The Clock

It is, in a word, breathtaking. What I especially love is the duality of Robert Walker and Judy Garland: they are both simple, lonely souls who literally stumble over each other one day then get repeatedly teamed up in a series of seemingly innocent adventures (they ride a double decker bus; she shows him Central Park; he shows her an art museum)- each time attempting to part company but continuing to draw towards each other. When you analyze it, their courtship is almost fantastic, but the time of the film's 1945 release more than allows for the magic of budding romance. It is not really a sugary film; all the while the two leads communicate, you can see the improbability of their situation on their faces. When a milkman rescues them from being stranded at the end of a long date- and they wind up doing his milk route- they burst out laughing at their situation. It makes a later scene of a subway separation particularly heartbreaking, and its later reunion at a train depot breathtaking (I guarantee tears in your eyes)- and that's sort of what the movie's all about. In retrospect, it's a bit ironic to watch the young sweetness of Walker and Garland- two stars who had tragic, frequently unhappy existences. Their chemistry here as strangers who become friends who fall in love is mesmerizing. Ms. Garland does not sing, but her dark, exquisite eyes are music to the camera lens. Several bios have cited this film and MEET ME IN ST LOUIS as the two movies which captured Ms. Garland at her most beautiful, and I suspect that has something to do with the taste and artistry of the director- who was in love with (and would soon marry) his star. Grab immediately.

A simple little wartime love story about a boy and girl who fall in love during his 24-hour leave is what lies at the heart of "The Clock". Amazingly, considering how authentic all the New York scenes look, the entire film was done at MGM's studio lot--even the scenes at Penn Station which was recreated by studio craftsmen with startling accuracy.

But the most genuine moments in the film are the performances of the two stars--Judy Garland (in her first non-singing dramatic role) and Robert Walker. The freshness of their appeal is evident in every scene--whether it's their first awkward meeting, the night they spend helping milkman James Gleason deliver his goods, or their last desperate moments together. Vincente Minnelli's sensitive direction shows Garland at her most poignant and vulnerable. Robert Walker makes an excellent co-star.

By all means, catch this little gem if you can. It's one of the best wartime films, a simple romance, honest and warmly appealing. Should make servicemen recall the hectic moments some of them may have gone through themselves.

Maybe the most idyllic of those ‘40s movies that confected a storybook New York City on the back lots of Hollywood studios, The Clock tells the story of a whirlwind wartime romance so simply and deftly that it's almost mythic – like a legend Ovid might have recounted. It also preserves the first adult dramatic role, with nary a note nor a time-step, Judy Garland was to undertake, under the Lubitsch-like touch of her director (and new husband) Vincente Minnelli. Trusting his wife to hold the screen on her own merits, he toned down or tossed away the busy stage business so characteristic of the decade, ending up with something purified – close to perfect.

Indiana small-town boy Robert Walker, on a short leave from the Army before being shipped overseas, loiters in Pennsylvania Station when Garland trips over his gangly legs and breaks a heel. It's classic MGM `meet-cute,' but Minnelli doesn't milk it – they get the heel fixed and find themselves strolling through Manhattan. Though on the verge of diplomatically ditching him, impatient with his diffident, aw-shucks ways, Garland politely hangs on until finally she has to catch a bus home; she consents to meet him later, under the clock at the Astor Hotel, for a real date.

Her chatterbox of a roommate upbraids her for letting herself be `picked up' by a man in uniform, and Garland dithers but finally shows up half a hour late. They spend a stiff evening together, filled with awkward pauses and edgy moments of friction, but end up talking under the stars in Central Park. Having missed the last bus home, they accept a lift from a milkman. In a sequence that comes close to cliché but pulls up short, they spend the night together – delivering bottles throughout the city for their suddenly incapacitated driver. Next morning, they lose one another, thanks to the subway system, ultimately reunite and, after running an obstacle course festooned with red tape, marry, confident that the future will find them reunited once more.

There's not much incident, much action, and what there is Minnelli metes out judiciously. As a drunk who precipitates the incident that throws them together for the night, Keenan Wynn contributes a bravura turn (surely improvised) that teeters on the borderline between funny and obnoxious. As the milkman and his wife, who feeds them a farmhands' breakfast, James and Lucile Gleason offer the young lovers a preview of how young lovers become old friends (as well they might, since the actors were one another's spouses).

Only in the difficulties they encounter in trying to get hitched – licenses, blood tests, civil servants' prerogatives – does the does the story threaten to careen off into frantic farce. But Minnelli reaches beyond that to find the urgency, the sickening sense that they might fail – and Garland heart-wrenchingly sums it up afterwards, at an ominously quiet wedding dinner at an automat, when she cries `It was so...ugly!' But after that discordant note Minnelli, ever the Italian, strives for consonance, and finds it in an empty church where Garland and Walker softly recite the marriage ceremony in a pew. Here, Minnelli adds his own benediction: An altar boy obscures the silent couple, sitting quietly in the background, as he enters to extinguish the candles, one by one.

Two tragic, wonderful performers, Robert Walker and Judy Garland, star as a soldier and the girl he meets in "The Clock," a wartime love story also starring James Gleason, Lucille Gleason, Ruth Brady, Marshall Thompson, and Keenan Wynn.

Joe (Walker), on leave before he ships out, is in the big city when he meets Alice (Garland) as the heel falls off of her shoe on an escalator. His charm and enthusiasm soon overcome her, and before she knows it, she's agreed to spend time with him. They embark on an adventure which takes them to the museum and Central Park, where they meet milkman Gleason and end up delivering his products when he is accidentally knocked in the face by a drunk (Keenan Wynn) in a coffee shop. When day dawns, Alice and Joe come to a realization.

This is a frenetic, high-energy movie, beautifully orchestrated by Vincente Minnelli, who manages to keep the tender love story in focus as the couple dashes around New York, losing one another, finding one another, doing a milk run, the pace picking up and becoming even more frantic as they race against the clock towards the end of the film. Then it all stops, and there is calmness and silence as "The Clock" draws to a close.

The clock is a symbol of the limited time they have together, and a symbol of their meeting place - under the clock at the Astor Hotel - and where they find one another after one makes it on the subway and the other doesn't. It's a haunting symbol as Minnelli vividly paints a New York atmosphere with its crowds and bustling with the underpinning of World War II. And imagine - you could go into Central Park at night in the '40s and come out alive.

Judy Garland, in the same studio as Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, and many other beauties, probably never appreciated what made her beautiful. In "The Clock," "The Pirate," and "Meet Me in St. Louis," she is at her loveliest, slender and luminous with enormous eyes and a sweet, girlish, vulnerable quality. Walker, who would be bloated and dead six years after this film's release, was doubtless still reeling from problems in his private life when he made this film, but he is handsome, deft with a line, and brimming with youth. He and Garland make a wonderful couple.

It's sad to think about what happened to these actors, but one is confident about the characters in "The Clock." Released in 1945, the war would soon be over, and Garland's ending monologue (originally to be said by Walker) rings true. "Whoever is making the arrangements is doing pretty well by us," she says. Too bad it wasn't the same for them in real life.

This is a warm and fuzzy movie about life back home during World War II. Unlike Since You Went Away, which involved an entire family and community, The Clock is centered around a young couple and is set entirely on the home front.

Robert Walker (Joe) and Judy Garland (Alice) are the romantic couple.

But, first, Joe, a country boy arrives at Penn Station in New York, goes out on the sidewalk, and is awe-struck by the skyscrapers of the city. He sees a wonderful panorama of New York City as it was in the spring of 1945.

Joe has no idea how he will spend his 48-hour leave. He is caught up in the crowd, pushed here and there, and finally, sits at the foot of the stair rail on the steps in front of Penn Station between the steps and an escalator.

Alice stumbles on Joe's gear, nearly falls, and gets her shoe heel caught in the escalator and broken off.

She yells for somebody to retrieve her shoe heel and Joe is accommodating.

From this point on in the movie, the couple are together almost constantly and visit various landmarks and attractions in New York.

Alice finally goes back to her apartment and is quizzed about her long absence during the afternoon and told by her roommate not to fool with military guys. Alice's response is half-hearted at first, but then she begins to think her roommate is right.

Alice's thoughts drift back to Joe, who is waiting at the clock of a prominent hotel, their meeting place at 7 p.m. Joe is in despair when Alice doesn't show. Eventually, she arrives.

As one would say, the plot thickens, and there are twists and turns, but most of all, accidental separations that are heartbreaking.

The longer the couple is together they realize they love each other and should get married, which is a further complication in the plot.

The previous reviewer threatened to turn this movie off from boredom? Why does this movie even around today and why is it highly rated? First, it was what the public wanted then. It is 1945 and people are war-weary. They wanted some about the war but from a different point of view.

Also, up to this time Judy Garland was in musicals or sang in each movie in which she played. It shows what a dramatic actress she could be.

Robert Walker is at his best even though he was recently divorced from Jennifer Jones.

So, this is WWII without blood and guts, rationing, etc. It is a love story that filled a need at a previous time in our history. For those of us who saw it on its first run, it is a special joy to see it in our twilight years because of all of the wonderful memories it brings back.