Film

Went the Day Well? (1942)

Director: Alberto Cavalcanti

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

An extremely effective wartime thriller which transcends its propagandist impulse (about the need to look out for fifth columnists or Germans in disguise), thanks to a tremendous story base by Graham Greene and to Cavalcanti's firm direction. As a small, remote village is taken over and cut off by a platoon of undercover German paratroopers, tensions and suspicions mount, and confusion reigns as to how to deal with the problem. What really distinguishes the film is not so much the impressive exploration of the way the invasion threatens the accepted hierarchy within the village, but Cavalcanti's cool, brutal depiction of suddenly erupting violence and death; not only are British 'heroes' often despatched with shocking realism, but quiet, cosy housewives find themselves killing the enemy with almost hysterical relish. And any film that includes Thora Hird as a flighty seductress has to be worth watching.

---

• 
•