The Blue Lamp

The Blue Lamp is a 1950 British police drama, directed by Basil Dearden and starring Jack Warner as veteran PC Dixon, Jimmy Hanley as newcomer PC Mitchell, and a very young Dirk Bogarde as hardened criminal Tom Riley. The title refers to the blue lamps that traditionally hung outside British police stations and often still do. The film was to be the inspiration for the 19551976 TV series Dixon of Dock Green, where Jack Warner continued to play PC Dixon until he was 80 years old even though Dixons murder is the central plot of the original film.

The action mostly takes place in the Paddington area of London, and is set in July 1949, a few years after the end of the Second World War. PC George Dixon Warner a longserving traditional copper who is due to retire shortly, takes a new recruit, Andy Mitchell Hanley, under his aegis, introducing him to the easygoing night beat. Dixon is a classic Ealing ordinary hero, but also anachronistic, unprepared and unable to answer the violence of Tom Riley Bogarde. Called to the scene of a robbery at a local cinema, Dixon finds himself facetoface with Riley, a desperate youth armed with a revolver. Dixon initially tries to talk Riley into surrendering the weapon, but Riley panics and fires. Dixon is taken to hospital, but dies some hours later. The ending is another Ealing quirk, with ordinary, decent society banding together with professional criminals and dogtrack identities to track down and catch the murderer, who tries to hide in the crowd at White City greyhound track in West London. To Andy Mitchell falls the honour of arresting Riley.The production had the full cooperation of the Metropolitan Police, and the crew were thus able to use the reallife former Paddington Green Police Station, then at 64 Harrow Road, London W9 and New Scotland Yard for location work. Most of the other outdoor scenes were filmed in inner west London, principally the Harrow Road precincts between Paddington and Westbourne Park. George Dixon is named after producer Michael Balcons former school in Birmingham. ........

Source: Wikipedia