Not classic John Ford by any stretch of the imagination but I watched for the first time in years on t.v. this afternoon, and it certainly brightened up a wet afternoon.There are some lovely comic moments such as Andrew Rays young rookie policeman booking Jack Hawkins(Gideon)for speeding then in the final scene getting caught him self with Gideon as a passenger, by then he is son in law material.Miles Mallison as an eccentric judge and John Le Mesurier as a prosecuting council have delicious little cameos, so much so that they might have drifted in from another film set. How I cheered when Jack Watling's timid vicar suddenly floors the toughs in his church who are threatening him, it turns out he is an ex wartime para.Michael Trubshawe plays the typical British police sargeant. Jack Hawkins is of course his usual irrascible but dependable self.What a success rate,three murders solved in one day.Always a pleasure to watch Anna Lee as the long suffering wife who in one scene tells her daughter played by Anna Massey never to marry a policeman,too late her eyes are already set on the young officer.Fortunately they showed the ninety minute colour version not the truncated sixty minute black and white version shown in USA but if one is going to be overly critical the editing is somewhat choppy and I wonder if they wrote the script as they were filming.Neverless the film rattles along and is never boring,there's not a weak link in the cast.If John Ford is not exactly at his peak he's by no means off form.7 out of 10 seems a fair assessment.

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.

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.

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.