Very well executed

One of the best films i have seen

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Paratrooper (Ford) returns to France after the war to return a valuable glove to its rightful place. But first he has to out-maneuver the bad guys (Macready) with help from girl tour guide (Brooks).I get the impression Hitchcock saw this romantic adventure and took notes, especially for To Catch a Thief (1955) and North by Northwest (1959). Certainly, the scenarist Charles Bennett was also a Hitch favorite. However, I expect the rotund director would have insisted on a better script than the muddled one here that leaves too many holes, making plot developments hard to follow. As a result, the suspense never really gels until the final thrilling chase up the rocky precipice. Then too, that farcical inn sequence about who sleeps where comes across as more silly than amusing, and also interrupts the narrative by going on much too long.What the movie does have going for it are the picturesque French locations and a lively Geraldine Brooks in the feminine lead. I hope they paid her double for all the running she had to do. Ditto Ford, for that athletic climb up the slope. I also like the way the story circles back on itself. That way we're hooked by a mysterious beginning that then reveals itself through one long flashback. However, I suspect the movie's showcase adventures would have benefited from Technicolor filming instead of the rather dour b&w. Anyway, it's the kind of material Hitch would soon do to the polished and proverbial "T".

Part mystery adventure and part romance, "The Green Glove" is a sometimes uneven tale of an ex-GI returning to France on a suitably dubious mission - to retrieve a jewel encrusted glove that might take the edge off a run of seven years bad luck. Almost sounds like Glenn Ford broke a mirror, or something like that. Ford's character, Michael Blake, is joined mid-way in his mission by an attractive tour guide (Geraldine Brooks), who's immediately caught up in a tale of dead men, Nazi spies and stolen treasure. It always makes me curious why characters in movies are drawn into completely untenable situations, but I guess if they weren't, you wouldn't have a story.Like most of the other posters for this film, I was struck by the the Hitchcockian elements of the picture, and caught myself thinking of the jeweled glove as that fabled Bogart Falcon. The film suitably keeps one on the fence as to Blake's real intentions regarding the gauntlet, even as he tries to stay a step ahead of his cunning adversary, Nazi collaborator turned fine art dealer, Count Paul Rona (George Macready).What was unbelievable to me was the chase scene down a virtually sheer rock face known as the goat trail (for good reason), and then back up again for a couple of middle aged guys (Ford,36 and Macready,53) who didn't look like they were in the best of shape to begin with. With all that, Blake still had the stamina to climb up the church tower and make with the bells to set up the mystery that book-ends the story.

Occasionally charming foreign adventure/romance with Glenn Ford as a down-on-his-luck American returning to post-war France to retrieve the title treasure he found during the war and becoming entangled with cops, bad guys, and tour guide Geraldine Brooks. Lovely Brooks has a wonderful girl-next-door quality, but the 50s priggishness makes the romance tiresome at times.The whole affair has a nice Hitchcockian feel, altho Hitch would never have been so priggish--with either with the sex or the violence. Director Rudolph Mate was the cinematographer for Hitch on Foreign Correspondent and other A-list directors in the 40s but had already directed several films himself by the time he did The Green Glove, including the classic DOA in 1950, with Edmund O'Brien.Still, something is missing. Ford remains a cipher thruout; we don't get the feel of desperation that Hitch (or his leading men) was so good at conveying. Ford was a battle-hardened lieutenant in the war, yet it doesn't seem to help him much against the bad guys. Brooks is clingy, yet coy. A European dame, sexier and more independent, might have been a more interesting choice. (This is one of those stories where the leads have to pretend to be married at one point, thereby forcing them to be titillatingly intimate, right? Wrong: Mate blows it by having them demand separate rooms anyway!) The climax is good, if a bit predictable. But the exciting mountain chase down a goat trail feels a bit like a setting in search of a story, since we know from the opening scene that the story doesn't end there. Overall, it's a good A-picture adventure that could have benefited from a bit of B-picture sex and violence.

The Green Glove is a medieval relic, removed during World War II, that Glenn Ford needs to return to its proper resting place. The story isn't particularly interesting, but a fine cast, highlighted by a thoroughly radiant Geraldine Brooks, makes this one worth a look. The film also benefits from French location work and the finale--a pursuit across, up, and over some incredibly steep terrain--is positively Hitchcockian.