Thirty-six hours earlier, Stroud is eager to embark on a long-postponed honeymoon in Wheeling, West Virginia with his wife Georgette and son. The clock dominates the lobby of the Janoth Publications building in New York City, where Stroud works. George Stroud, editor-in-chief of Crimeways magazine, hides from building security inside the "big clock," which is the largest and most sophisticated clock ever built. Noel Neill has an uncredited part as an elevator operator very early in the film. Elsa Lanchester and Harry Morgan, in an early film role, also appear. The black-and-white film is set in New York City, and stars Ray Milland, Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Sullivan. The Big Clock is a 1948 American film noir directed by John Farrow and adapted by novelist-screenwriter Jonathan Latimer from the 1946 novel of the same title by Kenneth Fearing. THE BIG CLOCK, screen play by Jonathan Latimer, based on the novel by Kenneth Fearing directed by John Farrow produced by Richard Maibaum for Paramount Pictures. A leg on somebody's "Oscar" is won by her with this role.Indeed, some minor pedestal might be provided, too, for "The Big Clock," a seventeen-jewel entertainment guaranteed to give a good-if not perfect-time.On the stage at the Paramount are Duke Ellington and his orchestra, with Ella Fitzgerald, the Four Step Brothers and George Kirby. Miss Lanchester is truly delicious with her mad pace and her wild, eccentric laugh. Exceptional, however, are several people who play small but electric character roles: Elsa Lanchester as a crack-pot painter and Douglas Spencer as a barman, best of all. Charles Laughton is characteristically odious as the sadistic publisher and George Macready is sleek as his henchman, while Maureen O'Sullivan is sweet as Ray's nice wife. (That's why we urge your close attention-just to see if there is anything to catch.)As the self-protection clue-collector, Ray Milland does a beautiful job of being a well-tailored smoothie and a desperate hunted man at the same time. But the plot moves so rapidly over them and provides such absorbing by-play that this not-too-gullible observer can't precisely put his finger upon one. No doubt there are holes in the fabric-even a rip or two, perhaps-and the really precision-minded are likely to spot them the first time around. And the other fellow is-the editor.Out of this cozy situation of a guy trying to square himself, even though he is thoroughly innocent and knows perfectly who the murderer is, Scriptwriter Jonathan Latimer and Director John Farrow have fetched a film which is fast-moving, humorous, atmospheric and cumulative of suspense. The clues have been rigged to make it look as though the murderer were another fellow. In a mad, jealous moment, he kills his sweetie, a not very temperate young thing, and then calls upon the cagey editor of his crime magazine to find the man. And the fellow who does the murder is known by the audience all along.He's a dynamic publishing magnate, ruler of a realm of magazines and a double-dyed rogue who runs his business on the split-tick of a huge electric clock. As a matter of fact, the policemen are not called in until the end. Nary a wise-guy policeman clutters up the death-room or the clues. For this is a dandy clue-chaser of the modern chromium-plated type, but it is also an entertainment which requires close attention from the start.Actually, in the manner of the best detective fiction these days, it isn't a stiff and stark whodunit activated around some stalking cop. Note well, we make the stipulation that you should be a devotee of detective films and that you should have in your mind the mechanisms of precision peculiar to the cult. When you hear the musical chime at the end of this ticking review of the Paramount's "The Big Clock," which opened at that theatre yesterday, it will be exactly the time for all devotees of detective films to make a mental memorandum to see it without possible fail.
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