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.

Cornered (1945)

December 25, 1945, release date

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

Screenplay by John Paxton and Ben Hecht

Based on a story by John Wexley

Music by Roy Webb and Paul Sawtell

Edited by Joseph Noriega

Cinematography by Harry J. Wild

Dick Powell as Laurence Gerard

Walter Slezak as Melchior Incza

Micheline Cheirel as Madame Madeleine Jarnac

Nina Vale as Señora Camargo

Morris Carnovsky as Manuel Santana

Edgar Barrier as DuBois, insurance agent

Steven Geray as Señor Tomas Camargo

Jack La Rue as Diego

Gregory Gaye as Perchon, Belgian banker and Jarnac's accomplice

Luther Adler as Marcel Jarnac

Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures

Produced by RKO Radio Pictures

Watching a film noir is sometimes akin to getting a history lesson, and Cornered is one of those films noir—but, of course, in a good way! The film shows the destruction, confusion, and dislocation of the immediate postwar period and the continuing Nazi intrigue. It helps to know that this film was released in December 1945, just a few months after the end of World War II. I bet 1945 audiences had no trouble with the plot details; for them, the story was based on current events. The cast of characters that I list above may be relatively short, but the story is not short on the postwar confusion that it depicts so well. It is a bit difficult at times to keep track of what happened when and who is working with whom. But the characters’ interactions and their emotional portrayals are front and center, all told against the backdrop of current events for 1945 audiences and a history lesson for modern-day viewers.

The film opens with Laurence Gerard, played by Dick Powell, on the day of his discharge from the Royal Canadian Air Force in London. He receives his last wages: back pay, including pay for time spent as a prisoner of war, and travel back to his home in Montreal, Canada. But he has no plans to return to Canada right away. To settle his dead wife’s (Celeste’s) estate and avenge her death, and to avoid the bureaucratic nightmare of applying for a passport back to war-torn France, he rows partway across the English Channel and swims the rest of the way to France.

Laurence meets his father-in-law again in France, and the two argue about the circumstances surrounding Celeste’s death. His father-in-law wants to move on, but Laurence cannot. Someone must have betrayed Celeste, he is sure, because she was too careful. The implication is that Celeste, and the others with her who were murdered by the Vichy (Nazi collaborators), were working for the French Resistance. Some of them helped Laurence when he was wounded during the war and brought to safe haven in France. His love for Celeste and his gratitude to his friends for risking their lives to help him won’t let him forget.

(This blog post about Cornered contains spoilers.)

Laurence has a scar along one side of his skull, which lets viewers know that his war injuries were very serious. But he also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is a recurring theme throughout the narrative. The first bout occurs when he and Celeste’s father visit her grave in the cave where she and the others are buried. His father-in-law lists some of the people, including Celeste, who were shot to death on the orders of Marcel Jarnac. In his mind, Laurence hears shots fired as Celeste’s father speaks the names.

A paper trail indicates that Jarnac is dead, and few are willing to question the flimsy evidence except for Laurence, who refuses to believe it. He tracks Madame Jarnac, the alleged widow, to Buenos Aires, where many Nazis fled after the war to avoid facing the responsibility of their war crimes. In Buenos Aires, Laurence meets Manuel Santana, a prominent lawyer in the city. He says to Laurence about the Nazi war criminals: “They are even more than war criminals fleeing a defeated nation. They do not consider themselves defeated. We must destroy not only the individuals, but their friends, their very means of existence . . . .” While Santana speaks, Laurence has another flashback, another episode of PTSD, and hears gunfire in his mind.

A subway station meeting between Gerard and Madame Jarnac was so well shot that the scene deserves special mention. Lighting and sound together give the impression of trains passing the two of them on the subway platform and interrupting their conversation a few times. This scene is also important because Madame Jarnac admits to accepting money to impersonate Madame Jarnac; she is really Madame Laurent. Laurence Gerard doesn’t know who he can trust, and the stress brings on another flashback for him in the subway station.

At one point, Laurence Gerard has been summoned to the Camargos’ hotel rooms to talk to Señor Tomas Camargo about finding Celeste’s killer. Manuel Santana is his uncle, and he suspects his nephew Tomas of being a postwar Nazi sympathizer. Señor Camargo isn’t in, but his wife is, and she invites Gerard into their rooms to wait until her husband returns. Here is part of the conversation between Laurence Gerard and Señora Camargo:

• Señora Camargo: “You’re an extraordinary man. Do you know why you interest me?”

• Laurence Gerard: “No. I’ve been wondering. What’s supposed to happen while I spend the evening with you?”

• Señora Camargo: “You might get to like me a little. Don’t you think you’re making yourself unnecessarily miserable by clinging to the memory of a girl you knew less than a month?”

• Laurence Gerard: “Somebody must be passing out copies of my biography.”

• Señora Camargo: “I’ve been trying to picture her. A girl who could do what she has done to you must have been extremely beautiful. Tell me about her. Try to make me see.”

• Laurence Gerard: “I’d be wasting my time.”

• Señora Camargo: “Oh, tell me, was she so much more attractive than I am?”

• Laurence Gerard: “Her teeth were crooked. She was too thin. She was too thin because she was squeezed in between a couple of wars. I don’t think she ever had the kind of food that goes into a good figure. I’m not sure, I can’t even remember exactly what she looked like. War does something to your memory. It gets sharper. You forget the way people looked and remember the important things. That kind of remembering keeps you warm on cold nights.”

• Señora Camargo: “Now that you’ve made your moral point, why don’t you relax and get comfortable? [Slight pause] Would you mind some advice? You’re wasting your youth here.”

• Laurence Gerard: “How do you fit into all this? What’s your function?”

• Señora Camargo: “Shall I be honest?”

• Laurence Gerard: “Don’t strain yourself.”

• Señora Camargo: “I have no function. Except to enjoy myself. I like the life. I like the money.”

• Laurence Gerard: “What do you use for morals?”

• Señora Camargo: “I think they’re a little overrated. Wouldn’t you like to kiss me?”

[They kiss.]

• Laurence Gerard: “Where’s your husband?”

• Señora Camargo: “He won’t be back. [Gerard pushes Señora Camargo back.] Don’t go. I could make you forget. [They kiss again.] I could make you forget.”

• Laurence Gerard: “But not for long and not enough. For that, you’d have to have a heart. [Gerard heads for the door.] Tell your husband I dropped around, but couldn’t wait. I got bored.”

I found the contradictions in this conversation fascinating. They seemed to sum up the general postwar mood, and not just the attitudes of Gerard and Señora Camargo. The entire conversation is deadly serious, but Gerard has some rather witty sarcastic lines: “Somebody must be passing out copies of my biography” “Don’t strain yourself.” He is the hero of the film, but he explains himself most completely to Señora Camargo, a temptress, a femme fatale, a supporting character who may also be a foil in her husband’s plot to get rid of Gerard. He says that war makes you forget, but then he explains that it makes you forget shallow and insignificant details and remember the important attributes of the people you love. Gerard’s life is full of purpose: He wants to find justice for his wife by finding his wife’s killer. Señora Camargo has no purpose, no function. She merely wants to enjoy life, and she doesn’t care how she does it. Gerard and Camargo never speak out of character, but they are talking about much larger issues that Americans—people around the world—faced squarely during and after the war.

The title of the film, Cornered, could apply to several characters. It describes Laurence Gerard in his quest to avenge his wife’s murder because, in some ways, he is backed into a corner as he scrambles to get his bearings immediately after his release from the Royal Canadian Air Force. He is cornered because he is driven to hunt for the man responsible for his wife’s death. And he is cornered by the continuing symptoms of his PTSD. The title of the film applies most clearly to his wife Celeste, the one character we never meet but is the sole focus of everything that Laurence does in the film. She and about fifty other French Resistance fighters were literally cornered in a cave in France and shot to death against a cave wall.

Cornered reflects the uncertainty of the immediate postwar period, when everything was still in turmoil. In this sense, the title reflects the continuing unrest, uncertainty, and dislocation that made so many feel trapped. The war and the fighting may have ended, but the violence and destruction had long-lasting effects. Much of Europe was in ruins after the war, and adapting to peacetime was another form of struggle that lasted several years.

Cornered may be set in another time period and in another country but, in many ways, it is really a simple story of perseverance in the face of adversity. I like Dick Powell, and I was impressed with his performance as Laurence Gerard. I thought Laurence Gerard’s story was uplifting, and Dick Powell, as usual, doesn’t disappoint in the lead role.

My blog post about Cornered is my entry for the World War II Blogathon. Click here for the complete list of participants and links to their entries. The blogathon is hosted by Jay at Cinema Essentials and Maddy at Maddy Loves Her Classic Films. Click on each blog title to visit their respective blogs.