I watched this the other night for the first time i think, it is the last film in the Michael Wilding/Anna Neagle pairings which is the primary reason i watched it, though another Brit 1940's film couple Googie Withers and her husband John McCallum also appeared, who i also like. Derby Day is the weakest of the Neagle/Wilding films which oddly doesn't capitalise on their chemistry and casts them in sorrowful mood; there is no kiss even, let alone any singing and dancing duet-ting. Withers and McCallum have the more interesting duo plot to play I think. There is some nicely done Brit comic character supporting roles, but overall Derby Day doesn't really click or come together. It is too fragmented and moves around so much between the different stories that you never get really into anyone of them. It is a bit of a swansong film to a different earlier type of film making. Neagle is lovingly photgraphed but both her and Googie Withers seem a little old for the parts they are playing. It's hard not to flinch a little at the blatant class differences on show but then the film's over 50 years old.

Derby Day tells the story of several people, a section of cross- Britainnia who are going to the Epsom Derby. At some point in the film all their lives intersect on Derby Day.

Anna Neagle is a recent aristocratic widow who has a horse in the race. She runs into Michael Wilding, a newspaper cartoonist who also lost a fiancé in the same airplane crash Neagle's husband was in. Two others have a dark secret. Googie Withers and John McCallum murdered even if by accident Withers husband and they're at Epsom Downs for him to make a connection to beat it out of the country.

Gordon Harker is a cabdriver who takes Wilding to the Derby and they stop to pick up Harker's wife Gladys Henson. They're a delightful working class couple who take joy in the simple pleasures.

My favorite is Peter Graves who is a British film star, but not of the A list. He's won by French maid Suzanne Cloutier as second prize in a studio contest. My favorite scene in the film is Graves with Wilding who's not a cinema goer, but knows Graves from military service. Graves is highly annoyed that Wilding does not recognize his celebrity.

All in all the stories both dark and light are mixed well together and it's a nice ensemble cast that delivers a good ensemble performance in Derby Day.

A British drama; A story about an assortment of people mingling at an Epsom Downs race meeting. It blends seamlessly the tales of several characters on their way to the races in Epsom, among them are a taxi driver, a French maid, a murderer and an aristocrat. This is an entertaining and absorbing film about the fates of a disparate number of people and how their personal stories interconnect. The cultural event is the backdrop and the rituals of the British class system cleverly blend for dramatic, romantic and comic effect. Chiefly, the stars in focus are Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding who have a splendid chemistry.