Nightbeat gets off to a strong start with our two heroes, newly demobbed, taking on local wide boys, then joining the police, setting the scene for a tale of no-nonsense ex-servicemen versus the spivs and crooks who got rich while they were away. This is reinforced with the appearance of Maxwell Reed as an ebullient super-spiv complete with wide-brimmed hat, dress-coat and perpetual grin, who is a rival for the affections of Anne Crawford. Reed was an actor whom it was not always possible to take seriously, but he's in his element in this part. The bad news is that he's gradually given less and less to do as the film deteriorates into a cut-price version of an American Noir involving Christine Norden as a hard-as-nails good-time girl, and a murder in a nightclub. It all becomes increasingly tedious. No surprise that frequent producer and former actor Harold Huth rarely occupied the director's chair again. Sid James has one of his earliest roles as a dissolute-looking pianist and habitual police informer.
