The Big Clock (1948)
Directed by John Farrow

Film Review

If you are going to send up classic American film noir this is the way to do it - not with a silly plot and even sillier characters as in The Big Steal (1949), but in a way that respects all the rules of the genre whilst dryly exposing them to ridicule.  The Big Clock is one of the best noir parodies ever made, one that is so good that it hardly seems to know it is a parody.  With its torturously convoluted plot, neurotic and inconsistent characters, moody atmosphere and slick production values it could almost pass itself off as a pukka noir, although you'd have to have had a complete humour bypass to fail to see the funny side.  And it's a film that gets funnier the more times you watch it...

As the archetypal bad publishing mogul who has yet to apprised of the fact that he is not God, a magnificently O.T.T. Charles Laughton provides most of the entertainment value, milking the under-the-counter humour for all it is worth.  It would have been easy for Laughton to have played the part of Earl Janoth as an outright caricature but he brings a subtle menace to the character that makes him frighteningly convincing (especially in his unflattering close-ups).  The mostly overtly comedic character, a gloriously eccentric artist, is portrayed with relish by Laughton's real-life wife Elsa Lanchester, a star turn that more than compensates for Ray Milland's pretty dull leading performance.  John Farrow directs the film with his usual keen visual sense, underplaying the humour every step of the way and ratcheting up the suspense as the weirdest of cat-and-mouse games builds to its gripping climax.  The diehard film noir purists may hate if for its casually irreverential tone but, once you've accepted that The Big Clock is intended as a mischievous comedy and not a straight thriller, it can hardly fail to entertain.

Film Synopsis

George Stroud is the editor-in-chief on Crimeways, a magazine that has a reputation for hunting down criminals more successfully than the police.  His boss is the ruthless publishing magnate Earl Janoth, whose prize possession is the world's most accurate timepiece, a clock that is the centrepiece of his New York offices.  When Stroud refuses to give up his plans to take a long overdue vacation with his wife Janoth dismisses him.  To get his own back, he meets up with his boss's mistress, Pauline York, who has a plan to blackmail the feared media mogul.  After he glimpses (but fails to recognise) Stroud leaving Pauline's apartment, Janoth confronts his mistress and strikes her dead with an ornamental clock that Stroud just bought for her.  Determined to pin the blame on the man he has mistaken for Pauline's secret lover, Janoth re-engages Stroud and instructs him to begin an investigation to find the man he saw entering his mistress's apartment.  As he does so, Stroud carries out his own investigation to find who really killed Pauline York...