No Way Out (1987)

August 14, 1987, release date

Directed by Roger Donaldson

Screenplay by Robert Garland

Based on the novel The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing

Music by Maurice Jarre

Edited by William Hoy, Neil Travis

Cinematography by John Alcott

Kevin Costner as Lieutenant Commander Tom Farrell, U.S. Navy

Gene Hackman as Secretary of Defense David Brice

Will Patton as Scott Pritchard

Sean Young as Susan Atwell

George Dzundza as Sam Hesselman

Howard Duff as Senator Duvall

Jason Bernard as Major Donovan, Criminal Investigation Division

Fred Dalton Thompson as CIA Director Marshall

Iman as Nina Beka

Michael Shillo as Schiller

Distributed by Orion Pictures

Produced by Nufeld-Ziskin Garland, Roger Donaldson

I had seen No Way Out several times on television before I decided to see the whole film, from start to finish, on DVD. Before I saw the film on DVD, I had learned that it was a remake of The Big Clock (1948), starring Ray Milland. (Another remake is a 1976 French film called Python 357.) No Way Out seemed much more suspenseful than what I remembered from my first viewing of The Big Clock. I haven’t read the book, but I wondered, how could both films be adapted from the same book? I decided to find out.

I started with The Big Clock, which I have already written about for this blog. Click here for my blog post about it.

No Way Out starts with a shot of the U.S. Capitol building, with the Washington Monument in the foreground. The camera pulls back and then away from the National Mall in an aerial shot. As it glides over the Potomac River, the credits start. The movement of the camera and the music on the soundtrack set up a tense mood from the very beginning. The credits keep rolling and the camera keeps moving, which adds to the tension. Or it did for me: I kept wondering where the camera, and thus the viewers, were headed. The camera moves in over a particular house, and in that house is Tom Farrell. He’s being questioned by two men, but he doesn’t seem too concerned. In fact, he gets up, goes to the mirror in the room, and asks, “When’s he going to come out from behind here?”

The camera movement that I just described for No Way Out is similar to the way that The Big Clock opens. In No Way Out, the setting is Washington, D.C., and the camera moves from familiar capital landmarks to the interior of a house where Tom Farrell is being interrogated. In The Big Clock, the opening sequence is much shorter, and the camera moves from a shot of part of the New York City skyline to the interior hallway of an office building, where the main character, George Stroud, is hiding from a security guard.

In No Way Out, viewers have no idea who Tom Farrell is at first, and the two men questioning him are never identified. They never explain why they are questioning Farrell, and viewers aren’t even sure that Farrell is being watched by someone behind the mirror. After Farrell asks his question, the film cuts suddenly to a flashback, starting six months earlier. Most of the rest of the film follows past events in an extended flashback.

(This blog post about No Way Out contains some spoilers.)

At the beginning of the flashback (six months earlier in the film’s narrative), Commander Tom Farrell attends a formal event; viewers learn later that it is a presidential inaugural ball. Inside, he spots Susan Atwell. All party guests are frisked with an electronic wand. When it’s Susan’s turn, she says, “Lucky that’s not a bullsh-- detector or none of us would get in.” Farrell finds Susan’s remark amusing, and it seems to make Susan more attractive to him. He pursues her, but he is intercepted by a college friend. (Later, viewers learn that Farrell already knew something about Susan Atwell and that he was assigned to get to know her.)

Scott Pritchard, assistant to Secretary of Defense David Brice, is the friend who intercepts Farrell. Pritchard asks Farrell if he would like to work for Secretary Brice. He mentions a note that Farrell sent. Farrell says that he sent a Christmas card and all it said was Merry Christmas. It’s an odd exchange, and viewers are left wondering if Pritchard has some ulterior motive for making more of a holiday card. Commander Farrell doesn’t seem to give it another thought, but it’s impossible to know what to expect from what the film has shown so far—and that’s exactly the point. No Way Out sets up the different plot threads without any background explanation and then reveals the interconnections as the narrative unfolds.

Tom Farrell and Susan Atwell leave the inaugural ball together. Their liaison in the back of a limousine is an extended sequence and a bit of a diversion in the plot, but it leaves no doubt about their physical attraction to one another. Atwell takes Farrell to the home of her friend Nina Beka and asks Nina for a favor. She tells Nina that she can use her home while she (Susan) and Farrell use Nina’s apartment. No explanation is given for Susan’s reluctance to bring Tom to her own home, which is another odd sign that something is amiss.

Commander Farrell goes back to sea on a U.S. naval ship and makes a daring rescue of one of the crew members during a storm. The news coverage catches Secretary Brice’s attention, and he directs Pritchard to contact Farrell and invite him to work with them. Farrell is reassigned to the Defense Department. Now that Secretary Brice is Farrell’s boss, Farrell learns that Susan Atwell is having an affair with him (Brice is married; she is not), but Atwell is in love with Tom Farrell. They continue their romance on the sly because Farrell has to protect his new position. The relationship between Tom Farrell and Susan Atwell is another point of difference compared to The Big Clock. George Stroud never becomes romantically involved with his boss’s mistress.

In time, Farrell learns that Susan is in fact a kept woman: Secretary Brice is paying all her living expenses. Scott Pritchard tries to convince Secretary Brice to cut ties with Susan, but his efforts are useless. And part of his duties is to continue to act as go-between as the affair continues. Pritchard’s willingness to keep secrets and protect his boss explains why Brice turns to him when he needs help later.

The film allows viewers to see the differences between Commander Farrell and Secretary Brice. Farrell is angry that he and Susan can only meet on the sly, but Secretary Brice becomes enraged when he realizes that Susan went away one weekend (he doesn’t realize that she went with Tom Farrell). In his fit of jealous rage, Secretary Brice pushes Susan off the second-floor balcony inside her apartment. She crashes through a glass coffee table and ultimately lands on her living room floor—she is dead.

Secretary Brice confides in Scott Pritchard about Susan’s murder. Pritchard convinces Brice not to go to the police. Instead, Pritchard goes to Atwell’s apartment and cleans up, retrieving anything that might be incriminating for Secretary Brice. A shot of Pritchard upon his arrival in Susan’s living room, observing her dead body, is especially unnerving because Pritchard’s hostility toward Susan, barely evident until this point in the film, is unmistakable now. He regarded her as useless and distracting for Secretary Brice. After her death, all he wants to do is clean up any connection between her and his boss and make her disappear.

Pritchard comes up with what seems like a crazy plan to blame Atwell’s murder on someone named Yuri, a suspected mole in the Defense Department. Everyone has been talking about this mole for four years, but no one is even sure that he (or she) exists. Farrell is afraid that he will be blamed for Atwell’s murder because he knew her and was in love with her, but he is fairly sure that Secretary Brice had something to do with it. He has to protect his identity throughout the staged investigation that Pritchard starts. And now that Farrell works for Secretary Brice and Pritchard, he is put in charge of the investigation. As the investigation proceeds, however, more and more people are convinced of Yuri’s existence and they are intent on finding this person. The rest of the film follows the investigation and brings viewers right back to the scene in the house at the start of the film and to Commander Tom Farrell’s question: “When’s he going to come out from behind here?”

Farrell’s question is finally answered, but his future is still an open question. I was surprised by the film’s ending, but I thought it made sense, too, once I thought about it. No Way Out is a film to see from beginning to end, not chopped up by commercials on television—not the way that I first saw it, in other words!

Writing about No Way Out and The Big Clock shows me that the outline of the plot in both films is indeed very similar. Many of the specific details are different, but the basic plot outline of a man being framed by another man, his own boss, for the boss’s murder of a lover is the same. I have to confess, however, that I enjoyed No Way Out much more than I enjoyed The Big Clock. I thought that all the cinematic elements—the music, the camera work, the portrayal of the relationships between the different characters—in No Way Out set up the tension and the suspense much more artfully than any of the elements did in The Big Clock. The high-stakes politics in No Way Out was a good choice because it made the intrigue much more believable: It’s political and it’s personal. I have read that The Big Clock follows the book on which it is based much more closely, but the updating for the 1987 remake increases the suspense so much more.

The Big Clock (1948)

April 9, 1948, release date

Directed by John Farrow

Screenplay by Jonathan Latimer

Based on the novel The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing

Music by Victor Young

Edited by LeRoy Stone, Eda Warren

Cinematography by Daniel L. Fapp, John Seitz

Ray Milland as George Stroud

Charles Laughton as Earl Janoth

Maureen O’Sullivan as Georgette Stroud

George Macready as Steve Hagen

Rita Johnson as Pauline York

Elsa Lanchester as Louise Patterson

Harry Morgan as Bill Womack

Harold Vermilyea as Don Klausmeyer

Dan Tobin as Ray Cordette

Richard Webb as Nat Sperling

Elaine Riley as Lily Gold

Luis Van Rooten as Edwin Orlin, a reporter

Bobby Watson as Morton Spaulding

Lloyd Corrigan as Colonel Jefferson Randolph aka McKinley (radio actor in the bar)

Frank Orth as Burt

Margaret Field as the second secretary

Noel Neill as an elevator operator

Al Ferguson as the guard

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Produced by Paramount Pictures

The first time I saw The Big Clock several years ago, I wondered if it were really a film noir, probably because of the film’s many humorous touches. Ray Milland’s onscreen presence frequently exudes warmth and joviality, and the wonderful character of Louise Patterson, played by Else Lanchester, provides many humorous touches. Her abstract sketch of the murderer is just one example.

But then I heard that No Way Out, released in 1987 and starring Kevin Costner, is a remake of The Big Clock, and I thought: I need to see both films again. (Another remake is a 1976 French film called Python 357, which I haven’t seen.) No Way Out seems to be in heavy rotation lately on non-major-broadcast stations, but I have never seen it from beginning to end. Still, it seemed much more suspenseful than what I remembered from my first viewing of The Big Clock. How could the two films be based on the same book? I decided to find out, and I started with The Big Clock. (I have to admit that I have not yet read Kenneth Fearing’s book of the same name: another book on my reading list!)

The opening credits in The Big Clock appear over two still shots, one of magazine covers that bleeds into a longer one of a sundial. The sundial, it turns out, is the murder weapon in the story that follows. After the credits finish rolling, the camera pans part of the New York City skyline. Then it seems to track right into the offices of Janoth Publications. I wondered if this was a new camera technique, one probably made easier with new technology after World War II (the film was released in 1948).

The camera now appears to be on the second floor of the building, but it is empty. Then George Stroud, played by Ray Milland, steps off the elevator and checks out his surroundings. Milland’s voice-over explains what he is thinking in this opening sequence. When he realizes that a security guard is heading his way, he hides behind a pillar. The security guard doesn’t see Stroud, so Stroud continues on his way to what he calls “the big clock.” Earl Janoth, head of Janoth Publications, likes clocks because he values, above all else, punctuality and productivity. The big clock is Janoth’s idea: It is a sightseeing feature for tourists who come to visit Janoth Publication, so it makes money and keeps employees punctual. Inside the workings of the big clock, George Stroud says/thinks that, thirty-six hours ago, he was a “decent, respectable, law-abiding citizen.” And the film then cuts to a flashback.

Thirty-six hours earlier: George is busy at the office. He is the senior editor for Crimeways magazine, one of many magazines published by Janoth Publications, and he has just finished producing a successful article that will beat all his competitors to publication. One of the secrets to George’s success is his Crimeways Clue Chart, which he uses to track relevant and irrelevant details about everything and everyone that could be the subject of a magazine feature. He thinks no clue is unimportant, and it’s a strategy that works for him because he often gets stories to press ahead of everyone else.

George’s vacation is due to start the following day, and he and his wife Georgette are overdue for a honeymoon (they already have a young son). His wife and son don’t believe that the whole family will actually go on the vacation that they have planned because George’s work has interfered with his family life in the past.

The film cuts to Steve Hagen, Earl Janoth’s assistant, addressing a business meeting about the need to increase magazine circulation. The Janoth company has recently experienced a 6 percent recession. Janoth enters the meeting room, acting like the ruling despot of his publishing company, so the conflict in George Stroud’s life is made pretty clear from the start. It isn’t long before Janoth uses George’s latest success against him: Research another story that Janoth wants published or George is out of a job.

Pauline York is Earl Janoth’s mistress. Her visit to his office doesn’t go as well as she had planned. She wants more money for singing lessons than Janoth is willing to give. She approaches George Stroud in a bar while George is waiting for his wife and pitches the idea of writing an exposé about Janoth. George isn’t enthusiastic about the idea, but because he just had a disagreement with his wife about their vacation plans, he allows himself to be distracted by Pauline long enough to get drunk and visit several night spots around town. One of their stops is a secondhand shop, where he buys a Louise Patterson original painting, with the artist herself trying to outbid him.

(This blog post about The Big Clock contains some spoilers.)

George and Pauline spend an innocent night on the town, and the only reason that George ends up in Pauline’s apartment is because of the amount of alcohol he consumes. While George is still trying to recuperate from the previous evening’s events in Pauline’s apartment, Janoth shows up for a visit. George is forced to leave by another entrance, and Janoth sees him from a distance without recognizing him. Janoth enters the apartment, and he and Pauline argue. Janoth kills Pauline in a fit of rage with the sundial that she and George had picked up the previous evening in a bar called Burt’s Place.

Janoth goes to Steve Hagen and admits to accidentally killing York. Hagen convinces Janoth not to go to the police. Hagen instead goes to Pauline’s apartment and cleans up the murder scene: He finds Janoth’s hat, resets a broken clock, goes through Pauline York’s purse and takes out the handkerchief that George Stroud had given her to dry herself after spilling a drink on her, and finds the sundial (the murder weapon). He turns the sundial upside down and reads the bottom: “Stolen from Burt’s Place, 988 Third Ave.”

After Janoth tells him that he saw someone outside Pauline’s apartment, Hagen devises a plan to find out the identity of the person and place the blame for Pauline’s murder on him or her. He enlists the aid of George Stroud. Hagen doesn’t want Stroud to know why he is conducting his investigation, but Stroud knows, of course, because he was with Pauline on the night that she was murdered. Once again, Stroud’s success causes him misery, this time with even more dire consequences. He is now forced to use his investigative talents and his Crimeways Clue Chart—to hunt for himself! The remainder of the film follows the investigation and George Stroud’s efforts to stay one step ahead long enough to clear his name.

After a second viewing, I can see why The Big Clock is considered a film noir. It has many elements of noir: murder, betrayal, the threat of physical violence, building tension as George Stroud tries to clear himself before anyone recognizes him as Pauline York’s companion on the last night of her life. The first time I saw the film, I missed all the times that Ray Milland is able to show his character’s anxiety and desperation. The second time, I could really appreciate George Stroud’s predicament. I’m glad I gave the film another chance.