On Criterion, I watched the 1948 thriller The Big Clock, directed by John Farrow, and starring Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, and Maureen O'Sullivan. I watched this because of the Amoeba Records "What's in my Bag" video with Bill Hader, and he recommended this movie and did impressions of the male leads. He mentioned that John Farrow was Mia Farrow's father, and I forgot that Mia Farrow's mother was Maureen O'Sullivan, though I knew that her mother was a famous actress.
This was a lot of fun to watch. Ray Milland works as an editor at a crime magazine where he and the staff are reporters that solve sensationalist crimes for tabloid headlines, it's very ahead of its time as them being true crime junkies and wannabe detectives. Things get more tricky when Milland gets framed for murder by his boss Charles Laughton (who is excellent at playing quietly malevolent and conniving in a hammy, theatrical kind of way), and the staff is trying to solve the murder, and Milland realizes he's being set up, and trying to clear his name before anyone suspects him. The movie is meant to be a thriller, but it also just feels like a lot of fun, and kind of proto-Columbo-ish in that the audience already knows who the killer is long before anyone else does.
One of my favorite parts of the film was Elsa Lanchester as a kooky artist whose artwork proves crucial to the case. She plays it up with a trilling voice, feeling like a possible inspiration to Madeleine Kahn's performances decades later, and shines as a character actress who is delightful in this movie. I couldn't find individual scenes of her online, but I really liked this photo of her when she's in her apartment with several kids by past dead husbands and being questioned by one of the reporters.
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