Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
The Big Clock (1947)
Director: John Farrow
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Excellent noir thriller in which crime-journalist Milland, innocently involved with a girl subsequently murdered by his megalomaniac boss Laughton, is then commissioned by Laughton to find the culprit. When he himself becomes the framed suspect, the trap seems closed... With strong performances (especially Laughton as the gross, sexually insecure tycoon, confident in his ability to control the law through his wealth and status), the film also delights through Farrow's evocative direction: the newspaper conglomerate's enormous clock indicating not only the race against time but also the inhumanly inflexible world in which the action takes place; the phallic ornament with which the impotent murderer kills his mocking mistress; and John Seitz's marvellous high contrast photography, portraying a world of isolation in which nothing is as it seems. The source novel by Kenneth Fearing was remade, much altered, as No Way Out (1986).Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: John Farrow
Producer: Richard Maibaum
Cast: Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready, Rita Johnson, Elsa Lanchester full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Duration: 95 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now