What did you see? The 1948 thriller The Big Clock.

Who did it? Who was the perpetrator? Flavor Flav? No.

I was reading this book, The Film Noir Reader, and there were a lot of references to this movie, and then I got to a chapter ABOUT the movie, and I hadn’t seen the movie, so I had to stop reading it. The Big Clock is not readily available at least on streaming sites I use, so I tracked down a DVD. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I can finally keep reading that book on the train instead of playing dumb cellphone games.

George is an editor at a giant publishing empire run by Janoth. George runs the crime beat, finding perpetrators of scandalous crimes and interviewing them for their trashy crime magazine. He is the star among Janoth’s editors. Janoth is a subtle but threatening boss, constantly informing everyone how much of his time they’re wasting. George hasn’t had a vacation in a long time, and is about to go on his very much delayed honeymoon with his wife Georgette, and their 5 year old son – that’s how long ago their last vacation was! Janoth threatens George with blacklisting if George doesn’t stay to work on another story, but George won’t hear of it and leaves. He gets a drink at a nearby bar where he bumps into Pauline, and they hit it off based on their dislike for Janoth – it turns out she’s his mistress, who had been listening in on their conversations. He misses his train to get home to go on the trip, so he figures he’ll just pal around with Pauline for the night, platonically at least in this movie, barhopping at a hangout with a drinking buddy who has a lot of aliases. The bartender gives him a sundial as a joke. From there, they go to an antique store where George overpays for a painting because a lady there was trying to buy it herself. All of this comes up because he’s making an impressionable ass of himself to everyone. He drops Pauline off at her apartment, and manages to miss being seen by Janoth, as she had a specific appointment with him that evening.

Janoth is pissed that she blew him off, demanding to know who she was with that evening. She throws out one of the names that George’s drinking buddy used, Jefferson Randolph, and he demands to know who that is. Pauline insults Janoth, apparently standing up to him like no one has before, and in a fit of rage he grabs the sundial that George left behind and hits her with it, killing her. He goes to his assistant Steve’s apartment, where he confesses. Steve says that they can just cover it up and pin it on this Jefferson Randolph, and so they call George who has just reunited with Georgette and beg him to come back and find person of interest Jefferson Randolph without a reason why.

WELL, reader, this becomes a rollercoaster. George panics because he knew the name and puts together that Janoth knows something about his TOTALLY PLATONIC NIGHT OUT with Pauline, just not what or who. But George doesn’t know that Pauline is dead. So he heads back to the office where he is put in charge of a growing task force. Janoth grabs every resource in his media empire available for a manhunt across the city, offering rewards to citizens to come forward and identify Jefferson Randolph, while bribing witnesses to that evening’s events to leave town in case the cops find Pauline’s body.

WHERE DOES THE CLOCK COME IN, ALREADY? Um, I’ll have to read that chapter to see the significance of the big clock, other than George is racing against it to clear himself while Janoth becomes more calm as all the pieces fall into place for his cover-up.

Was it noir? No. There’s the book this is based on where George is a lot more of a skeeve, clearly having an affair with Pauline (and others?), but it’s a murder mystery howcatchum since we all know who did it. And it gets pretty slapsticky, mostly for comic relief because of how horrible Janoth is to everyone, the murder, and the denouement, to the point where it’s kind of corny. If you want to see a harder story about newsmen circling the clues leading to their publisher, check out Scandal Sheet.

Was it good? I loved it! And I laughed at the corny comic beats. But there’s other great comedy, at least to me – like when a reporter, over the phone, reads an obvious phony description of Jefferson Randolph, given to him by some of George’s friends, and Janoth instructs the editor to fire the reporter. The reporter has a look of resignation, that this is what he has to deal with, and starts thanking the reporter as the camera pulls away from him, following Janoth into the next room as he closes the door on everyone.

That’s how you close out scenes on characters, kids. You don’t gotta show every moment.

Anyway, George is lucky he has a few people on his side who will vouch for him or cover for him without even knowing why, or him even asking. Just a bunch of 1940’s goofballs staying in character as people around them need their help. Or the artist of the painting, recognizing George as the man they’re looking for because she was the woman he overbid for the painting. She doesn’t let on that it’s him once she meets him, and understands that maybe something bigger is going on and goes along with George (especially when he overpays her).

George tells Georgette the entire story including his TOTALLY INNOCENT PLATONIC NIGHT OUT with Pauline, and she reluctantly finds herself helping, mostly because like everyone else who meets Janoth or his staff, she hates their guts, and can be mobile and ask questions for George while he can’t. But for George to get out of the bind, the cops are going to have to believe every bit of the story, since most of what he says will be his word against, well, anyone’s at this point. I felt for George since his night out with Pauline was TOTALLY INNOCENT. His plight reminded me of Marta’s in Knives Out, where the more she learns about someone trying to frame her, the deeper she digs herself into the mess.

Anyway, highly recommended. Hopefully this gets streamed somewhere that doesn’t require a subscription.

Anything about the cast? Harry Morgan, who you’d know from Dragnet and MASH, plays a threatening goon and fixer for Janoth, and zeroes in on George as he acts more and more suspicious. Maureen O’Sullivan, who played Georgette, was married to the director, often taking breaks from show business for years to care for him when he was sick or to raise their children. One of her daughters is Mia Farrow. She played Dorothy in The Thin Man, one of the best mystery comedies ever.