Went the Day Well? is set in the small, charming and fictional English village (Town? Shire? I don’t know England) of Bramley End in late May of, well, of some point when a German invasion is about to take place, I guess 1941. German paratroopers are sent ahead of the larger invasion and infiltrate the village dressed as British soldiers.

Spoiler alert: the German invasion fails.

This is not really a spoiler because the movie begins at some point in the future after “old Hitler got what was coming to him,” and because this is a British movie produced in 1942. We therefore have only one question—how will the Germans be defeated?

The twists and heroics that lead to their inevitable defeat are clever and engaging—the movie is interesting and entertaining though it is interesting more as a look at propaganda than as a look at, you know, reality.

To recap: This 1942 release is really set at an indeterminate time after the war and then flashes back to 1940-41, so it is always already confident in final victory.

It starts with an idyllic vision of English country life, with some very nice young ladies delivering milk when some trucks roll in with British soldiers who are of course not British soldiers.  They report to the constable and the pastor and the local matron and are perfectly polite—they seem quite English. In this film, “English” means charming and polite and good—something Germans can only pretend to be.

The lady of the manor is much like the lady of the manor in Mrs. Miniver; she has position and power, and she believes it is her place to have both, but she is already the good citizen that Mrs. Miniver‘s Lady Belden becomes; she’s already housing children evacuated from the cities. She is using her power for the good of the community—she is doing her part for victory, as everyone in the village is. As she takes charge of the billeting of the phony Englishmen, she orders a German/British officer to drive her to look at other places they could stay. He tries to reply, “It’s an army car; I’m afraid civilians aren’t allowed,” but is rebuffed with an offhand, “I don’t mind.” The German is no match for her.

Part of the fun is how the Germans are not much of a match for the townspeople. They are revealed in part by accident and in part by their acting German, forming letters in the continental way and not being exceedingly polite. When they are unloading trucks full of gear, one twists the ear of a child looking too closely at the equipment, and one local woman, Mrs. Collins (Muriel George, It Started at Midnight) chastises him: “Oh, you great beast! You great bullying brute you, knocking a child about! You’re a disgrace to your uniform! Why, you’re no better than a German; that’s what you are!” Those Germans are so brutish they use corporal punishment—English people certainly wouldn’t do that!

The Germans tend to be brutish throughout the film though they attempt, sometimes poorly, to hide it while they are disguised as Englishmen, who are not like Germans. The brutish Germans are instructed to be polite and help around the house while billeted in private homes—things Germans obviously wouldn’t do.

Some are instructed to go to the pub and be sociable and end up having to drink a toast that ends with “and down to Hitler.”

There’s plenty of dramatic irony to go around, some of it focused on Germans having to listen to Germany being insulted. That must be the worst part of being a spy–“Yes, let us toast to the defeat of those terrible Nazis.”

But one character is particularly good at it. Basil Sydney (The Dam Busters) plays Major Hammond/ Commandant Ortler. He is initially diffident and charming and frightfully sorry to have to impose and all that. At a perfectly quaint dinner he says not to worry because “the Bosch is devilishly good at propaganda,” and they aren’t really strong enough to invade. When asked if he was at Dunkirk, he replies that he and his men were “up to our necks in it.”

When he speaks to someone in charge of the village’s defense, he ends the conversation by saying, “I appreciate your cooperation, it’s going to make my job a good deal easier.” Most of the irony is comedic and works, but there is also certainly an underlying message of being careful about what you say to who because those dirty fifth columnists are everywhere.

Speaking of dirty fifth columnists, Oliver Wilsford (Leslie Banks The Big Blockade) is scheming all the time, but he understands English psychology—he is English—but he’s a treacherous traitor, so he’s not like the other people. He is hiding his true cruelty because English people aren’t like that.  Except he is English, we think. We have no idea why he is a traitor, and we are not encouraged to wonder. The good people are good, and the bad people are bad, and the fact that some of them seem good means we need to be vigilant.

Valerie Taylor plays the Vicar’s daughter, who is clearly smitten with and manipulated by the treacherous, duplicitous Wilsford. She also speaks poorly of the French, only to be rebuffed by her father. The one who falls for the fifth columnist is also the one who is not wholeheartedly supporting the effort towards victory.

But she redeems herself because, through vigilance bordering on paranoia, she is able to see through the ruses of the Germans, who aren’t that clever when you get down to it. This is a weird balancing act of trying to have a clear pro-British message, while having a reasonable amount of complexity of characters and plot. And this movie balances drama, suspense and comedy with its propaganda well.

The most obvious propaganda in the movie is the portrayal of the Germans. The Germans’ second in command gets drunk and orders the execution of children as punishment for an escape attempt. One German soldier is a sausage-eating pig who says he never married but has two fine sons. He scoffs at propaganda that says Germans stick children on the ends of their bayonets, saying “what would be the advantage of that?” Not “that’s terrible,” but “I don’t see how that’s in my best interest, so I will not do it. Sure, if there were a clear advantage, I’d absolutely do it.”

The most interesting German brutishness is seen in the shift of Sydney’s character once he reveals himself to be German. He becomes overbearing and imperious. His first public order is to yell “silence!” while people are praying. They’re ten seconds away from “amen,” and he tramples over their prayer because those godless Nazis are bad.  Once he removes the veneer of English politeness, he no longer has to pretend to have empathy—or any redeeming qualities. He may even get dumber once he’s openly German.

When the Vicar says, “You ask me to bow down to the forces of evil here in this House of God?” He bellows: “I ask nothing! I give you my orders!” Seriously, he bellows.

Most of the violence is perhaps graphic for the period. At least twice someone is shot in the head, slaps his hand to his forehead because of the wound and then has a spot of blood like substance on his head that was missing when he was first hit. I’m not sure how that effect was carried off. The movie doesn’t shy from people being killed because the cruel Germans kill people mercilessly, which helps establish they are cruel and merciless, and the valiant Brits give them what’s coming to them, in sometimes clever ways.

One woman kills a German with an axe, and we see it play out on her face. When women kill Germans (and they must because everyone has to pitch in), we see the psychological toll on them, except for at one point where two women with Lee Enfields make a game of shooting Germans while staving off an attack—it reminded me of the end of Duck Soup, and maybe it was supposed to.

An Unscientific Comparison of Two Stills

One from Duck Soup the other from Went the Day Well?

There are no tricky moral questions—the Germans are cruel and the aggressors, so they deserve to die. The traitor in their midst never tries to justify his actions, and we have no idea why he is a traitor; he is, so he deserves his fate.

This is not particularly a criticism. This is a propaganda movie—they tend not to feature tricky moral questions or humanize the enemy. And this film, as many wartime films do, makes it clear that everyone, regardless of sex or class, needs to pitch in to defeat the Bosch.

And this is all fine because it’s 1942, and the twists are entertaining; it’s good fun watching the traitor try to foil the villagers’ attempts to escape or get a message out and the villagers working together to cleverly succeed in escaping and getting messages out. There are also some tense and dramatic moments—and a cute dog.

You always know who will win, yet how they win is full of surprises. It’s a suspenseful and entertaining movie.

Recommendation

You should watch Went the Day Well?; it’s an interesting and entertaining film. You can probably watch it for free on more than one streaming service (Tubi is a new favorite of mine).

It’s also part of this five-movie set, Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics, that I wholeheartedly recommend. Ice Cold in Alex is my favorite of the set, and many people who are not me think The Dam Busters is a classic. The Colditz Story and Dunkirk are at least okay. All of the movies in the set are beautifully restored.