janet-agar I watched this (not from beginning)and could not believe how dire it is -Jack Hawkins shouting his way from one pipe smoking scene to the next-full of middle aged men again all shouting.The sergeant who acted like an obedient robot- bowing and sitting on a chair all evening waiting orders from " his master". I welcomed the calming scenes with Andrew Ray -who was sneered at because he had a double-barrelled name. There lots of mistakes-different heading on newspaper-how did he get into flat of artist?-his daughter picked lid of casserole dish with bare hands-it had just come out of oven! I watched it to the end cos I couldn't believe my eyes or ears. NUFF SAID GOING TO LIE DOWN NOW

tynesider This is a run-of-the-mill police drama noteworthy for being directed by John Ford. Lots of familiar British character players give it some interest but it compares poorly with The Long Arm, another police picture also starring Jack Hawkins. I don't usually spot mistakes in films but I did notice two in this one. When policeman Andrew Ray follows killer Laurence Naismith down the street he picks up the newspaper Naismith has dropped and we see the headline. When we see it again it has a different headline. When Hawkins' wife Anna Lee takes a hot casserole from the oven she uses an oven cloth but two minutes later daughter Anna Massey takes the lid off with her bare hand.

JohnHowardReid This is the Ford movie that everyone hates – except of course for the entire cast and crew, plus a couple of film critics including yours truly. In production stills, a benign John Ford can be seen with his smiling god-daughter Anna Massey (making her film debut), and an equally happy Jack Hawkins. Co-starring with Jack, albeit in a very small role, is Anna's fellow Canadian, Dianne Foster. The rest of the players, made up of the best of British, parade many very familiar faces doing stand-out work, sometimes in much-larger-than-usual (Michael Trubshawe, Frank Lawton) or unfamiliar (Ronald Howard, Derek Bond, Marjorie Rhodes) roles.Oddly, it's Ronald Howard who walks off with the picture's acting honors. I've never thought highly of the young Howard's ability (in my opinion, he makes a really woeful series' Sherlock Holmes, although admittedly hampered by rock-bottom TV production values), but here he really excels as an impassioned artist who has turned to crime, and even manages to steal the limelight from super-charismatic Dianne Foster.Based on the 1955 novel by John Creasey, the first of a series of 21 books featuring Superintendent George Gideon of Scotland Yard, Gideon's Day, as the title implies, chronicles a typically crowded day in the inspector's calendar. Gideon deals with a variety of problems, petty nuisances and working-day events, some domestic, some humorous, but most dealing with crime and criminals, including a psychopathic killer (Laurence Naismith); an informer (Cyril Cusack) menaced by wide boys who are surprisingly brought to heel by a sissy curate; a payroll robbery; and finally (just when we think it is all over) an attempt to rob a high security bank vault.Through it all, Jack Hawkins displays plenty of bad temper, with lots of frustrated shouting from the very beginning almost to the end, but extremely little of his customary charisma. All the "acting", he leaves for the rest of the cast which is unfortunate because he is the central character and his lack of audience empathy throws the film right off balance.Despite murders, robbery and violence, the tone of the movie (as set by its opening song themes) is generally light. True, it has its suspenseful moments, particularly in the chase sequence with Cyril Cusack pursued in the fog, but Gideon's Day is not film noir. Ford gives equal weight to the humorous sequences which (with the exception of the brief court hearing with Miles Malleson and John Le Mesurier) tend to be tiresome rather than funny. Moreover, the lead character, Gideon, is never in any real danger, even when threatened by the lovely Dianne Foster.

whitesheik I knew I could come here and find someone proclaiming this as one of Ford's best 50s films, and I was right. Not only one of his best 50s films, but better than The Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley. Uh - no. Maybe Ford's worst, if not, right up there. The people praising the pace must have only seen the US black-and-white version, because the two-hour color version from the UK is excruciating. One uninteresting vignette after another. Yes, good actors, and an active score by Douglas Gamley, but it's just really, really bad.They insist I write more - why is that? I just said all I had to say, but they say it wasn't long enough, but this must be a new rule or something because in this very thread there is a "review" exactly two lines long. So, let me add one final thought - this film is not good.