Quarante-huit heures

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.

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)

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.

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).