By David in TN
Friday, September 6, 2019 at 9:05:00 P.M. EDT
TCM's Film Noir of the Week returns this Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET.
This week's entry is The Big Clock (1948), directed by John Farrow, starring Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready, and Elsa Lanchester, Rita Johnson, Harry Morgan.
Film Noir Guide: "Milland is on the run (sort of) for a murder committed by his tyrannical boss (Laughton). All of the running takes place in the skyscraper headquarters of Laughton's publishing empire, where Milland manages the true crime magazine. While evading cops, co-workers, and witnesses who can place him with the victim (Johnson) on the night she was killed, Milland comes to believe that it was Laughton, who, in a fit of rage, bludgeoned his girlfriend to death... O'Sullivan plays Milland's impatient wife, tired of his broken promises to spend more time with her and their little boy; Macready is Laughton's sycophantic right-hand man and possibly his gay lover; Lancaster is a wacky artist who has been hired to draw a sketch of the man last seen with the victim; and Morgan is Laughton's mute bodyguard. More farce than thriller, The Big Clock (which refers to a master timepiece that synchronizes all of the clocks in Laughton's organization) is a sardonic and suspenseful look at murder and the dog-eat-dog-world of big business, as seen through the eyes of a self-confessed workaholic. Laughton scores big as the bullying executive with a big ego problem, and Lancaster is delightful as the eccentric artist."
This film may be closer to reality than the Film Noir Guide reviewer realizes. These "true crime reporters" wouldn't go anywhere near a story like the Knoxville Horror.
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET and Sunday Morning 10 am ET is Nocturne (1946). This RKO feature stars George Raft with Lynn Bari, Virginia Huston, Joseph Pevney, Edward Ashley, Mabel Paige, directed by Edward L. Martin.
ReplyDeleteFilm Noir Guide: "A songwriter (Ashley) writes his final tune, 'Nocturne,' while simultaneously breaking up with one of his numerous girlfriends. A shot rings out, and the composer falls to the floor dead--his masterpiece left unfinished. Despite the official verdict that Ashley committed suicide, homicide detective Raft becomes obsessed with proving murder even after he's suspended from the force. Using photographs that hung like trophies on the songwriter wall, Raft tracks don ten beautiful girls, all of whom Ashley had called 'Dolores.' The investigation seems to point to Bari as the prime suspect, but Raft doesn't rule out her nightclub singer sister (Huston), Huston's pianist husband (Pevney) or an oafish brute (Hoffman), whose job it is to push Pevney's piano from table to table for customer requests. Raft nicely underplays his role as the soft-spoken, two-fisted detective, who lives with his elderly mom (Paige), an amateur sleuth herself."
It was said George Raft "couldn't act," due to giving the same characterization every time, whether playing a detective or a mobster.