Johnny O'Clock

One gets the impression from watching JOHNNY O'CLOCK that the whole idea of the film is to give DICK POWELL a tough screen presence--the kind that suited Alan Ladd in his early films. He's a cool man surrounded by a bunch of surly characters out to get him. He's good with a punch and a punch line, but all the while he leaves you feeling this story is too slow-paced and a bit rambling to become a tight thriller such as MURDER, MY SWEET.

Everyone in the cast does their job nimbly, with LEE J. COBB chewing away at this cigar to make sure he steals every other scene, and ELLEN DREW and EVELYN KEYES doing well in contrasting femme leads. The sets have a noir look with excellent B&W photography, but the trouble is the script which is not compelling enough to draw a viewer into the story about a murdered hatcheck girl (NINA FOCH) and the search for her killer.

All the elements of film noir are there but Robert Rossen's direction cannot tie them together with a tight enough grip. Nevertheless, worth a watch if you're a fan of this genre.

I loved the dialog and the endless stream of wise cracks, many said by Dick Powell, who was great at that sort of thing. After watching a lot of film noirs, I think Powell and Sterling Hayden are my two favorites in that genre. Powell was suave, sophisticated, a quick man with a quip and still a tough guy. Hayden exuded raw manliness, a no-nonsense thug whether he was a good guy or a crook.

That said, the film is only so-so because, like a number of films being viewed today, some 60 years later, they are a bit slow and sometimes too talky. This film begins to bog down halfway through and it gets tough to finish, even if you like the actors in here, which I certainly do.

Besides Powell, Cobb and the tough guys, there are some really good examples of film noir women in here. My favorite was Ellen Drew as "Nelle Marchettis." I only wish her role had been bigger. Those who like Evelyn Keyes will be more pleased, since her role is bigger. She reminds me a bit of another "tough film noir broad:" Marie Windsor. Then there is Nina Foch as the softer "Harriet Hobson," who sadly leaves the movie in the first half hour.

Overall, if you like actors and some snappy lines, check this out. I saw it on TCM. To my knowledge, it's not available on disc. If you are looking for an action-crime film, however, go on to something else.

A bit too jokily entertaining when it should be entertainingly disturbing, this first film from Robert Rossen is a fairly good noir that ultimately disappoints, both with its hopeful if not exactly happy ending (noir, by definition, should be on the bleak side throughout) and by there being a hole in the screen where an interesting relationship between the title character and Nancy Hobson should be. This later flaw is due partly to Evelyn Keyes' limitations as an actress and partly by Rossen's as a screenwriter, namely that the guy cannot write romantic dialogue without its sounding like a parody of itself. Where he is on firmer ground, both as writer and director, is with his supporting players. Lee J Cobb's fatherly cop, Thomas Gomez's vain, self loathing, jealous mob boss, Ellen Drew's venal moll and John Kellog's resentful body man with a homoerotic interest in Johnny all come vividly alive through Rossen's crisp, clever dialogue and the skills of the above actors. As for Dick Powell he shows once again that the farther he got from the song and dance stuff the better his performance. Give it a B minus.

This glamorous post-war crime story has a protagonist who carefully walks that fine line between cops and crooks. In fact--that seems to be almost a requirement in the best noir flicks. Dick Powell is Johnny O'Clock, a smooth operator with an eye for getting himself the best of whatever's going around. Is he selfish down to the core, or is there a lingering speck of humanity in there somewhere? O'Clock is a partner in a swank gambling house, and when the hat-check girl is found murdered, he gets involved with crooked cops and more crooked criminals. A great supporting cast and nice 'behind the scenes at the casino' feel add to the fun. Powell played a similar role in Murder My Sweet, but his Phillip Marlowe was more the wise-cracking smart-Alec, while Johnny O'Clock is decidedly more shady. A real treat.

At the centre of Rossen's film noir debut feature is Dick Powell's hard bitten Johnny, a casino manager and junior partner in a gambling club who has a selfish streak a mile wide. O'Clock gets up late, always looks after number one, and has enjoyed a twenty year partnership with club owner Pete Marchettis. To him - as he confesses to Nancy - a new roulette wheel is just as attractive as a woman. But there are cracks in his icy façade. He's had an affair with Marchetti's wife and she still wants him back. O'Clock's weakness (if one can see it like that) is the underlying humanity in his makeup, an eventual need for affection in the arms of a woman. Although resolutely cold to Mrs Marchetti, the death of the Hobbs sister and his growing distaste for the cop Blaydon (elegantly conveyed in the discarded-sandwich scene they share close to the start of the film) gradually reveal his emotional feet of clay. In fact Blaydon reflects many of the unpleasant aspects of O'Clock's character, ones which could so easily come to dominate his personality: total greed and emotional coldness. The resolute Inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb in an excellent cigar-chomping heavy performance) is hounding them both and, despite his casual coolness, we feel that inside O'Clock is secretly nettled by a feeling of oncoming nemesis.

In fact, for most of the film, O'Clock has done nothing overtly wrong. He is merely guilty by association with the worst elements, and by his disdain for any emotional display or real involvement with others. Marked, then dogged by fate, caught in a web outside of his control (Blaydon's emotional cruelty, the resultant suicide, then murder, the mix up with the watch), O'Clock's life increasingly assumes a powerlessness typical of film noir.

This is a film with many of the genre archetypes intact: hard bitten dialogue, a drunken moll, noir 'fetish' items for the camera's gaze (guns, watches/clocks, cigarette cases etc) and a pervading sense of cynicism and corruption. O'Clock's close relationship with his 'flatmate' Charlie (he wakes him up at the beginning of the film for instance) adds a suspicion of homo-eroticism to the plot. In fact one suspects that jealousy perhaps is what really lies at the back of Charlie's eventual betrayal.

What makes this film somewhat different from others of its type is the cool character of O'Clock: unusually for a noir hero, for a long time he is distanced from the growing predicament. Only as the film proceeds, starting with his angst over the suicide, does a real feeling of paranoia and fate set in.

Rossen's composition within the frame is effective throughout the film and makes for some memorable set ups, while his handling of a complicated plot assured, belying the fact that it is a first film. Although his work in noir would reach its height in the superb 'Body and Soul' (also with Thomas Gomez), never the less Johnny O'Clock is an excellent example of the genre and well worth viewing. Watch out for a young Jeff Chandler in a minor role.