Search - The Big Clock on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Violence, Adult Situations, Questionable for Children Movie Release: 1948 DVD Release: 07/06/2004 Format: DVD - Black and White Edition: Special Collection Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 36 mins Studio: Universal Studios Members Wishing: 8 Genres: Thriller, Film Noir, Psychological Thriller

John Farrow's movie adaptation of Kenneth Fearing's -The Big Clock, based on a screenplay by Jonathan Latimer (and produced by future James Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum), is a near-perfect match for the book, telling in generally superb visual style a tale set against the backdrop of upscale 1940s New York and offering an early (but accurate) depiction of the modern media industry. Told in the back-to-front fashion typical of film noir, it opens with George Stroud (Ray Milland) trapped, his life in danger, his survival measured in the minute-by-minute movements of the huge central clock of the office building where he's hiding. In flashback we learn that Stroud works for media baron Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton), loosely based on Henry Luce, as the editor of Crimeways magazine. Janoth is a manipulative, self-centered megalomaniac with various obsessions, including clocks; among other manifestations of the latter fixation, the skyscraper housing his empire's headquarters has as one of its central features a huge clock that reads out the time around the world down to the second.

Twenty-four hours earlier, on the eve of a combined honeymoon/vacation with his wife, Georgia (Maureen O'Sullivan), that has been put off for seven years, Stroud was ordered by Janoth to cancel the trip in order to work on a special project, and he resigned. As the narrative picks up speed, in his depression, Stroud misses the train his wife is on and crosses paths with Pauline York (Rita Johnson), a former model for Janoth's Styleways magazine, who is also Janoth's very unhappy mistress, and the two commiserate by getting drunk together in a night on the town. While hurriedly leaving Pauline's apartment, he glimpses Janoth entering. Janoth and York quarrel, and the publisher kills her in a jealous rage, using a sundial that she and Stroud picked up the night before while wandering around in their revels. Janoth and his general manager, Steve Hagen (George Macready), contrive to pin the murder on the man that Janoth glimpsed leaving York's apartment, whom he thinks was named Jefferson Randolph -- the name Stroud was drunkenly bandying about the night before. He gets Stroud back to Crimeways to lead the magazine's investigators in hunting down "Jefferson Randolph," never realizing that this was Stroud. And Stroud has no choice but to return, desperately trying to gather evidence against Janoth and, in turn, prevent the clues gathered by the Crimeways staff from leading back to him. The two play this clever, disjointed game of cat-and-mouse, Janoth and Hagen planting evidence that will hang "Randolph" (and justify his being shot while trying to escape), while Stroud, knowing what they don't about how close the man they seek to destroy is, arranges to obscure those clues and, in a comical twist, sends the least capable reporters and investigators to follow up on the most substantial clues.

Janoth sometimes seems to be unraveling at the frustrating pace and lack of conclusion to the hunt, but Stroud can't escape the inevitable, or the moments of weakness caused by fear and his own guilt over his near-unfaithfulness to his wife or the inscrutable gaze of Janoth's mute bodyguard Bill Womack (Harry Morgan), a stone-cold killer dedicated to protecting his employer. The trail of proof and guilt winds ever tighter around both men, taking some odd twists courtesy of the eccentric artist (Elsa Lanchester) who has seen the suspect. Milland is perfect in the role of the hapless Stroud, and Laughton is brilliant as the vain, self-centered Janoth, but George Macready is equally good as Hagen, his smooth, upper-crust Waspy smarminess making one's skin crawl. Also worth noting is Harry Morgan's sinister, silent performance as Womack, and sharp-eyed viewers will also recognize such performers as Douglas Spencer, Noel Neill (especially memorable as a tart-tongued elevator operator), Margaret Field (Sally's mother), Ruth Roman, and Lane Chandler in small roles. Additionally, the Janoth Publications building where most of the action takes place is almost a cast member in itself, an art deco wonder, especially the room housing the clock mechanism and the lobby and vestibules, all loosely inspired by such structures as the Empire State Building and the real-life Daily News headquarters on East 42nd Street. This film was later remade as No Way Out. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Ray Milland - George Stroud
Charles Laughton - Earl Janoth
Maureen O'Sullivan - Georgette Stroud
George Macready - Steve Hagen
Elsa Lanchester - Louise Patterson
Rita Johnson - Pauline York

Universal's DVD release of John Farrow's The Big Clock doesn't have a commentary track or any newly or specially conceived supplement -- but it doesn't have a premium price, either. The movie, which never made it to laserdisc, has come out on the studio's mid-priced "Noir" collection line. The one bonus feature that is present is very exciting; the trailer is so cleverly put together that it would be worth seeing in any case, structured as it is around the film's star, Ray Milland and his dramatization of the film on a radio series called Suspense. That's fine and well done, and entertaining, but the real treat for movie, radio, and television buffs is the appearance with Milland of Anton Leader; also sometimes known as Tony Leader, he was a major director/producer on radio and later on television, and something of linchpin in Irwin Allen's organization in the 1960s, as well as the director of Children of the Damned, the underrated mid-'60s sequel to the original Village of the Damned. To finally be able to put a face alongside the name -- and when the man was in his prime -- is a remarkable piece of good luck concerning a movie whose plot partly hinges on the day-to-day ubiquitousness of radio. Now, past that piece of pop-culture minutiae, the movie looks great; while there might be a better transfer to be done, this full-screen (1.33:1) release is acceptable -- not quite on a par with, say, Roy William Neill's The Black Angel (in the same DVD release cycle), but close. The sharpness isn't quite what it should be, but even the dark shots have useful picture information. The sound, though fairly low in volume level, is mastered very sharply and effects such as intercom buzzers leap out. As to the movie, it holds up extremely well today, mostly owing to its vision of power and its corrupting influence, which was decades ahead of its time. The 95-minute feature has been given 18 chapters, which are more than adequate to the task of breaking down the plot. In addition to the trailer, the only other bonus features are French and Spanish subtitles. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide