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The Big Clock
USA 1948
produced by Richard Maibaum for Paramount
directed by John Farrow
starring Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready, Rita Johnson, Elsa Lanchester, Harold Vermilyea, Dan Tobin, Harry Morgan, Richard Webb, Elaine Riley, Luis Van Rooten, Lloyd Corrigan, Frank Orth, Margaret Field, Philip Van Zandt, Henri Letondal, Douglas Spencer, Bobby Watson, B.G. Norman, Joey Ray, Frances Morris, Harry Rosenthal, Ernö Verebes, James Burke, Lucille Barkley
screenplay by Jonathan Latimer, based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing, music by Victor Young
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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George Stroud (Ray Milland) is the best reporter of publishing tycoon
Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton) true crime magazine, simply because he's
the one who'll always find his man - much to his wife Georgette's (Maureen
O'Sullivan) dismay, as he's hardly at home anymore. And she lets him know
her dismay, too. So when Janoth wants to cancel Stroud's holiday which was
to be his long delayed honeymoon, Stroud simply won't have it and lets
Janoth fire him even. After being fired Stroud has the bad judgment though
not to hurry home to his wife right away, but to go for a drink with a hot
blonde, Pauline (Rita Johnson), Janoth's ex who holds a grudge against
Janoth - and the two get along so splendidly that they continue drinking
till late at night. Not that Stroud has any improper intentions with
Pauline, and indeed nothing happens, but he does miss his train that would
take him and his wife and son (B.G. Norman) to their holiday - and an
angry Georgette does consequently take the little one and go without
Stroud. Stroud leaves Pauline's apartment just when Janoth arrives, and
though he gets a look at his ex-boss (not vice versa), he thinks nothing
about it and takes a train to catch up and make up with Georgette. Janoth
though has a fight with Pauline and ultimately kills her. Then he calls
his right hand man Steve (George Macready), and Steve fixes it that nobody
will drag his boss into the affair. They actually hush up the murder for
the time being and try to pin it on the man Pauline has last been
seen with via a cock-up story. And not knowing that that man was indeed
Stroud, they try to get Stroud to track down the man. Of course, first
Stroud turns them down for the sake of his wife, but once he learns he is
actually in their crosshairs, he changes his mind - again to the dismay of
Georgette, who doesn't know the whole story though. Back at the office,
Stroud does the best to obscure his involvement with Pauline, but the
methods he has instated for tracking down missing persons are just too
solid, and more and more witnesses show up who can perfectly describe him,
and he needs to stay out of their hair not to be identified. Doing some
research himself though, he finds out that Pauline has actually been
murdered, and he gets a clue how serious things are actually - and then
he's actually spotted by one of the witnesses but manages to get away
before being properly identified, and the building is put under lockdown,
with security searching floor after floor. In the meantime, Georgette has
also arrived at the office, and she has by now found out that he was
somehow involved in the whole thing - and rather accidently also finds the
one piece of evidence that proves George innocent. Armed with that, Stroud
tries to track down the real killer - while on the run from pretty much
everyone and the air in the building getting thin, figuratively speaking
... Elsa Lanchester as an eccentric artist who believes in Stroud's
innocence provides some comic relief. Now this is a next to
perfect murder mystery: It doesn't put much emphasis on the actual
"whodunnit"-aspect of the story (actually we know that early on)
but everything on telling a tense and suspenseful story that's kept alive
more by its perfectly mechanized twists and turns rather than surprises
pulled out of the hat, and that revolves around a fallible but relateable
hero rather than some supersleuth. And a very stylish directorial effort
that nevertheless gives the story enough room to breathe as well as a top
notch cast make this one great movie indeed!
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