The programme started with some classics from the 1950's but I will start with 1942's Went The Day Well?. A very violent, very dark wartime depiction of a village in rural England invaded by a group of German soldiers in disguise
So I was able to record it when it was shown recently on TV. It was all filmed at Turville in Buckinghamshire, there are a couple of superb walks described on this blog. I was amazed that the film was released in 1942, so right in the middle of the second world war. The German paratroopers who arrive in this tiny village are dressed as British soldiers, all in preparation of an invasion. A quiet weekend in Bramley End takes a nasty turn as the villagers are rounded up in the church. The heroic vicar is shot for ringing the bell.
The main thrust of this patriotic story is how the villagers quietly start their resistance on the quiet, although there are some horrific deaths. There are threats to kill five children as reprisals and much of the film is pretty nasty. It all then happens at night and you can guess the outcome. Those in the cast I recognised included a very young Harry Fowler together with Mervyn Johns and Thora Hird. The producer was Michael Balcon for Ealing Studios from a story by Graham Greene.
In David Thomson's book Have You Seen ... he reminds us "this very English film it was directed the Brazilian Alberto Cavalcanti" and has "an excellent cast". But "you can't see it without the occasional shudder". Peter Bradshaw in his five star review in The Guardian called it "a black-comic nightmare and a surrealist masterpiece". I would not go that far, It did seem a bit of a jumble, but an iconic movie for all that. And we do see a lot of Turville.
We are somewhere in the Western Desert of Egypt and Libya in 1942. Captain Anson (John Mills) is commander of an ambulance company that are ordered to evacuate to Alexandria. His ambulance becomes detached and with his Sergeant Major (a superb Harry Andrews) and two nurses on board (Sylvia Syms and Diane Clare) they head across the desert for Alexandria. The film follows their adventure that includes picking up an Afrikaner officer in Anthony Quale.
So a different kind of road trip movie, across minefields, coming across the enemy, and everything that could go wrong with the ambulance does just that. The cast is excellent, particularly John Mills playing against type as the blond drunk theoretically in charge. In my post of 19th March 2021, under the section about the director J Lee Thomson, I included this note: The following year (1958) came one of Thomson's big successes with Ice Cold In Alex with Sylvia Simms, John Mills and Anthony Quale. I agreed when it was described as "one of the great British war films".
There is another note of this film on my post of 19th April 2024 when it was included in the series. World War 11 and Cinema. Ice Cold in Alex was released in cinemas in 1958 and gained critical success and a number of award nominations.
My collection of cinema tickets tells me I went to see 28 Days Later on it's release on 6th November 2002. I don't think that I have seen it since. All the actors seem so young. Cillian Murphy must have been twenty five when the film was made. Naomie Harris about the same age. They have both gone on to greater things, Harris as Moneypenny and an OBE. Brendan Gleeson has a smaller role as Frank and this daughter Hannah is played by Megan Burns. Christopher Eccleston is Major Henry West who is as bad as all the soldiers under his command.
Of course it is Danny Boyle who directed a script by Alex Garland. I did not remember how violent and gory are the later parts of the film. I wonder if the latest installment 28 Years Later will be the equally horrible. Same director and writer apparently. The locations were all interesting, the early iconic scenes in London all filmed so well including then the relatively new Canary Wharf Station. The ruins of Waverley Abbey were a pleasant interlude in all the mayhem. Then at the very end, Ennerdale Water in the Lake District is a pleasingly gentle finale.
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