L'horloge

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.

This film gives Judy Garland a chance (her first, I think?) to appear in a non-singing role, as Alice Mayberry, a hopeless romantic who works in New York. When she meets soldier Joe Allen (Robert Walker) they fall deeply in love with each other and are soon beating a path to the altar.

As a war-based romance, this story moves fast because it has to - in a matter of days Alice and Joe know they belong together, and we know it too, thanks to the scenes we see in the museum, in the park away from the bustling traffic, and within the railway station. Garland and Walker are both excellent, the perfect representations of dewy-eyed young lovers.

We're not disappointed by the little roles, either - James and Lucille Gleason play a friendly milkman and his wife, Keenan Wynn plays a drunk in a diner, Ruth Brady plays Alice's housemate Ruth, and Marshall Thompson gathers many laughs all to himself as Ruth's silent boyfriend Bill, never allowed to say anything in response to her constant questioning, gossiping, and nagging.

Directed by Garland's husband Vincente Minnelli, 'The Clock' is a quiet and lovely film, not often quoted as one of the greats, but a good example of the best entertainment MGM could offer in the 1940s.

Perhaps not one of the all-time great wartime romance films ('Casablanca' being the quintessential one), but still ranks very highly as one. It really charms and touches, has great performances and direction and it is among the best films and performances of both Judy Garland and Robert Walker.

Where 'The Clock' fares least is in some of the background photography, which is less than audacious and gives the impression that it was done in haste and it is a shame because 'The Clock' does look lovely everywhere else. Most of the photography is handsomely done, the production design elegant and atmospheric and really liked the fact that the city felt like a main character rather than just a city or a set.

George Bassman's music score is lush without being over-bearing or too syrupy, while it will never be one of the greatest film scores it works within the film and complements the atmosphere well. The script avoids being overwrought and melodramatically soap-opera-like, dangers in romance films and that both those traps have been fallen into has hardly been unheard of. The story is full of charm and touching pathos, with an ending that wrenches the heart.

Vincente Minnelli's direction is some of the most sensitive he's ever given and he clearly shows a love for Garland and a passion for the story.

As wonderful a singer she was, anybody doubting Garland's acting ability (never have by the way) should look to her beguiling and poignant performance in 'The Clock' (as well as her best performance ever in 'A Star is Born') for a re-assessment. Walker similarly is a charming and sincere leading man, not only one of his better performances but to me his second best after his iconic Bruno Anthony in Hitchcock's 'Stranger on a Train'. Their chemistry is irresistibly beautiful, and it brings me to tears knowing that both met tragic ends so young.

They are supported by a superb supporting cast, a sympathetic James Gleason and a very funny Marshall Thompson standing out. Not to mention Keenan Wynn as a very naturalistic and scarily realistic but entertaining drunk.

Overall, great and moving film that should be better known. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Very simple, yet engaging, "The Clock" makes use of some rather interesting casting, some slight but sincere characters, and a story that still works all right despite no longer having its original immediacy. Judy Garland and Robert Walker work surprisingly well as the lead couple, and James Gleason probably makes the picture with his scenes. The title is appropriate, both for its reference to the role of the station clock in the plot and also as something of a simple metaphor of the broader situation faced by the characters.

Generally, the best reason for having Garland in the cast is for her singing, yet here she carries the role without using her best-known talent. By keeping the character simple but believable, it works all right. Whenever you see Walker, it's almost impossible not to think of "Strangers on a Train" (although, of course, that film came later), yet here he also succeeds with a very different, sensitive character.

In contrast, Gleason plays exactly the kind of character role that he does best and most naturally, and it's hard to see the movie working without him.

He comes along at just the right time to keep things from petering out, and his character seems to provide exactly what was needed to keep the story from getting off-track.

Much of the movie is not especially memorable, and the production is unspectacular, though solid. Yet it's hard not to come away with a positive feeling from watching this simple yet pleasant and thoughtful film.

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.