Waste of time

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This movie stands out for films in the genre. It's a very gimmicky tale, and a bit confusing, but it remains entertaining and by the flick's end, it asserts its own individuality.Laughton is a wonderful villain here. His performance? For the most part, lethargic would be an apt description. His one 'Mr. Hyde' moment is his brutal killing of his paramour, a very pretty Rita Johnson, which stands out, because we see the tub of lard Laughton back to his old lethargy soon afterward, as he is enjoying a massage.Featured also is a strangely sinister Henry Morgan, who of course later became the amiable character actor Harry Morgan of 'MASH' and 'Pete and Gladys' from television.Maureen O'Sullivan is given a very nominal role as Ray Milland's long-suffering wife. She actually figures into the movie's melodramatic climax, but is seen throughout the film basically nagging her husband, who is of course 'married' to the Jonith Newspaper, Jonith being Laughton's role.Farrow and his screenwriter have fashioned an unusual murder tale where we are given all of the information. We are shown the murder, and, as even Sir Alfred Hitchcock would surely appreciate, we are left to agonize over Milland's plight of easily being framed for a crime he didn't commit.Venerable character actor Lloyd Corrigan is put to good use. George Macready is wonderful playing his usual shady, snaky character. Milland's performance is spirited and the action moves fast. It's easily a film you would appreciate more the second time.In short, the film is made with the assumption that the audience has a brain and an imagination. And let's not forget the wonderfully eccentric Elsa Lanchester, perfectly cast as the down-on-her-luck painter out to profit one way or another from the scandal.

This is a movie I've been aware of for most of my life but which had always eluded me, I didn't, in fact, know it even existed as a DVD until it appeared on my local library shelves on Saturday. By one of those uncanny coincidences a French cinema that screens what it chooses to call French Classics at 2 pm each Sunday showed yesterday Police Python 357, Alain Corneau's take on the Big Clock which appeared in 1976. As it happens I own 357 on DVD but having watched Clock on Saturday and decided Python was far superior I checked it out on the big screen and it really IS superior. Kenneth Fearing, who wrote the original novel, came up with a great idea around the same time that Orson Welles did; Welles called his idea Mr. Arkadin, Fearing, The Big Clock. Both share the same premise; a powerful man kills someone in a fit of rage, realizes that a third party has witnessed the crime so assigns someone to track down the witness, unaware - as is the tracker -that he IS the witness. There was a complete lack of chemistry between Ray Milland and Maureen O'Sullivan playing his wife, perhaps because the film was directed by her husband, John Farrow. It's almost painful to watch Charles Laughton's posturings as the tycoon-killer and in the last reel when he makes a dash for freedom his stooped, crouching run is a risible cross between Groucho Marx and Quasimodo (which Laughton had, of course, played ten years earlier. When you're watching the climax of a thriller you don't want to be thinking things like that. There was a remake in the 80's, No Way Out, but all you need to know is that nobody does it better .... than Welles and Corneau.

George Stroud (Ray Milland) is a successful reporter at a magazine run by tyrannical Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton). Earl accidentally kills his wife but frames George for it (sort of). There's LOTS more going on but I wouldn't dream of spoiling it for potential viewers.Exceptional film noir. The script has many twists and turns and lots of rapid fire one liners that keep moving things along at a brisk pace. It's also filmed mostly in dark places or with darkness lurking within the picture--very appropriate for film noir. There's some stunning sets here too--it looks like this was made on a big budget. The acting is good too. Milland is excellent as a completely innocent man who gets caught up in the murder. You can see him fighting to control his fear and anger as things get worse and worse. Laughton, surprisingly, is just OK. He has a small beard which looks pretty stupid on him and seems ill at ease with the role. He's not terrible but he can do much better. In a small role is Elsa Lancaster (Laughton's wife) who is hilarious. This is one of the rare films where the humor mixes perfectly with the mystery. Also on hand is the then unknown Harry Morgan--who doesn't have a word of dialogue but conveys all his emotions through body language and looks on his face.This was remade in the 1980s as "No Way Out". That's not a bad movie but it can't hold a candle to this. This seems to be hard to find for some reason but it's well worth seeking out. Recommended.

The leader of a crack team of investigative journalists is ordered to track down a murder suspect, and soon begins to discover all the evidence pointing to himself. The dilemma: how to elude his own investigation and, at the same time, locate the true killer? Complications begin to accumulate, with each new plot twist becoming more absurd until, at last, the entire knot of circumstance is neatly unraveled in several quick strokes. Charles Laughton gives one of his patented, meticulous ham performances as the dictatorial, clock obsessed publishing magnate, and Elsa Lancaster runs away with several scenes playing a dotty artist asked to provide a sketch of the hunted man but unwilling to identify her only patron. The film is enormously entertaining: one of the few comic thrillers that succeeds in being simultaneously sidesplitting and nerve-racking. Remade (badly) in 1987 as 'No Way Out'.