A wartime film about the UK's Women's Institute and the visit of Mrs Roosevelt may seem likely a dated subject and worth passing over these days, but you'd be wrong. I would say this is possibly director Lance Comfort's greatest film and an overlooked gem of British 40's cinema. Comfort was a director who did well in melodrama but whose star faded with changing tastes and ended up in B movies and television.
Other reviewers have covered the plot here, but more generally despite some speechifying, suffice to say that even with plenty to say, the film moves briskly along with no dull scenes, As others have also said, in its response to the English landscape, an almost mystical sense of place, and sometimes noir-ish cinematography, GREAT DAY recalls the contemporaneous Powell and Pressburger cult film A CANTERBURY TALE (reinforced by its use of two of the same actors Portman and Sim) and would make a great half of a double bill.
Portman is outstanding as a down-at-heel ex-soldier and the large cast includes a number of women, all excellent in their roles. Part wartime propaganda piece, part feminist women's picture, and part portrait of a (it must be said) mostly middle class community GREAT DAY is one of those films I return to often, If you love the less well-trodden byways of British Cinema and want to discover one of its brightest examples look no further. There is a good copy to be seen on YouTube.
