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It is characteristic, therefore, that she should choose as her BFI Classic, of all the 360 greatest films ever made, a modest wartime British thriller she admits is superficial and often clumsily made. She is less interested in the fascinating tensions of this story about an attempted Nazi invasion of an archetypal English village (e.g. the pervading surrealism brought by the Brazilian former avant-garde director Cavalcanti; the conflict between different kinds of Englishness; the effect on decent people of the need for brutal violence), than the empirical and prosaic details of the production - she delights in searching out archival papers about script development, budgets and the like.
What this study provides is an interesting look at how British cinema functioned in its supposed Golden Age (often haphazardly), especially in a war situation, where the demands of propaganda and censorship had to be met, effectively showing how the film's many hands (producer Michael Balcon, director Cavalcanti, the scriptwriters, source writer Graham Greene, the Ministry of Information etc.), and external pressures, created this oddly lopsided work. This is probably why 'Went the day well?', dismissed by contemporary reviewers because of its implausibility and carelessness, now dates better than its more celebrated contemporaries - because of its sheer, liberating unexpectedness. Perhaps Miss Houston is justified in not focusing on 'Great' directors after all.
She is also a very good and balanced film critic. She actually seems to like films and her enthusiasm for this film is infectious. Even though I had just seen the film, I went back and watched it again and she opened my eyes to some important scenes and ideas in the film. In particular, the jump from suspense to horror as the villages see the threat emerging.
I only hope that this book will make this film more widely known.
Listmania!
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