User reviews

This film is unique historically for more than one reason. It is the first - I believe only - cops and robbers film directed by John Ford. It is also unique because it is an Irish production. The 'Rising of the Moon' was an Irish production directed by John Ford. He made it clear that he would like to do another. The Irish Lord who had produced the 'Rising' read a book called Gideon's Day by an unknown writer called J.J.Merric. He loved the book, rang John Ford, and sent him a copy. When he negotiated buying the book it was discovered that J.J.Merric was in fact the famous John Creasey. Ford was captivated by the book, the deal was struck, and the wheels set in motion. In the film itself there is no indication that it is Irish other than Cyril Cusack being in it. It is the only Irish film made so far that does not have an Irish factor in its content. The world premier was in the Savoy Cinema in Dublin.

JOHN FORD seems a strange choice to be directing a British film starring JACK HAWKINS in the role of a very busy Scotland Yard inspector who has no time for anyone else in his domestic life as long as he's on the trail of various culprits. ANNA LEE is his patient wife at home who's more concerned with raising two children and cooking meals to pay much attention to her husband's urgent calls of duty.

It's a very fragmented kind of story-telling, more a series of vignettes featuring Hawkins in his role as detective, getting able assistance from JOHN LODER (Hedy Lamarr's ex-hubby during the '40s). He covers cases involving a psychotic killer, a hit and run murder and a bank robbery--with some wit and sardonic humor injected into all the proceedings by director Ford. DEREK BOND, ANDREW RAY and ANNA MASSEY (her film debut) round out the supporting cast.

Summing up: Above average thanks to some interesting, very flawed characters involved in crime and a brisk pace and brief running time that deserves praise in this day of films that go on and on forever, although the film was not a critical or commercial success.

A British crime drama; A story about a complicated day in the life of a Scotland Yard detective. This comedic, tongue-in-cheek, police detective procedural, is adapted from John Creasey's novel. It is brisk and humorous. Jack Hawkins plays his part proficiently as the reluctant hero, conveying well the life of a man with a seemingly endless flow of work and family life vexations. The many criminal acts give the film a disjointed feel, and it is dullened by melodrama in parts, but Hawkins holds our attention with his dry humour and charm, suggesting the annoyance and boredom of his job. The film is shot in glorious Technicolor and exhibits an extraordinary array of British character acting talent. John Ford succeeds in balancing the chaos and confusion of Scotland Yard and its cohorts with the wit and competence of a family man police inspector whose duty is never done.

This rarely seen (or shown) rarity from the great westerns director John Ford, was screened recently as Channel 4's weekday lunchtime movie. The film's alternative title, 'Gideon of Scotland Yard' gives us a clearer picture of where it is set and what it is about.

Not paying much attention to what it said in Radio Times beforehand, I assumed it was a Dixon Of Dock Green sort of black & white semi- documentary, along the lines of the excellent 'Blue Lamp'.

For a start, it's in colour and opens with breakfast time with the family, for Inspector Jack Gideon, all brisk and jovial. His drive to work results in going through a red light and is embarrassingly challenged by a youth PC.

From here-on in, the comedic elements dissipate as Insp Gideon's day unfolds, with phone calls and leads, all going on to illustrate 'the day in the life' that is the title. The mixture of crime is, obviously quite innocent when compared to today and the likes of 'The Bill', but this is 1958 and the censors were always prevalent, not that I'm suggesting that Ford would have set out to paint an overly colourful scenario.

The script is by Ealing Studio regular T.E.B Clarke, from John Creasey's novel and whilst it's not exactly electric, it's brisk enough, with a light tone and those of a certain age will find much pleasure in the period detail, scenes around London and the general way of doing things 'back then'.

Such viewers might have wanted to give a higher score than I am, though. To be honest, the direction could have been done by anyone proficient and whilst the studio-bound indoor sets are well done, they are just that, though also to be fair, Insp Gideon is seen going about between locations enough to remind us that he's very busy...

Finally, there is a nice John Ford sense of irony at the end though, which gives a real sense of satisfaction.

Have seen this film several times and always enjoy it. Very typical John Ford: easy-going, some high drama, some great on-location color photography, wonderful performances (with quite a bit of Fordian over-acting).

There have been some frankly negative reviews of this picture (Leonard Maltin's book gives it just 1 and a half stars!) but don't let that deter you if you just want to be entertained for 90 minutes and transported to London 1958.

It's not a thriller, not a who-done-it. It's just John Ford's treatment of a colorful day in the life of a Scotland Yard inspector and his family. If that's something that appeals to you, then by all means sit back and enjoy.

This early attempt to depict London as a swinging place is a far cry from what you may expect in a British crime film.

Instead of fog and rain we have our hero driving around in the sunshine in an open convertible.

The characters are all obvious stereotypes and dress the part. The Scotland Yard cops use terms like "beat it!" and "hoosegow" which I doubt were in the original book.

The plot is a mishmash of seemingly unrelated, and quite uninteresting criminal activity, perpetrated by uninteresting one dimensional characters and one waits for the film to really get started.

Our hero, Jack Hawkins is a fine actor, but is wasted in this piece of Anglo-American fluff.

Gideon of Scotland Yard is a fine 1950s British detective film based on a book by the prolific writer John Creasey. It stars the inimitable Jack Hawkins as the gruff yet likable detective working hard on a number of overlapping cases during a single 24 hours in London. The film was directed by John Ford, of all people, the man best known for his epic American westerns, who brings a kind of slick stylish look to the screen.

The running time flies past because this is a very entertaining movie, one of the fastest-paced films of the 1950s I've seen. There's never a slow moment, just a building of tension, suspense, and yes, humour, which delightfully offsets the darker and more tragic elements of the plot. Watching Hawkins trying to juggle various cases, crimes, criminals, superiors, underlings, and of course his home life, is a sheer delight. An exemplary supporting cast adds to the experience, making this an all-round winner of a film.

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.

The novel 'Gideon's Day' was the first in the Gideon series by John Creasey (written under the pseudonym of J J Marric) and was published in 1955. Each book in the series followed 'G G' (George Gideon) through a period of time. Cases that came up during that time were not necessarily solved by the end of the novel: they were kind of a "slice of life" of (Creasey's image of) 50s Scotland Yard.

There are 21 novels in the Gideon series, as written by John Creasey, with the last one published in 1976 (2 years after his death). I did, however, once came across another Gideon novel, written after Creasey's death by another author using the name J J Marric. If you like the Gideon TV series and movie and are interested in the books, make SURE they are by Creasey as anything else is a very poor substitute.

British film-goers were by 1958 entirely used to police films set in London. They were part of a continuum year by year slowly ratcheting up realism and violence - and dropping the humour in the process. "The Blue Lamp" (1950) where a much liked elderly copper (the in-fact almost immortal actor Jack Warner who went on to reprise the role on TV for the following 30 years) is shot and killed by a downright bad 'un (the rather effete Dirk Bogarde), was apparently quite controversial in its day. The public's favoured cup of tea - or at least what was regularly served up to them in police films of the day was not too strong and not without trace of sugar. Bent cops didn't exist then, neither were detectives rough and insensitive with recently (ie 20 minutes earlier) bereaved widows. Rows and shouting were for the lower orders who were either quickly dispersed or shuffled off into separate cells. Jack Hawkins, iconic British actor of the time was heroism and gentlemanliness personified whether captaining a ship or being the sensitive father of a deaf and dumb daughter (the guaranteed weepy "Mandy").

British film-goers knew the rules of what to expect of both story and cast when it came to police films and it was nothing like the gritty US productions of the day. With a comparatively very low murder rate and cops who didn't carry guns the real life conditions were very different between the two countries. A British policeman's lot could appear a rather whimsical one by comparison.

Somehow John Ford, THE John Ford, comes to direct some of Britain's finest at a British studio in a production set in the streets of London based on a book by an English writer for an audience thoroughly used to a set of confined and unfamiliar conventions. Ford's favourite actor was John Wayne - the personification of plain talking, straight shooting and unrefined acting - rarely wasting a word when a punch will do. Here instead he has perhaps cinema's quintessential portrayer of sensitive masculinity being called on to steam-roller evidence from a widow, confront an underling with evidence confirming he's been on the take from "dope" dealers, solve a couple of slayings - and not forget the running bit of levity - bringing home the fresh salmon for dinner.

The result although fast paced and not without its moments - Marjorie Rhodes as a bereaved mother is electrifying - is nevertheless a cultural car-crash. Two very different cinematic cop traditions from either side of the Atlantic - one whimsical, domestic and a little jokey, the other harsh and procedural, each proceeding at a reckless speed towards the other and meeting in the middle of the screen. The result is something which clearly contains a mixture of both but which thereafter proceeds irregularly and uncertainly in various directions like particle tracks in a bubble chamber following a near light speed atomic collision.

This resoundingly ordinary film about the busy day of a Scotland Yard inspector is likely to be a disappointment to those seeking a great unknown film by a great film director. The themes and larger than life characters and scenery one tends to find in a Ford picture just aren't here. What we have instead is a likable Jack Hawkins playing a Scotland Yard detective with a busy life that gets in the way of his life at home. It's all pretty amusing, swiftly paced, and there are good bits throughout. Any of the above-average directors of in the US could have made this picture, and it would have looked pretty much the same. The one exception -- Jack Hawkins sidekicks act and behave in much the same way as John Wayne's sidekicks in his various Ford calvary movies.

Best way to deal with this one is ignore it was directed by John Ford. Think of it as one of those cop shows on BBC America, except that it's the 50s and therefore the family being ignored is NOT dysfunctional, just comically bemused.

Acting is all professional British -- all very good, efficient, and not terribly memorable when it is all over (except for Jack Hawkins, who does his usual good job here). And, because all the little mysteries must be wrapped up at the end of the day, none of those are especially complex or deep. So, at the end of the day, this is worth seeing, but not worth a film school thesis.

John Ford produced this picture and it was very entertaining from beginning to the end with Jack Hawkins playing the role of Inspector George Gideon who is a top crime expert in London, England and always manages to get his criminal. George Gideon is never at home and one morning his wife asks him to bring home some salmon for guests she was having for dinner and he files the fish away in a file cabinet in his office. However, Gideon does catch a serial killer with the help of a rookie policeman and always seems to drink while on duty and comes home for lunch with his fellow Scotland Yard buddies and has a fews beers and then runs off to solve another crime. Anna Lee plays the role as Gideon's wife and never complains about his weird comings and goings. This film had me laughing through out the entire picture and I therefore consider this to be a great comedy film from 1958.

I had to confess that was taken aback by John Ford in a field which he didn't dominate, the cosmopolitan environment, he was the master of the vastness of the western, small village as "The Quiet Man", aloneness on war pictures and so on, but on a crowd city was few experiences, Gideon's Day was a bulky intent, browse a single day of a Scotland Yard inspector on London, boastfully played by Jack Hawkins as Gideon, all sort of happening in a busy Friday, robbery on bank's output, bribe on your section, maniac at large, report from a squealer, salmon for dinner and lost tickets for his daughter's screening debut on the orchestra, all this underpinned by a quirky British humor, the highlight are the couple guys as his assistants the waspish Det. Sgt. Liggot (Frank Lawton) and the priceless Sergeant Golightly (Michael Trubshawe), between a unending comings and goings the Inspector gonna crazy, a rare conceptive picture seen nowadays, introducing the fine actress Anna Massey at tender age, smallest great picture from the master!!

Resume:

First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.75

"Gideon's Day" is one of the best police movies ever made. Set in London, this 1958 film is about a day in the life of a Scotland Yard chief inspector, George Gideon, played superbly by Jack Hawkins. The film is a combination crime-mystery, drama and comedy. The latter is sprinkled throughout very lightly and tastefully. It has a slight feel of some wonderful mystery series films made in the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s. The best known of those are the Thin Man films that starred William Powell as an ace detective.

Modern audiences since the last quarter of the 20th century -- Americans, especially - have become accustomed to one or two stereotypes of police detectives. One is a rough and tough character, or underworld undercover cop, who's divorced or who lost his wife in an accident or killing. Another is a fast action, martial arts super hero type. Most police mystery or cops and robbers films have been quite unreal. So, it's refreshing to see a police movie about law officers who have families and real lives. Although, in the case of a top investigator, the workdays can often be more hectic and longer than for the regular guys.

I'm not in law enforcement but I've had a few friends who have been police offices, detectives or deputy sheriffs. Their personal and family lives seem much closer to those depicted in this film. And an interesting observation here is that Gideon doesn't tell his family the specifics of any of his encounters during the day. So, when he comes home with a torn sleeve on his suit coat, he says he fell - but he doesn't mention that he tackled a killer who had been shooting at the police and was trying to escape being caught.

I was unaware of this film in the past, and purchased the John Ford Columbia DVD collection specifically for it and one other movie I had not seen. As film critic Leonard Maltin explains in a bonus interview on the film, I saw the full Technicolor movie that had been made and that premiered in England. As Maltin explains, the film that opened in the U.S. three months later had been edited down and released in black and white. For some reason, the Columbia folks didn't think much of it in the U.S. That's too bad, because it is an excellent movie of the "cops and robbers" type that many Americans of the mid-20th century enjoyed.

All of the cast are very good in this film. It's a fast-moving movie with several crimes, a court scene, and investigations taking the time of Chief Inspector Gideon. Anna Lee is very good as his wife, Kate Gideon, and Anna Massey plays his daughter, Sally. Among others with standout performances are Frank Lawton as Det. Sgt. Liggot, Michael Trubshawe as Sergeant Golightly, and Cyril Cusak as Herbert "Birdie" Sparrow. Dianne Foster and Ronald Howard have smaller roles.

The film is based on a book by British novelist John Creasey, who wrote it under a pseudonym, as J.J. Marric. This is a very good look at England's Scotland Yard which is similar to the American FBI. John Ford was taken by the story and made an excellent film. The quality is superb, especially the camera work, filming, editing and sets.

This is an excellent police and crime fighting film for any film library - much more realistic than the rough and tumble or fast and furious adventure type of police and crime films so prevalent since the late 20th century. And, it's more interesting and at least as entertaining. Kudos to Columbia Pictures, John Ford, and Jack Hawkins and the cast of this fine movie.

A rum film to be made by Hollywood's most famous anglophobe, you'd never suspect it was the work of John Ford if you'd missed the opening credits.

Attractively shot in by Freddie Young in Technicolor, with a radiant young Anna Massey making her debut, it's raw enough to feature Jack Hawkins saying "reefers", a subplot about a psycho-killer, and razor-wielding thugs; although the cute model buses trundling along the model of Tower Bridge seen through Hawkins' Scotland Yard window exerts a fascination not bargained for in the script by Ealing veteran T. E. B. Clarke.

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

All but forgotten - and all but ignored in '58 - Fordian gem, on a day in the life of a very cagey Scotland Yard Inspector, played to perfection by the estimable actor Jack Hawkins, with splendid work by a fine cast, including the always adorable Dianne Foster, an underused but very watchable Columbia contractee from Alberta. Gideon solves about five major crimes, still finding time for the missus, and a few odds and ends at the office. One wonders what a busy day is like for this guy. I saw GIDEON at a suburban art house (the Park) in '58, on a Saturday evening. About 50 people had the same idea; we came out smiling. Terrific movie; classy cops and robbers thrills for the smarter set. One of John Ford's best 50s films. Beats hell outta Grapes of Wrath and How Green was My Valley, I know that much. Geez, what hogwash.

Jack Hawkins is top cop Gideon at Scotland Yard. The film stays with him for a day as he tackles murder, fraud and robbery as well as trying to getting home with some fresh fish and getting to a concert with his wife and friends.

An interesting mixture this, directed by John Ford of all people. It combines often quite nasty murders including a sex crime, although not graphically, requiring Hawkins to get quite brutal and Ealingesque light comedy moments which are really quite funny. The mixture seems strange but holds together well, in part because of the breakneck speed at which all the many and varied incidents and investigations pass. Hawkins is always great at playing authority figures with charm (see The Long Arm) and he is ably supported by a bevvy of British character greats, particularly Michael Trubshaw as his wise and tolerant right hand man.

Although he employed plenty of English people in the making of this film, he seems to have had no idea how to make them behave naturally. Dreadful and embarrassing.