The Big Clock - 1948
Directed by John Farrow
Written by Jonathan Latimer
Based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing
Starring Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready, Rita Johnson
Elsa Lanchester & Harry Morgan
The poster promises "the strangest and most savage manhunt in history", and
The Big Clock is indeed a heady mix of off-beat black comedy and rigorous, sweat-drenched noir - a concoction that's sly and constantly shifts from winks and gags to suspense and action. Comedy doesn't seem a natural fit for Kenneth Fearing's story, but once inserted it found a foothold and flourished in off-the-cuff remarks, double-takes, references, punchlines and a grandly grotesque performance from Charles Laughton as the snide, sniveling magazine publisher Earl Janoth. At one stage he even makes reference to his Quasimodo role in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by speaking a certain line in laboured Quasi-speak - anything goes it seems as all must have been having one hell of a time, because nothing seems forced and instead every actor is on their toes and brimming full of energy. It's a vibe you rarely get from an out-and-out film noir thriller - something more akin to
The Thin Man films - but it also manages to not lose itself and in the end stays the course as far as the seriousness of it's narrative and murderous intrigue goes.
The Big Clock demands your attention, and the biggest problem I had with it was remembering what each character knows and doesn't know. George Stroud (Ray Milland) works for Earl Janoth at Crimeways magazine, chasing down leads on missing suspects. When Janoth murders a woman, Pauline York (Rita Johnson), who Stroud had spent the night with, his assistant Steve Hagen (George Macready) jumps into the fray, ready to frame the man who was with York before Janoth was. What neither man knows is that this man was Stroud, and when they contact Stroud to ask for his assistance catching the man, he immediately catches on that it's him they're looking for. What Stroud
doesn't know is that this is about York's murder, because the two schemers pretend that this is about a scandal, and not a killing. In the meantime, Stroud's wife, Georgette (Maureen O'Sullivan), has to contend with her husband not arriving for the train which was set to depart on their belated honeymoon while he's with York, and then his enforced absence when he's tasked with finding Janoth's patsy - himself. Stroud has to keep covering his tracks while putting all of his underlings on the wrong scent, find out this is about a murder and then work out what's really happened and how he can prove it. Quite a busy, complex set of circumstances.
I have to make a confession - I watched this twice, simply because I became confused the first time around. It's not a hard film to understand, but it is one with a whole variety of details and a whole sack full of callbacks to previous moments and events. Chekhov's Gun moments are what they're called - the definition of which states that "any seemingly unimportant element introduced into a story should later have relevance," and there's plenty of that here. There's also an interesting correlation thematically about clocks and the inevitable countdown to our death or own destruction - at least in relation to some of the characters in the film. I'm assuming "The Big Clock" alludes, in one sense or definition, to the 'tick-tock' passage of our lives and the fact we inexorably head towards our dates with destiny. Earl Janoth is obsessed with the subject of time - especially with not wasting it - and I liked the way Hagen and Stroud both change the time on a broken clock at the murder scene to either tamper with or correct the evidence related to when the murder was committed. References to clocks (a sundial is actually the weapon used to murder York) are scattered throughout the whole film, and come up often.
So, other than all of that this was a relatively straightforward film in many ways - one that I enjoyed for it's flat-out, sweat-drenched careening pace that ups the tempo of everything in it's final act. I hear Earl Janoth is based on magazine magnate Henry Luce (author Kenneth Fearing had previously worked at Time magazine), and Charles Laughton imbues the character with pompous, mincing, upper-class toad-like characteristics that makes every moment he's onscreen particularly enjoyable and amusing. I loved that performance. Also featuring is Harry Morgan as Janoth's mute assistant/henchman - mostly recognizable to me from his role in
M*A*S*H. I'm starting to really appreciate Ray Milland in everything I see him in as well. There are myriad other small parts that give the lesser actors moments to shine also - especially Elsa Lanchester as artist Louise Patterson, whose loud voracious laughter hit me in the right place comedy-wise. Loved that laugh. She has the opportunity to point the finger at Stroud, and becomes an integral part of his attempts to avoid detection. George Macready, meanwhile, I'll never forget from his great role as villain Ballin Mundson in
Gilda. All-in-all, a great cast.
I hold this film in very high regard now that I've fully digested it, and I think it successfully achieves everything it sets out to do. Screenwriter Jonathan Latimer has expertly given all of the dialogue real punch in adapting Fearing's novel. Interesting to note that in the novel Janoth and his 'ready-to-absolve-his-boss' assistant Hagan were gay lovers - obviously not something they were going to faithfully portray onscreen in 1948, although there was a sense that there might be something going on with Janoth and masseuse/heavy Bill Womack (the Harry Morgan role.) Also interesting to note is the fact that director John Farrow and actress Maureen O’Sullivan had a daughter together a couple of years before making this, and she was Mia Farrow - someone with a big future in front of her. Laughton's performance is my favourite thing in this movie - which would be remade a few times in the future as
Police Python 357 (1976) and
No Way Out (1987) - I've heard both films are quite good, but I've seen neither of them. I think it's excellent, and straddles the line between suspense and comedy extremely well, wisely giving the suspense angle the most emphasis. I'd never heard of it before.
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You know what I learned from The Big Clock? There was a scene where the big clock in the building gets shut off by Ray Milland and all the other clocks which are connected to it went dead as well. When I seen that, I said to my wife, 'Oh they didn't have technology like that back then.' So my wife tells me that they did have what they called 'slave clocks' on ships back then. I just looked it up and she was right! 
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