The Big Clock

The Big Clock opens with a mystery. George Stroud (Ray Milland) is hiding from building security inside the “big clock” that dominates the lobby of the publications building on which he works. He laments that all of this has happened in the last 36 hours and we will spend the rest of the film catching up to this moment. It’s a common trope to hook audiences in early; one that has proven time and again to be effective, though it has also become a bit of a cliché. The film is quick to resolve its mystery, too, allowing the bulk of the film to be more about the characters and how George will exonerate himself than it is about trying to keep from us the real perpetrator. Of course, when you hire Charles Laughton to co-star in your film it becomes obvious pretty quick who the villain is going to be. 

George writes stories for Janoth Publications, owned and operated by Earl Janoth (Laughton). His speciality is finding missing persons, people hiding out from the law, utilizing a method of deduction well beyond that of the police department. But George is preparing for some much-needed time away so that he and his wife (Maureen O’Sullivan) can finally go on their oft-postponed honeymoon. Janoth, however, wants George to tackle a new story and when George refuses, he’s promptly fired. After work, he goes to a bar to drink and encounters Janoth’s mistress, Pauline York (Rita Johnson), who claims to have enough dirt to blackmail Janoth into getting his job back. When George loses track of the time, his wife leaves on their honeymoon without him. George, in turn, spends the evening visiting stores and other places around town with York. When they end up back at her apartment, they spot Janoth arriving and George leaves, but not before Janoth sees someone leaving her apartment. When he confronts York, in his anger he kills her. In order to cover up his act, he contacts George, offering him his job back if he will use his methods of deduction to track down the killer, believing it will lead to the mysterious man he saw leaving her apartment instead.

While Ray Milland is an excellent actor and more than capable of carrying a film such as this, Charles Laughton is a national treasure and absolutely steals the show. He has a magnetism that draws your eyes to him every time he is on screen. There is a smarmy, self-important attitude about him in this film that defines this character and, especially after he kills York, you just can’t wait for him to get his comeuppance. How that happens is very satisfying, too, and the way it is staged is shockingly realistic for the times. Laughton commands the screen but there is another performer that comes close to taking it from him. That is his real-life wife Elsa Lanchester who is adding a welcome bit of comedy in a broad performance that almost feels like it should be on the stage. Her humor, and exaggerated accent cut into the tension at all the right moments while bringing with it just the right level of levity.

This is a film that wants you to be ahead of the characters. Sometimes that can lead to audiences being frustrated for figuring things out before the characters do, but that is not the case here. Instead, we are drawn in as George pieces things together and then finds a way to turn the tables on his boss and trick a confession out of him in front of the police. The fun here is in that journey, not in us piecing it together ourselves. This doesn’t always work in film but screenwriter Jonathan Latimer, working off of a novel by Kenneth Fearing, absolutely nails it. 1948 - 95 minutes