The Big Clock (1948)

Directed by John Farrow; produced by Richard Maibaum.

Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton) controls his publishing empire with an iron hand, knowing everything that goes on, from who left an electric bulb burning in a supply closet (and whose pay will be docked accordingly) to how to manipulate his star magazine manager, George Stroud (Ray Milland). When, however, in a fit of rage, Janoth murders his mistress, Pauline York (Rita Johnson), he seeks to blame a man he saw obscurely near the woman’s apartment. Little does he know that the man is Stroud, who was approached by Pauline with a scheme to blackmail Janoth. The latter assigns Stroud to track down the killer, in a hunt that puts a noose more and more tightly around Stroud’s own neck – though only Stroud knows it.

This complicated-sounding plot is the premise behind an entertaining and clever crime-movie; not quite a film noir, but directed in that style, aided by an intelligent script (by Jonathan Latimer, who also wrote above-par screenplays for Alias Nick Beal, Night Has a Thousand Eyes and The Glass Key, among other movies). There is a heavy dose of humour in the film, though the humour itself is not heavy. It is, in fact, provided in a light manner, though the story is taken seriously: it would have been a disaster for the film to become comedy.

The performances are very good. Milland could play good or bad, swinging from the Devil in Alias Nick Beal (reprising the rôle, at least with his voice, in King of Kings) to bemused and unwitting romantic lead (The Major and the Minor) to unabashed yet under-stated hero (The Uninvited). Here, he’s not quite an ‘everyman’, as he has too sharp a tongue and too ready a wit; these qualities make George Stroud the perfect character for such a story, and Milland the perfect actor to play him.

Laughton, too, could play good and bad. In The Big Clock, he’s an insufferable tyrant who thinks the world should run – on time - just for his needs and desires. Janoth’s vanity and fastidiousness, combined with a certain oiliness, make it clear that he could have a mistress only for money (her ‘music lessons’). His overall personality, from cruelty to arrogance and, ultimately, to cowardice, squeezes out any sympathy the viewer may have for him, and Laughton plays the part very well.

Surprisingly, there are three dimensions to Johnson’s character, too, though writers usually don’t waste time or effort on the victim in a murder-story. Johnson provides enough heft to the part to make York’s killing a regret to audiences, as well as to herself.

The direction heightens the tension as Stroud’s world shrinks: witnesses who have seen him as Janoth’s suspect are brought in, the building where he works is sealed off. Farrow creates a thriller in the early Hitchcockian mold, making the atmosphere work, despite – or perhaps aided by - the periodic light-heartedness of the dialogue. In fact, the sinister aspects are strengthened by pitting them against humour (eg. when Stroud knows that Janoth’s masseur (Henry Morgan) has been brought in to kill the suspect ‘when he tries to escape’), and Stroud’s drunken escapades with Pauline, though amusing, are just creating trouble for the man later on.

The versatile and talented Elsa Lanchester has a typically amusing part as an abstract painter; this is one of her many appearances with husband Laughton. (Maureen O’Sullivan, who plays Stroud’s wife, was the real-life wife of director Farrow; they were the parents of Mia Farrow). Ruth Roman has an uncredited bit as a secretary, and Noel Neill, Lois Lane in the 1950s tv series Superman, plays an elevator operator.

All together, cast, director and writer bring together an absorbing, fun, suspenseful tale of a man hunting for himself, while trying to bring a killer to justice: a difficult feat pulled off successfully by all concerned.