Went the Day Well? Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Went the Day Well? Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 5, 2020

Note: This version of this film is available as part of Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics.

Their Finest Hour aggregates a quintet of really interesting British films about England’s experience in World War II, though kind of interestingly (and perhaps meaningfully), only one of the films in the set was actually produced during the war, with four others coming along from the mid- to the late fifties. Perhaps understandably, the film that came out in 1942, Went the Day Well?, is unabashedly fictional and perhaps tilted toward propaganda, while all four of the films that came out in the fifties ( The Colditz Story, The Dam Busters, Dunkirk and Ice Cold in Alex), offer stories ostensibly based at least part in fact. These are all fascinating films in their own ways, and several of them contain hugely enjoyable performances by a coterie of notables like John Mills, Michael Redgrave, and Richard Attenborough. At least a couple of them may well offer stories generally unknown "on this side of the pond", even to those who have a good general knowledge of the ins and outs of World War II.

While not in any way really comparable to a typical Agatha Christie mystery, in one way Went the Day Well? may indeed remind some people of at least one aspect of the great Dame’s writing, namely in the way it kind of pries the lid off of preconceptions about what “quiet village life” in the rural English countryside might be like. Now in Christie’s formulations that almost always includes a nefarious murderer hiding in the midst of bucolic, sylvan enclaves, but in the case of Went the Day Well?, it’s both a group of undercover German soldiers as well as a collaborator with the Germans who provide the shocking conflict. The film is told as a flashback, which perhaps lets the cat out of the bag from the get go that at least some characters have a more or less "happy ending", but what's often viscerally effective about Went the Day Well? is how unapologetically the film kills off various characters as the story proceeds toward a careening climax.

While a “secret invasion” of England might seem like a fanciful idea to contemporary viewers, it’s important to remember that in 1942, when Went the Day Well? first came out, the Germans had already occupied the Channel Islands (and had for a couple of years), which may give some insight into the justifiable paranoia that some Brits probably felt. Went the Day Well? ups the anxiety ante considerably, though, by having some German soldiers posing at British arrive in the quaint (fictional) village of Bramley End. The Germans are initially greeted by the villagers during weekend festivities celebrating Whitsun, but soon enough their true identities are revealed, leading to a series of cascading events that ultimately involve much of the village.

Once the Germans’ true identities are revealed, the rest of the film plays out as a kind of cat and mouse game between the interloping captors and the entire village. It’s here that the film delivers some of its most visceral content, but where it also arguably relies on a few to many “inconveniences” that keep the Germans’ ruse from being discovered by the outside world. While it does take a while for the English to prevail (at least in part to a collaborator in their midst), the various vignettes that are offered are often bursting with an anxious quality, and there are several actually shocking deaths that occur.

Went the Day Well? can’t quite escape the fact that it’s obviously attempting to proselytize Britons about potential danger from an unseen (or at least initially unrecognized) enemy, and as such it certainly has element of propaganda in its portrayal of both the “evil” Germans and the (mostly) upright and honorable British. It’s still an incredibly exciting and often very dramatic film, but it also has a few sly touches of humor that some may find a little surprising, given the overall context.

Went the Day Well? Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: I'm beginning each of the individual reviews of the films in this set with some shared information to get some of the basics out of the way, and then I'll move on to comments about each individual film in the paragraph below. While Film Movement (on the back cover of this release) touts these as "newly restored" and "available on Blu-ray for the first time", I point interested readers to these reviews by my colleague Dr. Svet Atanasov of pre-existing releases of four of the films for the UK market: Went the Day Well? Blu-ray review, The Colditz Story Blu-ray review, The Dam Busters Blu-ray review and Ice Cold in Alex Blu-ray review. Svet's reviews are a good resource not just for Svet's thoughts on plots and technical presentations, but also to compare screenshots and supplemental features on each disc (which are sometimes but not always shared). I'll also mention that there is evidently a UK Blu-ray release of Dunkirk from Studio Canal that doesn't have an "official" review yet, but which does have a user review.

Went the Day Well? is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement Classics, an imprint of Film Movement, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. As with all of the films in this set, the insert booklet only offers a generic "new digital restoration" for this presentation, but from both Svet's comments and a cursory comparison of screenshots, I'm assuming this was culled off the same master, an assumption bolstered by the fact that this presentation comes with a prefatory text card announcing that it's a restoration done by the BFI National Archive in association with StudioCanal and Optimum Releasing (who put out the UK Blu-ray that Svet reviewed). I'm scoring this just a tad less positively than Svet did, as I personally found some of the remaining damage in terms of admittedly minor nicks and scratches to be pretty noticeable. There are a couple of moments toward one of the major climaxes (when the collaborator is revealed) that looked soft and almost out focus, like they may have been sourced from an alternate (duplicate) element, but the bulk of this presentation is sharp and well detailed, with generally consistent contrast and good resolution of an organic looking grain field. Occasional variances in brightness can be spotted, and some of the opticals, including dissolves and superimposed text, can look a little rough, but this is by and large a very winning presentation. My score is 4.25.

Went the Day Well? Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Went the Day Well? features an LPCM 2.0 mono track which shows a bit of noticeable boxiness during some of William Walton's stirring music, notably during the opening credits where some of the brass work crackles just ever so slightly, though some later string and wind cues sound warm and problem free. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout and I noticed no problems with regard to dropouts or major damage.

Went the Day Well? Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements tied to the film itself offered on this disc, though as with many Film Movement releases, there's the About Film Movement option on the Main Menu which provides some text and a trailer. It looks like the Optimum Home Entertainment Blu-ray release of the film for the UK market does have a couple of bonus features.

Went the Day Well? Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Went the Day Well? is obviously a product of its time, but it's often incredibly exciting if increasingly far fetched (how many different attempts at getting a message to the "outside world" can one village endure? - several, evidently). This is a unique and highly enjoyable film that no doubt inspired Brits to not just keep a stiff upper lip but to show a bit of pluck in the process. Technical merits are generally solid, though this release doesn't offer any supplements other than the insert booklet that comes with the entire set. Recommended.