I had no idea what to make of this wartime comedy/thriller but it turns out to be a simple 'old dark house' style drama in which an assorted group of larger-than-life characters end up stranded. Some of them are Nazis - inevitable, given that this was made in 1943 - while the "goodies" are led by the excellent Gordon Harker, on form with his witty wisecracks as always. Lots of murderous developments and funny situations ensue, and it all flows effortlessly along.

German agent Raymond Lovell is called upon to impersonate Lord Buckley, who fortuitously speaks with exactly the same fruity lisp; but being German (along with the German national anthem constantly on the soundtrack every time he does something) gives himself away by not knowing the correct direction to pass the port. His Prussian handler played by Carl Jaffe seems initially to have been meant to be Goebbels himself until he himself turns up at Buckley Hall (presumably by parachute).

Based on a 1941 West End hit by Vernon Sylvaine. Although sharing the same basic premise with 'The Eagle Has Landed', Ealing's 'Went the Day Well?' is actually far more like the later film. And neither of them had Gordon Harker barge in halfway through! Quite a few people die violently, but this is all treated as inconsequentially as in one of those garrulous pre-war murder mysteries set in enormous houses with sweeping if wobbly staircases in which log fires and lights blaze seemingly untended all night (despite the reference to wartime shortages shoehorned into the script...).

This is a poorly made and rather feeble wartime film about a plot by the Nazis to kidnap Churchill and spirit him off to Germany. The name Churchill and the title Prime Minister are never mentioned in the film, and Churchill is referred to only as 'that man', which comes across as ludicrously coy. From the very beginning, when a silly voice-over says three times before the credits: 'Warn that man! Warn that man! Warn that man!', I knew I was in for a grim viewing of a very inferior film. I am a great admirer of Gordon Harker, and here he has a leading role, but the part offers him little opportunity to show off his genuine talents, and the direction is so bad that all he is asked to do is mug some faces, lark about, and make some limp Cockney jokes. The film creaks like an old door hinge. I cannot understand why anyone bothered to put it on Blu-Ray, as if it were a classic. The only kind of classic it is, one might say, is a classic flop.