which are quite shocking and totally unexpected in a film this old. (9/10)