Great Day

Films in Focus

By Ed Garea

Great Day (RKO, 1945) – Director: Lance Comfort. Writers: John Davenport, Lesley Storm & Wolfgang Wilhelm (s/p). Lesley Storm (play). Stars: Eric Portman, Flora Robson, Sheila Sim, Isobel Jeans, Walter Fitzgerald, Philip Friend, Marjorie Rhodes, Maire O’Neill, John Laurie, Kathleen Harrison, Leslie Dwyer, Margaret Withers, Beatrice Varley, Irene Handl & Patricia Hayes. B&W, 62 minutes.

This is a curious little slice-of-life movie that lacks the necessary drama but is redeemed at the end by the extraordinary performances of Flora Robson and Eric Portman as a married couple on the verge of ruin.

The ostensible plot centers around the Women’s Institute, a community-based organization for women originally founded to revitalize rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War. Its aims and activities centered around providing women with educational opportunities and the chance to build new skills. This in turn, it was hoped, would enable them to take part in a wide variety of activities, taking on issues that mattered to them and their communities. During the Second World War their contribution was limited to such activities as looking after evacuees, and running the government-sponsored Preservation Centers where volunteers canned or made jam of excess produce, with the produce being sent to depots to be added to the rations. After the war, the organization returned to its original mission. It’s still alive and well today, with over 250,000 members in Britain. 

The film begins at the height of World War II, as the Women's Institute club of Denley, England, learns that American First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt will be visiting their village the next day to inspect its various homefront activities. The women are thrilled to have been selected to represent England and it is agreed that the news of Mrs. Roosevelt's visit be kept secret as a security precaution.

Leading the work at the hall is Mrs. Liz Ellis (Robson), who is not without a few personal issues of her own, as her husband Capt. John (Portman) drinks too much, spending money they don’t have on whiskey and living on his past in World War I. 

As the women are preparing the village hall for their visitor, Margaret Ellis (Sim), Liz’s daughter, is finishing a long day of wartime farm work. She has been helping Bob Tyndale (Fitzgerald) on his farm, Marsh Manor. Despite a twenty-five year gap in their ages, Meg has agreed to marry him. However, she has not publicly announced her engagement as she fears the reaction of Bob's sister Jane (Withers), an embittered spinster who resents Meg's presence at the manor. Another issue for Meg is that her former boyfriend Geoffrey Winthrop (Friend) is still in love with her.

When Meg confides in her mother, Liz’s advice is to follow her heart, though she endorses Bob as good husband material. Although Liz loves her husband, she is anxious for her daughter to obtain the financial and emotional security Liz lacks. John for his part, yearns to be free from responsibility; he is shamed by the fact that Meg and Liz work hard without complaint. 

To add to Meg’s quandary, Geoffrey, an officer in the British army, arrives in town on a three-day pass, though Liz is of the feeling that Geoffrey is too "wild" for Meg. Geoffrey is unaware of Meg's relationship with Bob and, having been stood up by her the night before, demands an explanation. 

Meg refuses to reveal the truth about her and Bob, but later, Nora Mumford, the local pub owner, tells Jane about the engagement during an argument and Geoffrey, after receiving notice to report for immediate duty, overhears the news. Jane, resentful of Meg, also hears tune news of the engagement and accuses Meg of being a gold digger.  

While the women are seeing to the last-minute details at the hall, John is at Nora's pub, The Swan, drinking and regaling a group of American and Scottish officers with stories of the last war. Later, a drunken John tries to steal money from a woman's purse after he is refused credit by barmaid Bridget Walsh (O’Neill), acting on the orders of owner Nora Mumford (Rhodes). He’s caught in the act by another customer and arrested. 

Meanwhile, Meg has called to the road to serve tea to Geoffrey's departing regiment. There she finally tells Geoffrey of her fears about repeating her mother's marital mistake. He advises her not to base her future on her parents' past and presses her to admit her love. Int doesn’t take long for Meg to recommit herself to Geoffrey.

John returns home to find an exhausted Elizabeth sewing a new dress for Joan Riley, the little girl who has been chosen to welcome Mrs. Roosevelt. At first John denies his guilt in the theft, but his shame over the matter forces hm to leave the house. 

When Meg returns home a distraught Liz tells her that she is worried about John's state of mind. Meg rushes to find her father in the surrounding woods and finds him about to jump into a pond. Her arrival surprises him and, pledging that she and Elizabeth will stand by him, she convinces him to face his shame. 

The next day, while the village descends on the hall to greet Mrs. Roosevelt, Elizabeth persuades John to accompany her to the ceremony. With her husband and daughter by her side, Elizabeth beams with teary pride as Joan welcomes Mrs. Roosevelt on behalf of the women of Denley.

Afterwords

As stated before, this is a a strangely curious movie. The ostensible plot about Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit is pushed to the back in favor of the Ellis family drama. However, the lack of a strong narrative style combined with the meandering pace until the Ellis family comes from and center makes Great Day more of a slice-of-life film, something that would have been perfect as a two-hour television movie on the BBC or ITV.

What prevents the film from backsliding completely into mediocrity is the strength of direction from Lance Comfort, who allows the scenes to move along seamlessly by allowing the actors to carry the film with uniformly good performances, especially those of leads Robson and Portman. Robson is amazing as Liz, as she calmly keeps things smoothly running at the center and within the family despite the chaos going on about her. Her underplaying of Elizabeth Ellis adds weight to the film and boosts the performances of both Portman as her wayward husband and Sim as her concerned daughter. Every performance in the film, from those of Patricia Hayes and Isobel Jeans to Walter Fitzgerald and Margaret Withers. The movie is also helped by its relatively short running time, which keeps it from becoming too bogged down in one storyline as opposed to the others,

In the final analysis, Great Day entertains despite its lack of a strong central storyline and providers us with a glimpse into English village life during World War II.