Lancoor A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

writers_reign This has just aired at 1.20 p.m. on British television and all I can say is it would have been better to screen it at 4 a.m. or, better yet, turn it into banjo picks. I struggled to stay awake and had to force myself to keep watching. Seldom have I seen anything more dire. I've always found John Ford vastly overrated but he must have phoned this one in from Monument Valley. Even John Paddy Carstairs would be reluctant to take a credit for this inept, unexciting, indifferent blancmange. Virtually every second-rater in the British film industry at the time is wheeled out and given two minutes or so and the only reason to name them would be in order to spin this notice out into the required ten lines that IMDb insist upon but as I've achieved that I'll leave them unmolested though I can't say with any conviction unembarrassed. Run a mile from this garbage.

ianlouisiana There really were policemen like George Gideon and I would be very surprised if the late John Creasey didn't know several of them.He was one of England's most prolific crime writers using a plethora of noms de plume including J.J Marric.under which he wrote the "Gideon" novels which were quite highly regarded in their day. If you married a cop in the 1940s and 50s you knew what you were getting into.Pre war ideas of dedication and service hadn't quite been extinguished and flickered on in professions like policework,nursing and General Practice medicine. With no Political Correctness to worry about,no "targets" to meet,no budgets to constrain them,detectives were able to set about solving crimes in a relatively uninhibited manner and were rather good at it.George Gideon was no exception.His conduct might seem unacceptable half a century on both at work and at home but in his world it was unexceptionable. Mr Jack Hawkins makes him human rather than superhuman ,capable of an ill - judged action but overall on the side of the angels. The "Day" in the title is certainly overflowing with incident.Robbery and murder seem to be the norm even in the days of "Preventive Detention",the birch and Capital Punishment. This is an absorbing British procedural with first - rate performances. Despite some persuasive arguments elsewhere on the site I don't believe it bears the hallmarks of Mr Ford's best movies,but I suspect he had fun making it.And maybe - like a lot of Americans at the time -he ended up believing our unarmed, underpaid policemen were wonderful.

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.