Film / The Big Clock

The Big Clock is a 1948 American Film Noir adapted by screenwriter Jonathan Latimer from the 1946 novel of the same name by Kenneth Fearing, directed by John Farrow and starring Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, and Maureen O'Sullivan.

Anticipating a much-needed vacation from his abusive boss Earl Janoth (Laughton), magazine editor George Stroud (Milland) finally reaches a breaking point when Janoth insists he skip his much-delayed honeymoon and go out of town on assignment. Stroud resigns and finds solace over multiple drinks at a local bar with Janoth's unhappy mistress, Pauline York (O'Sullivan). Together they come up with a half-inebriated plot to embarrass Janoth – but the plan takes an unexpected turn toward murder.

Remade as No Way Out (1987).

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The Big Tropes:

• Accidental Misnaming: Scatterbrained artist Louise Patterson keeps getting art critic Don Klausmeyer's name wrong; calling him (amongst other things) Klausman and Klausberger.
• The Big Board: When hunting fugitives, George Stroud and the staff of Crimeways magazine set up a blackboard known as 'the clue board', on which they list everything they learn about the fugitive. Under Janoth's orders, Stroud has to set one of these up to try and track down the mysterious "Jefferson Randolph" – even though Jefferson Randolph is actually him.
• Brick Joke: In her first scene, Louise Patterson mentions that her husband's whereabouts are unknown. Much later, she finds him: he's Stroud's actor friend, McKinley. And he's not particularly happy to see her.
• Character Name Alias: George Stroud uses the alias 'Jefferson Randolph': the name of a comedy Southern Gentleman his actor friend McKinley used to play on the radio.
• Chekhov's Gun: In an early scene, an elevator operator asks one of the passengers to move because he is blocking the door and the elevator won't move while the door is open. Much later, George jams the elevator door open to trap Bill in the elevator. And then, when Janoth attempts to escape, he dashes into the elevator and falls down the empty shaft.
• Clock King: Publishing magnate Earl Janoth is obsessed with times and clocks, and runs his life planned down to the second, and insists that all of his employees do the same. He even has all of the clocks in the building synced to the eponymous big clock, which not only shows local time, but the time in every time zone in the world.
  Earl Janoth: Sit down, gentlemen, sit down. I resent this, I resent this deeply. There are 2 billion, 81 million, 376 thousand seconds in the average man's life, each tick of the clock a beat of the heart. And yet you sit here uselessly ticking your lives away because certain members of our conference are not on schedule...
• Clock Tampering: While cleaning up the crime scene for Janoth, Steve Hagen turns a clock back several hours and stops it, making it appear it had been broken in the struggle, so it will appear the crime had occurred several hours earlier.
• Detective Mole: After he murders his mistress Pauline York, publisher Earl Janoth decides to frame the man he saw leaving her apartment before he arrived, whose name he thinks is Jefferson Randolph. To his end, he orders the staff of Crimeways magazine to devote their efforts to locating Randolph, and puts Crimeways editor George Stroud in charge of the hunt: not knowing that 'Jefferson Randolph' is really George Stroud.
• Distracted by the Sexy: When the elevator stops at the floor of Styleways fashion magazine, all of the men inside lean forward to ogle the models in the office. Later, one of the witness cannot give more than a vague description of George because he was too focused on 'the beautiful blonde' (Pauline York) who was with him.
• Drunken Montage: After getting drunk with Pauline and missing his train, George sets with her in search of a green clock. Losing sight of their original objective, the night descends into a drunken bar crawl; depicted by a montage of barrooms and neon signs.
• Extremely Short Timespan: From George Stroud's opening narration, we know that the the events take exactly 36 hours.
• Faint in Shock: The highly-strung antiques dealer faints on being confronted by George Stroud, whom he believes to be the murderer. Stroud hides his unconscious form inside a caravan and continues on his way. Later, during the gathering of the witnesses, the barman spots Stroud in the corridor and announces it's the murderer. The antiques dealer faints again.
• Frame-Up: After murdering his mistress, Earl Janoth conspires with his lawyer Steve Hagen to frame a man he believes to be named 'Jefferson Randolph': not realising that 'Randolph' is actually his editor George Stroud.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: Earl Janoth drags George Stroud back from his vacation to run the manhunt for 'Jefferson Randolph': not knowing that the man he believes to be Jefferson Randolph is actually Stroud.
• How We Got Here: Opens with George hiding inside the eponymous clock, and wondering how things had gotten so out of control in 36 hours. The movie then flashes back 36 hours.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: George Stroud was already already suspicious of Steve Hagen, but becomes convinced that Hagen is involved with the coverup of Pauline's murder when he mentions that Pauline was killed at 12:30 am while providing an alibi for Earl Janoth. Not only should Hagen not have known the time of the murder at all, but Stroud knows that Pauline was still alive at 1:00 am, and only someone involved in changing the clocks in Pauline's apartment would claim she was murdered at 12:30.
• Lockdown: In the Janoth Publications building, Stroud tries to avoid the witnesses, but one of them sees and recognizes him as the mystery man. Stroud slips away before the witness identifies him to the investigators, who now know that the mystery man is in the building but do not know his identity. All exits from the building are sealed, and the building's occupants must leave by the main door, with the witnesses watching for the mystery man. Building security men sweep the building to find the wanted man.
• Mean Boss: Earl Janoth is time-obsessed tyrant who runs his publishing empire with an iron hand, even down to controlling his employees' private lives. His acts include sacking a printer for disagreeing with his choice of ink colour, and:
  Earl Janoth: [talking on intercom to Steve Hagen] On the fourth floor – in the broom closet – a bulb has been burning for several days. Find the man responsible, dock his pay.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Earl Janoth sees George Stroud leaving the apartment of his mistress Pauline York and assumes that he is her lover. This leads to the argument in which he murders her. However, George had actually been visiting Pauline because she was attempting to persuade him to join her in a plan to blackmail Janoth. (And George had turned her down.)
• The Mistress: Pauline York is Earl Janoth's mistress. When Janoth sees Stroud leaving her apartment, he assumes she is cheating on him and murders her during the subsequent argument.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • The fearsome Earl Janoth is often regarded as a libelous parody of Henry Luce, the tyrannical publisher of Time, Life and Fortune magazines.
  • Word of God says that the character of Louise Patterson, played by Elsa Lanchester, is based on real-life American artist Alice Neel.
• Pulled from Your Day Off: Anticipating a much-needed vacation from his abusive boss Earl Janoth, magazine editor George Stroud finally reaches a breaking point when Janoth insists he skip his much-delayed honeymoon and go out of town on assignment.
• Suspect Is Hatless: Played with. Individually, the witness descriptions of the man seen with Pauline York are infuriatingly vague, with some bordering on being useless; such as the hatcheck girl giving a very detailed description of his hat, or artist Louise Patterson focusing on non-physical attributes, such as his smugness. However, by assembling all of the descriptions on The Big Board and focusing on the commonalities, the Crimeways staff are able to put together a fairly accurate description; although none of them immediately associate it with their editor George Stroud.
• The Voiceless: Earl Janoth's bodyguard/dogsbody is the silently menacing Bill Womack (played by a young Harry Morgan). He obviously can speak as he is sent to bribe the cab driver off-screen, but he never does so while onscreen.