Went the Day Well? (1942)
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100% of critics liked it
(9 reviews) -
93% of users liked it
(462 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
- Directed By
- Alberto Cavalcanti
- Genres
- Drama, Classics
- In Theaters
- Dec 7, 1942 Wide
- Studio
- Rialto Pictures
Critic Reviews
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com
As an effective work of surreptitious World War II propaganda, "Went the Day Well" is instructive on many levels.
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Cast
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Leslie Banks
as Oliver Wilsford
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Basil Sydney
as Maj. Ortler
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Frank Lawton
as Tom Sturry
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Elizabeth Allan
as Peggy
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Valerie Taylor
as Nora Ashton
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John Slater
as German Sergeant
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Grace Arnold
as Mrs. Owen
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Hilda Bayley
as Cousin Maud
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David Farrar
as Lieutenant Jung
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Harry Fowler
as Young George
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C.V. France
as Vicar
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Muriel George
as Mrs. Collins
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Thora Hird
as Ivy
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Ellis Irving
as Harry Drew
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Mervyn Johns
as Charles Sims
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Marie Lohr
as Mrs. Frazer
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Norman Pierce
as Jim Sturry
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Edward Rigby
as Bill Purvis
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Patricia Hayes
as Daisy
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Eric Micklewood
as Soldier
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Johnnie Schofield
as Joe Garbett
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Victor Weske
as Axed German Soldier

