THE CLOCK: Blu-ray (MGM, 1945) Warner Archive

Hard to believe it took until 1945 and Vincente Minnelli’s The Clock for Judy Garland to appear in her first non-musical role. Minnelli once commented that “you could tell (Garland) twenty things. And you didn’t know if you were getting through to her because she was being made up and fussed about. But by God, when she went before the camera it was all there. She didn’t miss a thing. She was as great as Duse, Bernhardt or Barrymore.” And there is little today to otherwise refute Minnelli’s impressions. In her full flourish, Garland was a rarity among stars. She seemed to draw empathy from an audience the way water gets drawn from a well, and when she sang, there was not an artist of her generation to touch her innate gift for reaching down into the soul of a lyric. Judy had, for some time, been eager to explore acting beyond the movie musical. MGM’s raja, L.B. Mayer, resisted, not because he did not trust in Garland’s talents, but rather because he knew instinctively what a ‘tough sell’ it would be to market a picture in which the expectation for Judy to belt out the hits was immediately quashed. An empathetic Arthur Freed, producer extraordinaire, acquiesced to Garland’s request, pulling out of Metro’s mothballs an unpublished tale by Paul and Pauline Gallico.

On the surface, The Clock is a straight-forward, and unprepossessing little melodrama about two strangers who meet cute on the eve one of them is being shipped off to war. But it is rather interesting to think what the picture might have been had creative license leaned the other way. For one thing, Freed had not immediately considered Minnelli to direct. Instead, he inveigled Minnelli in taking up the slack from director, George Sidney on the set of the much-beleaguered Ziegfeld Follies (1945), with Freed assigning studio stalwart, Jack Conway to direct The Clock. Conway’s singular contribution to the picture was photographing inserts shot on location in Manhattan. Alas, on the trip home, Conway became deathly ill for a period of months and was forced to withdraw. Thus, Fred Zinnemann came onboard. Garland, however, did not get on with Zinnemann and, at her behest, he was replaced by Minnelli with whom she had not only worked on 1944’s Meet Me In St. Louis (her biggest hit) but also had since fallen in love. Discarding virtually all of Zinnemann’s work, Minnelli began anew, pruning scenes, tightening others, and making sure the city of New York took on more ballast as the ‘third character’ in the picture. Minnelli was to take particular care in the creation of Judy’s alter-ego’s physical appearance. Garland, who always worked best when surrounded by people she felt she could intimately trust, was bolstered by Freed’s gentle guiding hand and musical arranger, Roger Edens, both men appearing in cameos in the picture: Freed, lighting co-star, Robert Walker’s cigarette, and Edens, briefly glimpsed playing a piano inside a restaurant. Also, screenwriter, Robert Nathan did a walk on as an extra, smoking a pipe.

To suggest The Clock was a happy experience for all is to set aside the backstage turmoil afflicting its principles. Weaned on studio-sanctioned prescription drugs to ‘manage’ her weight and behavior, Judy Garland became increasingly dependent on a daily regimen of pills and potions to see her through the shoot. Meanwhile, co-star, Robert Walker had just discovered his wife of seven years, actress, Jennifer Jones, was having an affair with Hollywood mogul, David O. Selznick. Walker, who specialized playing young romantic leads, was emotionally shattered by this revelation. He began to liberally indulge in strong drink; Garland, often finding Walker fall-down drunk afterhours and gingerly coaxing him back to sobriety for the next day’s shoot. From this moment on, Walker’s life would rapidly spiral out of control.  His boy-next-door persona, so successfully mined in movies like See Here, Private Hargrove, and, Since You Went Away (both 1944), began to erode. On the screen, he was decidedly more popular than ever. But behind the scenes, he was literally falling apart. Appearing to excellent effect as Jerome Kern in MGM’s Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), and the Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn drama, The Sea of Grass (1947), Walker spent much of 1949 suffering from extreme mental exhaustion, treated at the Menninger Clinic for a psychiatric disorder, before exorcising even more inner demons as the sycophantic serial killer in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), his final role. On August 28th, 1951, Robert Walker, age 32, was ostensibly ‘murdered’ by his psychiatrist, Frederick Hacker, who administered amobarbital for sedation, grotesquely unaware Walker’s vast consumption of alcohol just prior to its injection was lethal, causing Walker to suddenly lose consciousness and stop breathing.

Minnelli had long been a proponent of shooting on location. MGM, however, believed all movies should be shot on a soundstage or backlot. And thus, was the case with The Clock – Minnelli given free reign over MGM’s already well-established ‘New York’ street set. The already commissioned replica of Penn Station built at a then staggering cost of $66,450 – its one concession, replaced the intricate escalator with a more cheaply constructed moving conveyor to save both time and money. The studio granted Minnelli carte blanche to revitalize their free-standing sets with his keen eye for detail. This resulted in the recreation of a theater district Italian restaurant Minnelli had actually frequented when he had worked as a set designer in New York, and would later take Garland to dine at on their honeymoon. Minnelli also had a replica made of the Hotel Astor’s famous timepiece, built in the Beaux Art style of 1904. Today, Minnelli’s Astor clock is the only surviving reference – the original, adoring the Astor at 1515 Broadway, demolished – along with the rest of the building, in 1967.  Interestingly, Minnelli’s desire for verisimilitude did not extend to the recreation of the Penn Station clock – Minnelli preferring the architecture of the one hanging in New York’s Grand Central Station instead. But perhaps Minnelli’s greatest contribution to ‘set decoration’ was his populating the backdrop with human extras culled from a distinctly multi-racial polyglot – hardly, the usual Central Casting crowd seen in movies until then.

Our story begins with the arrival of small-town soldier, Corporal Joe Allen (Robert Walker), on a 48-hour leave in the Big Apple. Quite by chance, Joe meets Alice Mayberry (Judy Garland) under the auspices of the traditional Hollywood ‘cute meet’ – he trips her up, causing Alice to break the heel of her shoe amidst the clutter and clatter of a bustling Pennsylvania Station. Although Sunday, Joe is successful at getting a local shoe-maker to open up and fix Alice’s slipper. Thereafter, he politely asks for the honor to escort her home atop a double-decker bus, and she, realizing Joe has never been in a big city, acts as his tour guide, offering key points of interest – including rather stunningly handsome recreations of Central Park Zoo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As afternoon fades into evening, Alice agrees to meet Joe under the clock at the Astor Hotel. Although chastised by her roommates for her ‘pick up’, Alice remains true to her promise. She and Joe share an intimate dinner. As the last bus has already departed, Joe and Alice hitch a ride from kindly milkman, Al Henry (James Gleason). A puncture ensues. So, Joe, Alice and Al make their way to a local lunch room to call for assistance. Alas, a surly drunk strikes Al. Unable to complete his work, Alice and Joe elect to finish up Al’s deliveries. A grateful Al and his wife (Lucille Gleason), prepare the couple an early-morning ‘dinner’. Fate predictably intervenes. Joe and Alice get separated on the subway platform and spend the bulk of the next day searching for one another in vain. At day’s end, both decide to take a chance the other will be waiting at the escalator at Penn Station – the spot where they met the day before. Predictably, this assumption pays off. Determined never to be separated again, Joe proposes and Alice accepts. Red tape delays their nuptials until only a rushed ceremony is possible. Considering this a rather vulgar way to begin life as man and wife, Alice coaxes Joe into a pew at a nearby church where they quietly re-declare their vows to one another. Regrettably, time has run out. Joe departs for war, leaving Alice bittersweet, yet hopeful for his return.

The Clock did respectable business at the box office. Much of the picture’s success is owed Minnelli who peppered the ever-evolving cast with incurable eccentrics – among them, Moyna MacGill (Angela Lansbury’s mother) as the luncheonette lady, Beryl McCutcheon, Naomi Scher Alice Wallace and Ethel Tobin as bridesmaids, Sybil Merritt as ‘Cutie’, Robert Milasch (Tony), Terry Moore, as the girl at MOMA, John Mylong as a haughty and exclusive restaurant patron, Robert Emmett O'Connor (policeman), Rudy Rama (the florist), Arthur Space (as a blood tester) and Cecil Weston as the spinster. While none of the aforementioned can be considered as anything but a cameo – and some, not even that – Minnelli’s hand-selected extras are strangely identifiable at a glance, with personalities the audience can seemingly graft onto without much thought. Costing $1,324,207, with a $25,000 bonus to Minnelli, the picture went on to gross $2,783,000 in domestic rentals alone. Mayer was pleasantly surprised by the picture’s tender-hearted wartime effectiveness and its profitability, though he was quick to point out it came nowhere near in rivaling the titanic haul from Garland’s musicals – especially, Meet Me In St. Louis (then, enjoying a lucrative theatrical reissue). Released a scant 6-months after ‘St. Louis’, The Clock cemented Minnelli’s reputation in Hollywood as one of the fast-emerging great talents of his generation. Reviews of the day were quick to single out and praise his direction. Garland, who had dated, but dumped Minnelli to resume a previous affair with director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and then, indulge in a bit of nothing with Orson Welles while the ink on her divorce from band leader, David Rose dried after production on ‘St. Louis’ wrapped, now returned to Minnelli’s side. She and Minnelli were wed on June 15th, 1945.  

The Clock arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive and, predictably, we get to champion another stellar release. George J. Folsey’s creamy B&W cinematography looks exquisite in 1080p, with rich, velvety blacks and clean/crisp whites. This one positively sparkles with film grain looking very indigenous to its source and razor-precise sharpness, revealing all of Minnelli’s finely wrought background detail to the nth degree. The DTS 2.0 mono sounds excellent. Zero complaints here. Extras have all been ported over from the previous DVD release and include a Pete Smith Specialty - Hollywood Scout, a Tex Avery cartoon, The Screwy Truant, and, the Lux Radio broadcast of The Clock, costarring Garland and her Harvey Girls’ alumni, John Hodiak. There is also a theatrical trailer. Bottom line: The Clock remains a rarely seen, and as much rarely embraced Judy Garland classic. Garland had played drama before, affecting in Little Nellie Kelly (1941) in fact, but also a musical. So, to rediscover her acting chops here, able to carry the load without singing a note warbled is hardly news, while exceedingly worthwhile and commendable. The chemistry between she and Robert Walker is palpable. You can sense Garland’s underlying devotion to the man struggling with his own inner demons. Takes one to know one. The movie remains a Minnelli magic-maker – poignant, and sentimental in an age where such trappings are not always as readily recognized as ‘art’. Very – very – highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

2

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