1948 Directed by John Farrow
Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor has to post-pone a vacation with his wife, again, when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss Janoth to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.
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 Bess Flowers Noel Neill Julia Faye Show All…
Il tempo si è fermato, El reloj asesino, La Grande Horloge, Spiel mit dem Tode, 大钟, Olhos na Noite, Большие часы, Το Αλλοθι του Δολοφόνου, O Relógio Verde, 빅 클락
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Time in the work day has never ticked down with such malevolent intent as it does in John Farrow’s “The Big Clock.”
While the real gangsters and PIs were out getting their shoes gummy on the pavement, Farrow depicted a group of desk jockeys who made murder a way to waste away their weekday hours.
With the stakes at hand - I only hope they were getting paid time and half.
There’s a comical clairvoyance in “Big Clock,” which predicts, in a way, the modern obsession with true crime. Lead Ray Milland (one of the best of the upper middle class boozy city men of 1940s film) works at a rag of a magazine that employs its reporters to scrawl…
The Big Clock is a suspenseful yet quirky classic pulpy noir thriller headlined by Ray Milland & Charles Laughton. A Wrong-man-on-the-run premise with an ingenious set-up, where the walls seems to constantly be closing in.
Watch the remake No Way Out (1987) after. Both are equally great & based on the 1946 book, The Big Clock, by Kenneth Fearing.
does what it says on the tin, features a pretty damn big clock. also a very fun little cat-and-mouse murder mystery noir with lots of dramatic irony, imposing office architecture and god charles laughton.
ah yes, my favorite genre: ray milland gets too drunk and runs around all sweaty and stressed about his imminent demise
An impressively crafted noir displaying all the better characteristics of the genre. The murder - the key event every narrative thread springs from and leads to - divides The Big Clock into two big 'chapters', both thematically and tonally. And it works! The second half is much darker and more 'noirish', and features one of the best uses of the setting - a huge, empty office building - for 'the strangest and most savage manhunt in history', as the poster suggests.
The cinematography is likewise impeccable. The masterful zoom-ins and tracking shots heighten the tension at all the right moments, keeping the audience in constant suspense. Honestly, what else do you expect from the man who filmed Double Indemnity, Sunset…
Time, time, time. Time is money. Time is everything. Often we have way too much of it, usually there’s nowhere near enough of it. Forever in a race against The Big Clock upstairs, a life spent trying to win back lousy seconds by slaving it all away. So... while I love this big, fast, twisty-turny, wryly comical and visually swinging slice of pulpy noir goodness, I’d rather not give any more of my precious minutes to talking about it. I guess I’ve no choice, but to spend them all stewing away in front of another great movie instead.
"What happens if the clock stops?"
"Oh, Mr. Janoth would never permit that."
Noirvember #13
They really weren't kidding: that timepiece is enormous. Truth in advertising!
The Big Clock would make for a terrific companion piece on a double feature with another of director John Farrow's most glorious noir achievements, Alias Nick Beal; while the latter takes place over an unspecified number of months (as mentioned on that film's commentary track by Eddie Muller), the former is compressed into only 36 hours, a thriller that substitutes mystery - since you're fully aware of the murderer's identity - for the engaging, occasionally outright hilarious entertainment of innocent ad exec Ray Milland rushing to clear his name before it's too late. And…
I started off the Noir City Festival in Oakland with The Big Clock, and it was a blast. Instead of an innocent man trying to prove he’s not guilty, Ray Miland’s George Stroud was an innocent man trying to find a killer before he can be framed for the murder. While this intricate (but not hopelessly convoluted) plot played out, a murderer’s row of Charles Laughton, George Macready, and Maureen O’Sullivan dropped great lines left and right. I haven’t laughed this much watching a noir in ages, and director John Farrow never lost control of tone. Such a tight, expertly done film.
this takes place in a giant building with a giant clock where each floor produces a different magazine, all ruled by charles laughton whose eyes constantly shift around like an evil kit-cat clock, and it's so weird that for a minute i thought this took place in some silly vision of the future. super fun and ray milland is brilliant as always.
The DNA of at least three other films is tightly entwined with that of The Big Clock: Gilda, made three years earlier, Alias Nick Beal (also made by John Farrow, with Ray Milland), and Roger Donaldson's 1987 political thriller, No Way Out.
In the case of the earlier film, it's hard to imagine that George Macready's performance as Ballin Mundson in Gilda wasn't a major reason he was loaned to Paramount to play Steve Hagen in this picture, a character whose supercilious, oily manner marks him as the brother Mundson never had. In addition, the tenuousness of Ballin's heterosexuality is also relevant to Hagen as a character, and Macready's arch presence makes him absolutely perfect for the role.
Elsewhere, while…
“We should have stayed in West Virginia.”
The Big Clock has all the essential noir elements: a good man wrongly accused, a femme fatale, a dastardly villain, atmospheric cinematography, a story told in flashback, and plenty of style. John Farrow and John Seitz use the skyscraper in which Ray Milland is trapped to excellent effect, as he charges from floor to floor and room to room, trying to elude detection while discovering the real perpetrator of the murder of which he is suspected. Seitz is a master of noir lighting: This Gun for Hire, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard. While he employs the usual noir shadows now and then, much of the film is shot in harsh overhead light to emphasize…
Ray Milland's true crime journalist has to work to clear his name when he gets implicated in publisher Charles Laughton murder of his mistress.
Generally cited as a Noir it is in fact much closer to a Hitchcock wrong man caper/thriller. Milland is pretty good in the Cary Grant role of an urbane but desperate man thinking on his feet but it is Laughton and the very deep supporting cast that really makes the movie as fun as it is. Laughton is incredibly slimy and venal as the publisher used to getting whatever he wants.
It's a genuinely funny movie that knows just what dosage to use Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton, has brilliant high contrast cinematography throughout and slowly builds to a properly gripping final 30 minutes.
