Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A top line description says this is a romantic comedy. And so it is: a soldier on leave in New York City meets a girl. They fall in love and get married before he ships out to the war.But the movie, intelligently directed and wonderfully acted, never loses sight of how lonely the two main characters are, how aware they are the randomness of how they came together and the risk they are taking being in love.Two scenes stand out. They get separated in a crowded subway and realize with real despair that they have no idea how to find each other. The emotion in the scene and when they find each other is real, not rom com cute. Toward the end of the movie, they are married. It's the morning after wedding, their only night together. They silently pour coffee, married, yet still strangers, facing an enormously uncertain future as he ships off in the morning. The war hangs over the scene the way it hangs over the entire movie.Their wedding ceremony itself, In a closed government office with the words drowned out by trains, followed by a meal in a cheap dinner, manages to be funny while staying consistent with the undercurrent of loneliness. It is an wonderfully mature romance, closer in tone to Lost in Translation than a typical rom com.One more note: New York City should have been billed as a co-star. It captures the feel of the city as few movies ever manage.

A sweet romance about a New York woman (Judy Garland) and a soldier on leave (Robert Walker) whose love affair is hastened by the soldier's impending return to an unknown future."The Clock" isn't a great film. There are moments that drag the film down, like an extended scene featuring Keenan Wynn as a drunk in a bar. But as the movie nears its conclusion, the final scenes convey a real sense of urgency that likely resonated strongly with audiences at the time who were sending loved ones off to war not sure whether or not they would see them again. Garland and Walker have real chemistry, and it's a treat to see shots of New York City as it looked in 1945 (a scene set on the street outside the Met is especially fun), even if the entire film was filmed on a studio lot in Hollywood.Grade: B+

After having seen how many Judy Garland-starring musicals?, I was taken by surprise by this unheralded simple love story, released as WWII was winding down. Unfortunately, it had two things going against it for contemporary audiences. firstly, it was the only film until her 40s in which Judy didn't sing one song. Second, with its theme of an extreme shotgun wedding involving a boyish-looking soldier on a short shore leave and a girl he just accidentally met, probably many potential patrons stayed away, hoping to see something that didn't remind them of the now stale war. Nonetheless it was a heart-warming story appropriate for the times. It's often slow moving, with many awkward moments, when the tentative couple are unsure what to do next.To me, the film has a dream-like quality to it, rather like, yes, "The wizard of Oz"!. After all, the basic plot is hardly plausible, given all the psychological, practical, and legal barriers to this story actually happening the way it's presented. Judy's performance and some of the scene set ups also add to the dream-like quality. While Joe(Robert Walker) soon is sure that Alice(Judy) is a right girl for him, a shot-gun romantic dalliance with a fly-by-night nobody corporal, let alone marriage, goes against all Alice's stated principles. Besides, Joe has his heart set on returning to his Indiana small town and becoming a carpenter, whereas Alice says she hoes to stay in NYC, having moved there from the Midwest several years ago. But, Joe's extreme persistence, best exemplified by his running after the bus taking her home after they agree to part, finally begins to wear down Alice's formidable psychological defenses.I have one major criticism. Alice becomes very defensive at Joe's probing questions regarding her romantic life, while they are having dinner during their evening date. In fact, she almost leaves him there. Next thing we know, they are strolling through a woods(presumably Central Park), deep in thought and conversion about their relationship. Joe argues that clearly their accidental meeting in the train station was predestined by some higher power. Now, Alice says she agrees, implying that she might be ready to throw caution to the wind and accept a marriage proposal. A formal proposal doesn't come until they later loose contact with each other in the bustle of the subway station, and finally are reunited when both decide to go to the spot where they first bumped into each other. Meanwhile, they engage in a passionate kiss before realizing that the midnight clock has struck, and there are no more buses to take Alice home. While looking for a taxi, they are befriended by a milkman, who had begun his nightly delivery route. Thus begins the much more lively second portion of the film.Alice and Joe, being apparently ordinary conservative young people, with otherwise little in common, their interactions as a couple are mostly superficial and boring, excepting their several instances of nearly permanently losing touch with each other, and their exasperating experiences in trying to obtain a marriage license within 24 hrs. in a world where the usual absolute minimum is 3 days. Otherwise, it's some of the character actors and their interactions with these characters that provide much of the interest. There's James Gleason, as the friendly milkman, who gives them some go-ahead encouragement about their still wobbly relationship. There's Keenan Wynn, as a talkative drunk, who injects some badly needed excitement into the proceedings in one scene. Later, there are several characters involved in the mad race to obtain a marriage license before Joe has to leave. Usually, initially, they give the couple the run around, then try to help them skirt the normal bureaucratic maze when they realize their extreme time-limited situation.Curiously, after they finally extract a marriage license, they are remarkably somber while eating in a restaurant. Then, Judy begins to sob hysterically, complaining that she doesn't really feel married. It turns out that she really regrets the lack of a church wedding, not just the hurried civil ceremony. In lieu of a church ceremony, they enter a church and, without the benefit of a clergyman, say their wedding vows to each other, which they read from a pew book. In the parting scene, when Joe has to take the train to his ship, there is no crying by Alice. She is confident that Fate will take care of Joe and he will return in one piece to take her to his small town.While Walker was romancing Judy on screen, director Minnelli was romancing her off screen, and they would become engaged by the end of production. Judy had requested Minnelli as the finishing director, being dissatisfied with the original director.It turned out that Walker and Judy would once again be featured together, the next year, in the Jerome Kerns-honoring musical extravaganza "'Til the Clouds Roll By". Walker, playing Kerns, has another unlikely love-at-first-sight romance with another, while Judy played the historic singer Marilyn Miller.

The Clock directed by Vincente Minelli (who by the way got married with the leading actress Judy Garland) is a romantic love story, which takes place in New York during the WWII.The story begins when a soldier (Robert Walker) travels to New York for the weekend and meets a girl (Judy Garland) at the railway station. They start spending time together, and fall in love without even knowing each other very well.Even that the story has its flaws and some plot twists are a bit unbelievable, it has something "magical" in it. Because the characters are still well created and the milieus of the movie are fantastic. Even that most of this movie was filmed in the Hollywood studios, but well the cinematography isn't the only thing which creates a good atmosphere.The sudden love of two strangers also seems a bit unbelievable at some points, but still, that probably is what many people dream of, and this was made in the year of 1945, pure escapism. A movie is always a reflection of its time.This is also great entertainment. They can't make romantic films like this anymore in Hollywood. I can name dozens of great love stories from 30-40's, but can I do the same from 90-00's? No I can't.7/10 A nice, simple love story with sympathetic characters. Recommended to everyone!