Went the day well

[Brian C]

Just watched 'Went the day well' again, the actings not brilliant but it's a damed good plot. For those who haven't seen the film it's about German soldiers in disguise trying to take over a small village. I think it was made in '42' ,it's got a pretty dark feel to it and if it had been released a few month's earlier I wouln't have wanted to have been a stranger entering a rural village in Britain. Worth a look if you haven't seen it and like the old B/w films.

[Owen]

Watched it earlier this year when I was home sick.
Great film.
The soldier-extras were from the Glosters. I wonder how many of them survived the war.

[CROONAERT]

Possibly the inspiration for "The Eagle has Landed"?

I wonder if Jack Higgins ever credited it?

Dave

[Brian C]

Must have been a great assignment for the Glosters. Better than what was to come. If any of them survived I bet they had a great story to tell the grandchildren.

[Paul Reed]

Originally Posted by croonaert

Possibly the inspiration for "The Eagle has Landed"?

I wonder if Jack Higgins ever credited it?

Dave

He did, Dave, and yes it was the inspiration.

A classic film, and one of my favourites for many years.

I have also encountered many graves in WW2 cemeteries with the 'Went The Day Well' inscription on them.

[von Poop]

"Went the day well?
We died and never knew,
But,
well or ill,
freedom,
we died for you."

Simonides commemorating Thermopylae, 480BC.
Also quoted in a Battle of Britain poem.

Agreed. One of the finest films made during ww2.

[Gibbo]

One thing that particularly impressed me was that although it was made during the war, the Germans weren't caricatures or comic book villains. They were utterly ruthless when they thought that military necessity required it but didn't mistreat civilians when they saw no military reason to do so. This to my mind was a more effective way of showing them as evil than the stereotypical mousache twirling monocled Prussian.

[lancesergeant]

Originally Posted by Brian C

Just watched 'Went the day well' again, the actings not brilliant but it's a damed good plot. For those who haven't seen the film it's about German soldiers in disguise trying to take over a small village. I think it was made in '42' ,it's got a pretty dark feel to it and if it had been released a few month's earlier I wouln't have wanted to have been a stranger entering a rural village in Britain. Worth a look if you haven't seen it and like the old B/w films.

With the possible threat of invasion and the Germans just over the water, the film's them would have been poignant to say the least and it would have opened the eyes of those complacent enough to think that the Germans would only attack big cities. The attacking wasn't brilliant, but it got it's message over. I bet those who watched "The shape of things to come" in the cinema would have looked on that film as a foretelling what was to come.

A lot of these films weren't made for entertainment, there was an underlying message either bolstering morale or keeping spirits up in hard times, or reinforcing a public message. Either way they are a statement of the times. They would have had more meaning and substance to those of the forties than a casual observer of later times. Being in black and white adds to the atmosphere as well, can't seem to take in a ww2 film when it's in colour.