An effete, continental businessman (Ray Milland trying to go American but unable to suppress his accent) is drawn into some murderous intrigue by two effete, continental villains (MacReady and Laughton) within the glamorous world of magazine publishing. Like another viewer here, I was excited to finally be putting this disk into my DVD player. My interest stemmed from the noir angle; but this is immature noir, more like Film Moderne. The movie parades slick objects past the camera, instead of making slick imagery out of commonplace settings, as noir does. It's a throwback to '30s Deco/luxe movies (moreso even than 'This Gun for Hire') with swanky drawing rooms, polite society, fey/snide villains, a generic love relationship with a 'good girl' (soooo NOT noir), and a middle-gray palette. A viewer wouldn't be surprised if Margaret Dumont or Fred Astaire showed up. There's no ambiguity, no dark palette, no dramatic lighting, and no strikingly composed frames. This is conventional, retrograde stuff, even for 1948.
It's really ruined in its first minutes. The movie works a dozen clocks into its plot, but the strongest image is right at the beginning: Milland, trapped inside an enormous moderne lobby clock. If it starts that well, it must be pretty good right? Unfortunately the rest of the production is a gloss... It never shows us anything better. Clocks are repeatedly invoked but only as a gimmick, not an idea. 'Clock' could really use the jolt of energy and forward momentum usually supplied by 'the tough guy,' a type noticeably missing here. The box art shows Milland holding a gun, an item which never comes within 10 feet of him in the movie. The big difference between 'The Big Clock' and a good noir, is that a good noir is involving. 'Ray Milland' and 'involving' don't seem to occupy the same universe.
The Coens borrowed this entire milieu for The Hudsucker Proxy.
It's really ruined in its first minutes. The movie works a dozen clocks into its plot, but the strongest image is right at the beginning: Milland, trapped inside an enormous moderne lobby clock. If it starts that well, it must be pretty good right? Unfortunately the rest of the production is a gloss... It never shows us anything better. Clocks are repeatedly invoked but only as a gimmick, not an idea. 'Clock' could really use the jolt of energy and forward momentum usually supplied by 'the tough guy,' a type noticeably missing here. The box art shows Milland holding a gun, an item which never comes within 10 feet of him in the movie. The big difference between 'The Big Clock' and a good noir, is that a good noir is involving. 'Ray Milland' and 'involving' don't seem to occupy the same universe.
The Coens borrowed this entire milieu for The Hudsucker Proxy.