(by greenf74 on 11 December 2014)

A very clever Chesterton story is followed fairly closely in this adaptation, although it's mildly irritating that Father Brown's famous remark about dogs ("I always like a dog, so long as he isn't spelt backwards") is slightly altered when Kenneth More comes to say it. More's performance is, in fact, just a little uncertain, there are moments when he seems unsure of his lines, and the segment as a whole gives the impression of being somewhat under-rehearsed. The criticism of British imperialism made explicit in the story - where the Father says that "every imperial police is more like a Russian secret police than we like to think" - is dampened down, and the tone of the adaptation is not as trenchant as it might, to its benefit, have been. The dog behaves impeccably, however.