The Big Clock (1948)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

John Farrow

Writers:

Kenneth Fearing (novel)
Jonathan Latimer (screenplay)

Release Date:

9 April 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

The strangest and most savage manhunt in history!

Plot:

A career oriented magazine editor finds himself on the run when he discovers his boss is framing him for murder.

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Magazine | Editor | Tycoon | Amateur Detective

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Ray Milland	...	George Stroud
Charles Laughton	...	Earl Janoth
Maureen O'Sullivan	...	Georgette Stroud
George Macready	...	Steve Hagen
Rita Johnson	...	Pauline York
Elsa Lanchester	...	Louise Patterson
Harold Vermilyea	...	Don Klausmeyer
Dan Tobin	...	Ray Cordette
Harry Morgan	...	Bill Womack
Richard Webb	...	Nat Sperling
Elaine Riley	...	Lily Gold
Luis Van Rooten	...	Edwin Orlin
Lloyd Corrigan	...	Colonel Jefferson Randolph aka McKinley
Frank Orth	...	Burt
Margaret Field	...	Second Secretary

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #12438)

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

A 'fin' is $5 in American slang.

Quotes:

Pauline York: You know, Earl has a passion for obscurity. He won't even have his biography in 'Who's Who'.
George Stroud: Sure. He doesn't want to let his left hand know whose pocket the right one is picking.

Movie Connections:

Remade as Police Python 357 (1976)

Soundtrack:

I'm in the Mood for Love

A rare case where the hunter is also the hunted...

Most filmgoers are probably more familiar with this film's 1987 updating, "No Way Out", starring Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman. That said, "The Big Clock", as with most originals which later spawn remakes of one form or another, is the better film to my mind. It features Ray Milland as a workaholic crime magazine editor for a ruthless publisher (Charles Laughton). Milland has developed his own special method of catching criminals, consisting of glomming onto details that the police disregard as irrelevant. How little does he suspect that, within 24 hours, that same method is going to be used against him...

He stays the night at his boss' mistress to sleep off a hangover. When Laughton strolls in for a suprise visit, Milland manages to get away before being IDed, but not before Laughton sees his shadowy figure on the stairs. In a jealous rage, Laughton kills his mistress and later sets about framing the figure he saw...who, unknown to him, is actually the man he's putting in charge of the investigation, Milland! What follows from this setup is one of the most elaborate cat-and-mouse games I have ever seen on celluloid, the key difference here being that the cat has no idea who the mouse is.

The leads are what make this film stand out. Milland was always very good at playing "the man caught in the middle" and this time is no exception. Kirk Douglas once noted in his autobiography, "The Ragman's Son", that whenever Laughton speaks his lines, it's as though the words just suddenly occurred to him rather than reciting something from memory. It's definitely put to good use here; Laughton oozes menace and coldness with no discernable effort. Other notables in the cast include Elsa Lancaster ("Bride of Frankenstein" and Laughton's real-life wife) as an eccentric artist who helps Milland and a then-unknown Harry Morgan as a silent, suspicious bodyguard to Laughton's publisher.

While perhaps not extraordinary in and of itself, "The Big Clock" is still a good film worth watching, buying, and owning.