The Big Clock (1948)

Happily married or would be if he was not a workaholic George Stroud (Ray Milland) works for a crime magazine publishing company. The megalomaniac owner and ironfisted controller of the magazine is Earl Janoth (Earl Janoth). Earl’s mistress Pauline York (Rita Johnson) insults him one too many times and in a fit he dispatches her. Now who can he pin the dirty deed on? Sure the uppity George Stroud. To make matters worse it seems that Stroud, who tells his wife (Maureen O'Sullivan) he was working late, was actually seen as the unnamed man by several witnesses in the presence of Pauline.

Looks like it is curtains for Stroud. He just keeps getting in deeper and deeper. Time is getting scarcer as we watch “The Big Clock”. I see no way out. Do You?

This black and white film based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing with screen play by Jonathan Latimer could have easily been a Hitchcock. You will want to own a copy to fine the nuances’ mist the first time around.

These years buyers of DVDs at last get a glimpse of what lies beyond the Big Confirmed Film Noir Classics, and wonders actually never cease. What law ever dictated that 'The Big Sleep', 'Double Indemnity' and 'Asphalt Jungle' are the best of the bunch?

The marvellous 'No Way Out' with Kevin Costner was a remake of this brilliantly orchestrated noir from 1948 about a crime magazine editor who is told to investigate a murder case, and it turns out he is the prime suspect, although as yet he is the only one that knows it! He is always just an inch ahead of the police and his own investigators at the magazine.

'The Big Clock' is a thriller that makes you bite your nails feverishly. Everything in magazine boss Charles Laughton's universe ticks along like clockwork, and gradually a strong and very "modern" sense of paranoia creeps into all frames of the film. The pictures are as expressionist and claustrophobic as we have come to expect from vintage noir, a labyrinth within a riddle within a labyrinth, people reduced to laboratory rats darting aimlessly around the corridors. And on top of that, the film has abundant humour, not least in the characterization by Elsa Lanchester as the edgy artist who, by editor Ray Milland, is asked to draw a picture of the suspect, turning out to be a picture of himself.

This is not, in my opinion, one of the great noirs, but it tells a fast-paced, well-acted story with style, tension and humor. Ray Milland plays George Stroud, dynamic editor of a crime magazine, one of many in Earl Janoth's (Charles Laughton) publishing empire. Through circumstances, he meets Laughton's mistress one evening. She later is killed. Janoth puts Stroud in charge of tracking down the murder to get an exclusive for the magazine...(not much of a spoiler ahead; the killing is shown early)...and to cover the fact that Janoth was the killer. Milland is quickly set up to take the fall.

Milland was edging into middle age and this added to the authority he brought to the role. Although he still had the charm and light comedy springingness, he is believable as a quick-thinking potential victim.

Laughton is first rate. In a couple of scenes he scurries to the elevator or across a hall and looks like a fat, dangerous spider. He helps define Janoth's character as an indulgent, morally corrupt egoist by touching his mouth and grooming a small, ridiculous moustache with a little finger.

Rita Johnson plays the mistress and is terrific. She's shrewd, sexy and sophisticated. She didn't have much of a career and, according to IMDb, apparently had a death worthy of a noir movie.

George Macready plays a smart, cold, condescending lawyer whose ethics are flexible. His range may have been be limited, but Macready was one of Hollywood's great character actors.

You might be able to find an old, used paperback of the book by Kenneth Fearing. He was a good poet who never made it. In the three or four mystery/novels he wrote he uses the device of having the characters speak for themselves in the first person, each to his or her own chapter. It takes getting used to but it becomes quite effective. Dagger of the Mind and The Loneliest Girl in the World also are very good and also, I suppose, long out of print. If you like mysteries (or dead American poets), give him a Google.

Kevin Costner's No Way Out was based on the book and this movie. In the ring, I'd give Milland over Costner on points by a wide margin; Laughton over Hackman on points but close; Macready over Patton by a knockout in the sixth; and Johnson over Sean Young by a knockout in the first. And this version over the other by a knockout in the fifth. No Way Out's conclusion is, for me, unsatisfying because it drains sympathy from the Costner hero. In The Big Clock, the ending is satisfyingly concluded with an elevator shaft and, later, a hug and a laugh.

The DVD transfer is quite good considering the age of the movie, and shouldn't be a reason for not getting the movie.