bkoganbing
Hollywood's chronicler of Irish culture John Ford chose a British subject for this film. Gideon Of Scotland Yard is about a day in the life of a high ranking inspector in Scotland Yard. Jack Hawkins plays the hard working an often exasperated inspector who gets a lot accomplished during this particular day, but he's frustrated by both work and home problems.Our Inspector Gideon is a happily married man to Anna Lee and has a daughter Anna Massey who is a violin virtuoso. One of the minor plot lines involving Lee giving Hawkins specific instruction to pick up a salmon at the fish market. Hawkins has far more to fry than fish during this day.One is the sex killing of a young girl by a very creepy Laurence Naismith and the hunt for him. He's apprehended by an alert young Bobby played by Andrew Ray who otherwise manages to make a pest of himself all around with his earnest dedication to the job. The incident is similar to another sex killing in Sergeant Rutledge although in that film Ford made it the entire film.The main plot however involves Hawkins confronting another inspector Derek Bond and telling him that their version of Internal Affairs has him nailed on corruption. Later on Bond is run down by a car deliberately and that starts Hawkins on an investigation that leads to the apprehension of some major criminals during a heist.I have to single out Cyril Cusack who played a stoolie and just the kind of colorful character that Ford would put in one of his Irish films. He's got some nasty people after him, but apparently lives a charmed life.A very entertaining film by John Ford, not one of his more known works, but definitely worth a look.
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.
dbborroughs
Seemingly odd choice John Ford film about a Scotland Yard detective over the course of a day. It's odd familial comedy bookending a day in the life.Feeling very much like a John Ford film, it's a good but not particularly memorable film that feels more a construction than anything else, with all of the events set up so that something would happen for Gideon to do-and as for the finale- how could you not see that coming.I can't really recommend it. It's not bad but I felt like I had kind of wasted the time it took to see it, partly because the film insists on tying everything up.For John Ford completists or those who stumble upon it only.
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.
