WENT THE DAY WELL?

This 1942 wartime drama opens with the viewer being welcomed to the peaceful corner of rural southern England that is the fictional village of Bramley End, where the so-called 'Battle of Bramley End' took place.

Strikingly, we are casually informed that this 'battle' took place some time ago, before Hitler was defeated.  That the War would eventually be won must have been reassuring news for the audience of the day, and it is the first hint that what we are watching has a propaganda element to it.

Not that it is without artistic merit, far from it given that it is based on a 1940 Graham Greene short story and that it is directed by a decent (if now forgotten) director, Alberto Calvacanti (who rather pretentiously just referred to himself as Calvacanti).

The intriguing premise of the story is that the village is taken over by a group of German soldiers masquerading as British, in order to support an imminent full-scale German invasion, their role being to interfere with national radio communications..

Initially their plan goes well, with the Germans being billeted among the unsuspecting villagers.  However a couple of careless mistakes leads Nora, the unmarried daughter of the vicar, to suspect the truth, fantastic though it appears.

Unfortunately the person she shares her suspicions with, Oliver, the local squire, whom she happens to be in love with, is in fact a German fifth columnist.  He cleverly persuades her that what she has stumbled upon is some sort of exercise to test how vigilant the civilian population is.

Here I felt that the plot went a bit awry in that Oliver now initiates a 'Plan B' whereby the Germans drop their disguise and round up all the villagers.  It seems an overreaction to Nora's suspicions given how well he has allayed them.

Never mind, now that the villagers are imprisoned they demonstrate commendable courage and resourcefulness in trying to find ways to warn the outside world.  Although several of these fail, eventually they succeed, leading to the arrival of regular soldiers and a short skirmish centred on the manor house, before the enemy is defeated.

The film is noteworthy for some shockingly frank moments of violence. The vicar is shot dead when he tries to raise the alarm by ringing the church bells, and the postmistress Mrs Collins bludgeons a German to death before she herself is bayoneted.

To a man, woman and child the villagers acquit themselves admirably, and several die heroically.  The local poacher is killed whilst making a diversion so as to allow young George (a real character) to get away, and Mrs Fraser (very much the lady of the manor) dies removing a live grenade from a room where several children are hiding.

Although an ensemble piece, several individual performances stand out.  Valerie Taylor is very good as Nora, who suffers the murder of her father and then the discovery that the object of her affection is a traitor, but who has the strength of character to confront Oliver before doing away with him ruthlessly with a revolver.  

Oliver is effortlessly portrayed by Leslie Banks, who was a dab hand at villainous roles, and Marie Lohr is able to make Mrs Fraser less of a caricature then she might have been.

Also in the cast are several actors who would go on to have successful TV careers, such as Thora Hird, Patricia Hayes and Harry Fowler.

Although the propaganda aspect of the film isn't that subtle (all of the Germans are quite horrible) the screenplay (the product of no less than three talented writers) contains lots of incidental detail that conveys the nature of village life and which make the characters three-dimensional.  I liked for example that Mrs Fraser is clearly put out when the CO of the soldiers to be billeted is offered a room by the vicar before she gets the chance to do so, and that the vicar takes some pleasure in the knowledge.

All in all a superior piece of myth-making.

RATING: ✓✓ Good Times