Johnny O'Clock

Eddie Muller on TCM really talked "Johnny O'Clock" up for being both dripping in noir conventions and impossibly hard to follow. I didn't actually find either of those things to be true. It's a solid film for noir fans, but there a bazillion other noirs that I've both liked more and thought had more atmosphere.

I do like Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes a lot, though, so the film has both of those actors going for it.

Grade: B.

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.

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.

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.

Robert Rossen enjoyed a distinguished career in Hollywood as a writer and a director. He always showed he had an eye for the language his characters spoke and he also had an eye for detail, as he shows in this movie.

The main character is Johnny O'Clock, a man that is deemed guilty by the detective that is trying to solve a case. Inspector Koch is so determined that Johnny knows about the mystery, that he pursues him without realizing this man appears guilty, but only by association.

Johnny is a man that loves the good life. His association to the casino owner Marchettis, will be his downfall. Between these two men is Nelle, who is married to Marchettis, but doesn't want to let go of Johnny, with whom she's had an affair. To make matters worse, Johnny is in the middle of the mysterious murder of Harriet, the hatcheck girl he befriends at the casino.

The cinematography is excellent. There is a scene where Johnny offers a cigarette to Nancy, the sister of the murdered Harriet, and we see how the light shines in her face that heightens the emotion of the moment.

Dick Powell, as Johnny is properly dapper and vulnerable. He is a man that has seen it all, yet, he ends up falling for Nancy, in whom he sees a kind soul who loves him. Lee J. Cobb, an actor's actor, plays the Inspector Koch chewing his cigars and asking questions that Johnny doesn't care to answer.

The female roles are well played by Evelyn Keyes. This was an actress that had such a sophisticated look that is not hard to imagine why the director chose her to play Nancy. Equally excellent was Ellen Drew. She is Nelle, who can't let go of Johnny, at the expense of losing all she has by her marriage to Marchettis. Thomas Gomez is Marchettis, the casino owner. Mr. Gomez was properly oily and sly, as in most of the roles he played in films.

This movie was a discovery. Although a bit dated, one can see the impact it might have had in its day thanks to Mr. Rossen's brilliant direction and amazing cinematography.