The Big Clock (1948)

Rarely has a Netflix jacket description been so misleading. It says that this story concerns a man, George Stroud (Ray Milland), framed for murder by his boss, Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton). In truth, Janoth wishes to frame the one witness to his whereabouts at the time of the murder, believing said witness not to be Stroud. He even orders Stroud, in charge of investigative journalism, to dig up as much as he can about the mysterious fugitive. With self-protective deceptions on both sides, no character fully comprehends the situation until near the end of the 95 minutes.

Unsurprisingly, such intrigue and complexity, which can be confusing and amusing in turn, come from a novel that debuted a couple years earlier. Kenneth Fearing (appropriate name for a thriller novelist) wrote it partly to express his anger at his own overbearing boss at TIME, hence the otherwise curious obsession with clocks at a news magazine corporation. Funnily enough, contemporary reviews in TIME praised both the book and the movie.

When I read the description, I immediately thought of Alfred Hitchcock, who had a thing for the plights of wrongly accused men. Well, Hitchcock never made their difficulty quite so oblique, and director John Farrow isn't remembered primarily for crime dramas or thrillers (when remembered at all), but it still has a pretty Hitchcockian feel even by noir standards. Romantic conflict with Mrs. Stroud (Maureen O'Sullivan) and a few comic relief characters, such as a quirky artist who goes through husbands as fast as easels (Elsa Lanchester), help that sentiment along.

Might I also mention one of Janoth's closest stooges, Bill (Harry Morgan). He never speaks, is rarely addressed personally, and mainly just stands around glaring. At first I took his glare to indicate that he knew or suspected something about the murder for some reason, but it turns out he's just given to it. No doubt the point is to intimidate us before he takes on a thuggish task, which would work better if he didn't look rather shrimpy next to other men on screen.

Nevertheless, considering how rarely Stroud is in anything like immediate danger, the film is pretty thrilling when it's not aiming to make us laugh or hate Janoth. I recommend it as a mild departure from the usual noir. And from whatever else you watch, for that matter.