The Flying Squad (1940) User Reviews

Archetypical Edgar Wallace thriller.

[wilvram · 6/10 · 14 October 2015]

A fast-moving adaptation of Wallace's thriller of 1928, this has similarities with 'The Dark Eyes of London' filmed the previous year, including a sinister riverside warehouse with a lethal trap-door, and a fiddle player, both proving pivotal to the mystery's resolution. Leading man Sebastian Shaw even bears a resemblance to his counterpart, Hugh Williams, in the above, albeit with a rather less liberal use of the Brylcreem. The young Jack Hawkins has an atypical role as a thoroughly bad hat, a man about town who's the leader of a gang of dope smugglers, though it's not clear if the frequent references to "face powder" are supposed to denote the drugs themselves, or the real cosmetics used as a cover, probably the latter. The often strait-laced Basil Radford enjoys himself, camping it up like mad as a typically ambiguous character and Cyril Smith who usually played humble types is good as Hawkins' sadistic henchman. Ballard Berkeley, a perennial plain clothes officer of British 'B's turns up as one of the smugglers. This film, in company with the same studio's THE TERROR and THE MISSING MILLION, as well as DARK EYES.. is a more authentic representation of Wallace's work than many of the Sixties' Merton Park series, or even some of the celebrated 'krimis' of the same decade.

Mind the trapdoor!

[AAdaSC · 5/10 · 25 September 2014]

Sebastian Shaw (Inspector Bradley) wears too much make-up. He is also on the trail of some face powder smugglers. These face powders, while being illegally smuggled, are actually also a front for some type of drug smuggling. Anyway, Shaw suspects society bigwig Jack Hawkins (Mark McGill) is behind it all. He is, but how will Shaw get his man?

The film moves along at a good pace. There is a sinister violin player Ludwig Stossel (Li Yoseph) who plays an important part in the story, but his violin playing is atrocious. Basil Radford also turns up as an eccentric actor. The cast are OK but the fist fights are very poorly executed.

We know what the outcome will be but this whole face powder smuggling racket does make you think that they never really got to the top man in the organization. Just look at Inspector Shaw's face – definitely some police involvement with the powder! The film is OK, but that's all. Funny last line.

Plenty of action and danger

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 1 August 2019]

THE FLYING SQUAD is a short and snappy Edgar Wallace adaptation that sees a dogged detective on the trail of a smuggling gang headed by a youthful Jack Hawkins. Our hero is played by Sebastian Shaw, still best known for playing the 'face' of Darth Vader after he was unmarked at the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI. Half of the running time is made up with characters unwittingly getting involved with the gang and their machinations, including a feisty blonde, but the real-stand out is Basil Radford playing against type. There's enough action and danger to make this all worthwhile.

Hawkins is The Gang Leader But Radford Has the Last Word

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 30 July 2011]

This is a typical Wallace story.With a gang of stop at nothing smugglers with a ruthless boss whose headquarters are down by the Thames.They are opposed by Sebastian Shaw as the head of the Flying Squad and Basil Radford in a very uncharacteristic role as a rather eccentric gang member who is dressed up and speaks like George Robey.There are lots of car chases and fist fights and everything you would expect from a film version of a Wallace novel.The gang are smuggling "face powder" and using the sister of a dead gang member to assist.It all ends up well with Radford having the final scene all to himself with a rather funny last line.By the way a car is filled up with 12 gallons of petrol for 95p.Those were the days.Also one wonders if Wallace is having a little joke.Since the method that Hawkins uses to dispose of gang members who are surplus to requirements is a trapdoor which when opened leads straight to the Thames.We all know that rhyming slang for the Flying Squad is Sweeny Todd and we all know how he disposed of his customers.

Pre-War Sweeney Yarn

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 14 December 2019]

Although the smugglers do use an airplane, the title refers to the police unit later made famous on TV as 'The Sweeney'. They were much more polite back in the 1930s, even though the plot involves the sordid subject of drugs (and one of the goons brandishes a cut-throat razor in one fight scene) in this third screen version of Edgar Wallace's 1929 novel. It looks good but's very stagey (including the acting), although enlivened by a couple of action scenes shot night for night.

I gave it a 3, but it deserves far less

[j_paul_murdock · 3/10 · 31 July 2021]

This was truly awful. Made in 1940, it is not just stuck in the 30s, it might as well have been made then. The acting is wooden, the script is negligible, the staging is as wooden as the acting and, again, the makeup is heavy - the police detective might as well have been a drag artist and Basil Radford (a grass between the smuggling gang and the police) turns up almost in blackface at the beginning! (We didn't last long enough to witness Radford's apparently famously witty final line.)

The story is of a smuggling gang headed up (rather unconvincingly) by a gentleman gangster/thief/whatever played by Jack Hawkins. Even he and a cameo part from Kathleen Harrison cannot save this film.

Typical of Edgar Wallace, there is a parachuted-in American, but why does it have to be the sister of the gang member Hawkins got rid of for threatening to go to the police, a character who is very clearly English? When Hawkins spins her a yarn that it was the police who killed her brother (and she believes him!) the final straw came when she a) decides to join the smuggling gang to avenge her brother's death without a second thought and b) has a car accident on her first job, only for the over made-up detective who has been tailing her to fall in love with her! Jeez...!