Street Corner

Anne Crawford is a young cop, assigned to less hazardous duty: not that hazard doesn't come up, given she might have to pursue a baby onto a high window ledge.

Muriel Box's earnest movie about the routines of modern low-level police work runs the gamut of situations, with a gradually increasing level of crime. Peggy Cummins, playing an 18-year-old, is one of the running links connecting crimes, as she goes from shoplifting, to a missing-person report filed by her husband, to the girl of a dangerous gangster.... wearing stolen jewelry.

It's a paean to routine paying off and muddling through, dealing with streetwalkers who don't want to be arrested by women, and one slice of cops on the take....: men cops, although whether the implication is that women are above that sort of thing, or lack the opportunity is unclear. Good directing and decent performances is the rule of the day in this movie, with Thora Hird given a small, funny bit when she accuses the police of luring small children in with treats.

This is a most amazing film for its genuinely documentary character and highly developed polyphony. Many characters are involved and intertwined in this drama, led by female policemen, who mainly have to deal with women in trouble - and their children. There are three great women stories of which at least one ends positively and surprisingly well. There are many dramatic episodes, like saving children from falling down from skyscrapers, tracing evasive and invisible gangster rackets involving innocent people, and all the criminality of a huge town but on a small scale. It is a very human police film with the human approach being extra accentuated by the female touch. This is a film that every female policeman should watch and learn from.

The Bill was a British cop show which showed the variety of tasks done by London police officers.

Just mentioned that for our American readers.

I wonder if this film inspired The Bill ,it contains several stories like the tv drama did.

But to the film.

I had not seen this previously and have to say it was better than I might have expected.

I love The Blue Lamp but it is well known ,in comparison this film is obscure.

The acting in this is good in even the smallest parts.

The London locations are great.

Other reviewers suggest the modern flats are council (social) housing) and perhaps they are but they might be private apartments.

If you like 1940s and 1950s British films you might want to seek out this one.

Entertaining tale that focuses more on the criminal underworld than the female police officers it professes to be about. It nimbly follows a number of plot strands, some of which interweave, and some which pretty much stand alone. Terence Morgan and Michael Medwin dress like American gangsters as they ensnare flighty but naive young mum Peggy Cummings in their criminal lifestyle, while a host of familiar faces provide colourful support.

"Street Corner" is a film about the female police in London and the sorts of cases in which they became involved. Three cases are the subjects of this film. The first is about a woman who saves a boy's life....and then soon regrets it! The second involves a severely neglected child who climbs out on the high ledge and begins toddling about...oblivious to her pending doom. The third is the hard core woman who is 18 and wants to have fun (Peggy Cummins)...even though she has a baby back home. All three stories are interesting and make the film well worth seeing. Well acted and directed...this one gets better the longer you watch.