Went the Day Well? (1942)

100% of critics liked it
(9 reviews)
94% of users liked it
(439 ratings)

Released in the US as Forty-Eight Hours, Went the Day Well? is a solidly constructed wartime melodrama. Actually, the film covers 72 hours in the life of the small British village of Bramley Green, which serves as the focal point for an attempted German invasion. Immediately upon parachuting in the… More Released in the US as Forty-Eight Hours, Went the Day Well? is a solidly constructed wartime melodrama. Actually, the film covers 72 hours in the life of the small British village of Bramley Green, which serves as the focal point for an attempted German invasion. Immediately upon parachuting in the community, vicious Nazi officer Ortier (Basil Sydney) makes contact with local Fifth Columnist Oliver Wileford (Leslie Banks), using the film's British title as their password. Fortunately, Democracy is preserved when postmistress-telephone operator Mrs. Collins (Muriel George), picking up on a simple clue inadvertently left behind by the well-disguised Germans, alerts her neighbors of impending danger. The British home guardsmen and German soldiers seen in the film were drawn from the ranks of of the real-life Gloucestershire Regiment, who volunteered their services for this patriotic morale-booster. The episode screenplay of Went the Day Well (based on Graham Greene story) was unified by the direct-to-camera narration of the town gravedigger, a device deftly borrowed from Our Town. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 32 min.
Directed By: Alberto Cavalcanti
Genres: Classics, Drama

In Theaters: Dec 7, 1942 Wide
On DVD: Mar 22, 2005
Studio: Rialto Pictures

Critic Reviews

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
One of the most subversive films to come out of World War II, a British drama that was unsettling in its day and is even more so now.
Tom Long, Detroit News
Part paranoid propaganda, part thriller and part quaint period study, Went the Day Well? is an entertaining oddity begging for an update.
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com
As an effective work of surreptitious World War II propaganda, "Went the Day Well" is instructive on many levels.
Kent Turner, Film-Forward.com
The summer's first all-around audience-pleaser arrives this week after 70 years in hibernation.
David Fear, Time Out New York
Home-front propaganda has rarely seemed so cutthroat or so cunning; for Americans, the chance to see this rarity is an opportunity to indulge in the sort of cinematic ecstasy that makes us obsessed with movies in the first place.
Jaime N. Christley, Slant Magazine
A sickeningly giddy action thriller that looks forward to Straw Dogs, Inglorious Basterds, and Red Dawn.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]
A wartime conspiracy thriller, a black-comic nightmare and a surrealist masterpiece in which stoutly English-seeming army types reveal themselves to be Nazis, like the reflected figures turning their backs on us in RenÃ (C) Magritte's mirror.
Tom Huddleston, Time Out
Still truly unnerving, one can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for audiences facing the very real threat of Nazi enslavement.
, Film4
Fortunately, it's of more than mere historical interest thanks to some well-paced action, enthusiastic acting and the influence of Graham Greene's dark imagination.

Read all 9 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Cassandra M

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… More
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.
Walter M

Went the day well? Now that you mention it, Saturday, May 23, 1942, started off nicely enough in the hamlet of Bramley End with the preparations for a wedding being a particular highlight. Major Hammond(Basil Sydney) creates quite a stir when he and his men show up unannounced for… More
Went the day well? Now that you mention it, Saturday, May 23, 1942, started off nicely enough in the hamlet of Bramley End with the preparations for a wedding being a particular highlight. Major Hammond(Basil Sydney) creates quite a stir when he and his men show up unannounced for military exercises but everything eventually works out as the vicar(C.V. France) agrees to house the soldiers in the village hall. Unbeknowst to everybody except for Oliver Wilsford(Leslie Banks) because frankly he is a traitorous rat bastard, the soldiers are really Nazis, ordered to secure the village and block communications for a planned invasion of England. However, the villagers start to get suspicious which calls for Plan B. "Went the Day Well?" might have originally been conceived as just another propaganda movie during World War II to urge the people of England to be ever vigilant and reminding them that no place is truly safe.(For the record, I put a slash through my 7's because my atrocious handwriting needs all the help it can get.) But the material is handled exceptionally well, turning this into an exciting thriller that thrives on the details of village life which makes the sense of loss that much greater in its depiction of ordinary people rising to new heights under extraordinary circumstances.