Clip: . We call it the system of the irrelevant clue. Now you see the police only look for relevant clues. They haven't got time for much else. But we assemble all the clues. We recreate the man, his character, his mind, his emotions. And when you have that pattern, it's easy enough to figure out where he'll be. That's interesting. For instance, you'd never guess where broke the Fleming case. Seashells. Oh, don't turn the radio on. I like it. Matthew: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the IMMP, the Inter Millennium Media Project Podcast. My name is Matthew Porter. Ian: And I'm Ian Porter. Matthew: I'm his dad, he's my son, and I've made him watch a movie. I think it's one that he was able to predict. Ian: I think I was. One could even say that when we're doing an episode on this movie Is right on time. Matthew: And that's very important. Ian: It's important to be right on time, especially if you work at one of the Janoth Publications. Matthew: Yes, indeed. The mighty Janoth Media empire. Ian: Absolutely. And that is the location, the setting, the force behind The Big Clock Matthew: last episode. We watched No Way Out, which was a 1987, I believe, adaptation of the novel The Big Clock. And now we're watching the 1948 adaptation of The Big Clock, titled The Big Clock. And this was, this was actually very shortly after the novel was published. So we're seeing what this story was like for people who saw the movie when the story was new. Ian: Yes! This is put out at least two years, so let's double check. The book came out, yeah, in 46. And the film came out April of 48. Matthew: Yep. Ian: So this is probably more like a year and a half after the book hit shelves. Right. Here's the movie version. Yep. Which is. That's a huge move. Oh my goodness. Matthew: And it's got a great cast. It's got Ray Milland as our protagonist, George Stroud. It's got Charles Lawton as the wonderfully done villain, Earl Janoth, head of Janoth Publications. Ian: Maureen O'Sullivan as the beleaguered wife of our protagonist Yes. Who honestly is such a driving force of this story. Matthew: Very much. Very much. And we've got Rita Johnson as Pauline York, who is our victim. Mm-Hmm. . Essentially it is the the Sean Young role from No Way out, but a much smaller role in this movie. than the character of Susan is in No Way Out, and there's another cast member I'm gonna wait to talk about her because she is such a delight, but we got to talk about when she shows up here Ian: I think I know who you're talking about Matthew: But what we've got here is a story that it's it's adapted from the same novel much more faithfully to the novel But it's the same structure that we talked about last episode around No Way Out You've got someone who is there's been a murder You The person who is responsible for the murder assigns our protagonist to investigate this because they can pin this on someone else. It turns out that our protagonist who's doing the investigation is the one this is all going to be pinned on if the investigation is allowed to play out. Ian: Yes. Matthew: It's a great little structure. There's so much tension built right in there from the very beginning. Ian: And you've got all of this, like, the investigation and the energy and the, the setup of a mystery movie that spends the first half preparing, and the second half kind of collapsing all of these individual plot points. Because. A lot of investigative stories will have the inciting incident happen earlier than a big clock story does. And especially this one. It was halfway through before really things were kicking off in the way I expected. But that's because they spent the first half of the movie just making sure every little spot that will be investigated later, is visited first. Where they set up all of the pieces of evidence, lay out the breadcrumb trail, and then pick up the breadcrumbs piece by piece. Matthew: Yes, and they do a very thorough job of that, and it keeps you off guard. I mean, going into this movie, most people are gonna have some idea as to what it's about. But the way it's set up, this could be a corporate intrigue movie, where we've got the noble good guy editor of a magazine, and the overbearing villainous boss Who's trying to control his employees lives? And yet then it becomes so much more than that because we do have the same kind of structure that we had in no way Out we've got the person with tremendous power in this case is not the secretary of defense. It's Earl Janoth head of the the enormous Janoth publications empire and we don't have a young Naval officer working for him. Instead, we have the editor of one of his magazines, Crimeways magazine. And that's why he wants magazines. Yes. And that's why he winds up doing the investigation, because doing private investigations of true crime are that is what Crime Waze does and what George Stroud has shown himself and his team to be so good at. But you're right, we set, you talk about one of the Ways magazines, we get some great shots early on establishing what the Janoth Empire is, especially that elevator scene where we see George get into the elevator and ride up and every time the elevator opens, it's a different floor and every floor is a different magazine. Ian: I love that. I want to I want to play a tabletop RPG in the Janoth building where you just have a different theme for every floor. It's like, oh, you know, here's crime ways. Here's travel ways. Here's tech ways. It's like I can imagine this so effectively. Matthew: Just in that Elevator scene. We get sport ways, and airways, and artways, and styleways, and newsways, and then crimeways. And I almost get the impression that The, the ones that Janoth considers more important are higher up and closer to his executive offices. So crime ways is way up there. , Ian: Something almost Cyberpunk about this giant company like that. It's like art deco cyberpunk happening here. 'cause there's also this extreme amount of technical sophistication to this building. Yes. All of this, all of these rooms have these intercom systems, which can apparently be turned on remotely. Matthew: Yes, so Janoth can listen in on anybody's office without them knowing. Ian: Mm hmm. And the titular big clock. There's a giant clock in the offices, that synchronizes the whole building and all of these other locations. And it makes the timetable in this story very important, but also establishes the precision and the, the attitude of Janoth. As a villain early on. Matthew: Yeah, and when we talk about this as a big clock, it is an enormous installation. Ian: Massive. Yeah, Matthew: Dominating the lobby of the Janoth building. And it's not just a, a big expensive mechanical clock. It is very high tech. We go inside and there are tremendous numbers of blinking lights and things, the kind of things that say super high tech in the visual language of 1948. And they talk about the fact that this big clock. is synchronized to every part of the Janoth Empire worldwide. Every office in the building, every one of their printing plants around the United States, every one of their remote bureaus around the world, they are all synchronized to the big clock at headquarters. And we see, once we meet Charles Lawton as Janoth, he is obsessed with time. He's talking about how many seconds are in the human life, and how much time he is going to give someone to explain something to him. Ian: This is the sort of massive, industrial scale, technological marvel that, when it goes wrong the, international rescue will send in the Thunderbirds to save someone from because it's of that sort of scope and scale. I, honestly, the naming has thrown me because I realized what happened in my notes. Janoth, being obsessed with clocks, sets up so brilliantly the parallel of Janus, Roman god of time. Known for having two faces. Ah. Is so on the point, so on the mark for this character because he is this punctual, efficiency is beyond everything man. But he's also the murderer who's now trying to cover stuff up. It fits so well. Matthew: And you're right. We know, we see the murder occur. So this is not a whodunit. It's very much more like Columbo. It's how is Stroud going to make sure that Janoth is brought to justice? And how is he going to be avoiding being wrongly accused of this or wrongly convicted of this. But going through all of the Waze magazines and the structure of Janoth publications, I found myself wondering two things. You mentioned cyberpunk. I found myself thinking this was the 1948 version of a blog network. Ian: Yes. Matthew: This was Vox Media or Gizmodo of its time with all of these very structured, very similar, let's replicate the formula for a different topic. Kind of magazines and magazines were were that kind of media quick There was these were weekly magazines quick turnaround latest information Super popular and and at the same time I found myself wondering what kind of ways magazines would we have in? 1990 2000s, we'd have tech ways car ways. Oh, yeah, I bet it must have in 1948. There must have been an automotive magazine that we know that there were some that we didn't see in that elevator scene. Ian: There's, it could it could have been mixed into travel ways. Matthew: It could have been it could have been. And I think there was a future ways magazine that we saw a glimpse of because, you know, 1948 and all the optimistic futurism of the time. But yeah, there'd be a car magazine, there'd be a tech magazine. Ian: Homeways? Matthew: Oh, that, yeah, that makes sense. I bet that they had that in 48 as things tried to settle down and women were moving back home out of the workforce after the war. And then homeways, their take on better homes and gardens. Ian: You might have a craftways or an industry ways, depending on the way they want to focus it where it's like, here's woodworking stuff or here's machinery. Matthew: Yeah. I think today we've had, we'd have bot ways for roboticists. Yeah. Ian: Yeah. bot ways. There's just a lot of interesting options. There are. Sideways. But it's such a wonderful environment, almost more rich than some of the other later takes on it, because this environment gives him It's reminiscent of some of the wild environments you can wind up in like a train movie. I've been watching some videos about those recently and things like that. Where each floor has a theming, and that means that there's all sorts of odd pieces. Available to our protagonist, George Stroud, who is, I think, the most beleaguered businessman in media, Matthew: possibly. Oh, it seems like it. He's somebody who is super successful in something he doesn't want to be doing. Ian: Yes. This man is literally have, like, he signed up for too many instances of the standard Disney movie dad problem. At the same time. He's got like a triple. He's getting like a triple shot of the same issue because he has never been able to spend time with his family Matthew: and they do some what could have been very hamfisted exposition, but Ray Milland and the rest of the cast sell it so well and they make these as you know, Bob moments. seem like just somebody venting in a very natural way. And he explains to somebody how he, seven years ago, he was working in some little small town newspaper in Wheeling, West Virginia, and he was perfectly happy and he had just married the love of his life. And then he happened to get a scoop on some crime case that he was covering. And next thing you know, Earl Janoth is at his door and is insisting that he come to Janoth Publications and run Crimeways Magazine, a new publication, the police blotter of the nation, and no, I'm not talking about next week or next month, you need to be in New York tonight. And that's been his life since then, for seven years. Ian: Because it's not like he hasn't tried to have a life. It's that Janoth is a man who likes the control, right, Earl Janoth wants to have every single person under his power, because that's power. And that means, oh, yeah, you're given time off according to your contract, but we will interrupt, we will cancel, we will come in and take over. Every time you try to use it. It doesn't actually exist, Matthew: right? And at these publications, it seems like there's enough wild energy going on that he will let his editors of each publication do what they need to do, as long as they are producing, and as soon as Janoth has the least bit of concern, or thought, think they could be more productive, or more successful, he will come down, and you never know when and where and how Janoth is watching you. It's a very big brother kind of thing. Ian: Mm hmm. Matthew: He loves control. He loves power. It's a great parallel to that Secretary of Defense character Gene Hackman was playing in No Way Out. Ian: Absolutely. But we watch as George tries to plan a trip with his family, which is actually his honeymoon. Matthew: Yes. They have a five year old son, but they've never had a honeymoon. Ian: And we can see how this is just graded on his relationship. I take it there's plenty of times when he's wound up, like, sleeping at the office kind of stuff. Matthew: Seems like it. And, and Mrs. Stroud has some concerns about how, how committed is he to this family? And does he have something else going on? And, and we know that George is a good man and that he doesn't. And yet they make her concerns. Seem reasonable because he's never home and is he really working all these hours that he claims to be working? Well, yes, but does she really know that? Ian: Yes, and we hear examples of the sort of stuff where, you know, phone calls to the hotels and things like that. Janoth control reaches even outside the building in that sense. Yeah. He will, we watch him later pull favors just to try to mess with people, just to keep them from leaving. Matthew: And he'll use money as a tool. He'll say, you know, this is so important. We've got this big story you need to follow up on. Let's just delay your vacation for a little while. I'll give you a giant bonus on top of your 30, 000 a year salary, which was pretty darn good in 1948. And, and then we'll give you six months off with a fully paid trip to South America for you and your family. So he'll, he'll spend money if that's the easiest route and as soon as that doesn't work He will come down like a hammer and say if you leave You will not have a job here and I will see to it that you have no job in the entire publishing industry ever Ian: Just to give an idea according to inflation calculators 30, 000 is 391, 862. 25. Matthew: That is a pretty good salary, even in New York. Ian: Yeah! Ho Matthew: But Stroud has, enough. He is not going to delay his honeymoon, his vacation one more time. And the reason why Janoth wants him to stick around is there is this yet another missing person's case that crime ways magazine has been able to solve far ahead of the police because he's got this cool system where he's got. All the investigators that he could possibly want, because Janoth will pay for them. And he has these intuitions about finding every detail you can about someone and figuring out from all these little irrelevancies where they're going to be. and staking out those places until they find him. And it's been success after success, which Janoth loves, but he does not trust anybody else to follow up. And he wants results, and that means he wants Stroud to be there on the job. Ian: Mm hmm. Stroud is a tool. Yeah. He's not a person. He's not a person. He is another tool, just like money. And that means Stroud wants him to be able to wield when Stroud wants. Matthew: Yeah. There's nothing around Janoth that Janoth does not consider himself as owning. Mm hmm. Ian: So this setup, we know how this will go, but how does, how does our hardworking and beleaguered George Stroud get into the situation? Well, he's trying to go on a trip. Yep. So that means it's stopped. It's a little iffy about how that gets like how that happens, I'd say. Matthew: Well, he's delayed. Yes. And misses the train where he's supposed to meet his his wife and his son, and his wife is so fed up with this, she gets on the train anyway, and they're going down to West Virginia to, to stay in a cabin for a couple of weeks, and she just goes without him, and he winds up going out drinking, He meets a woman, he met her previously, and he meets her again. And they wind up just going bar to bar and drinking and, and We learn later that this woman is actually Earl Janoth's mistress. She had actually met George Stroud before, but she was not part of any of Janoth's machinations. Ian: He gets distracted by her because she's coming to use him. I said he's tool in Janoth's arsenal. She's picking Janoth's pocket here. Aha. Here's his investigator. And Janoth has been just as he takes the benefits and everything else he says he's going to give. He promises things and then doesn't a lot. He has been not giving what was promised in return to his mistress here. So his mistress. Goes to his investigator and says you're fed up with him, he just fired you, he's getting, he's coming after you, he's coming after me. I can give you the information, you can do the investigation, and we can publish a book that will ruin his career, ruin his life, because we've got the actual inside scoop. Matthew: Was Stroud really interested in that, do you think? Would he have gone through with that? Ian: I think he got more interested as it went, as more of this final attempt to get out crumbled. Ah. But I don't think, I think that the entire idea of that gets prematurely halted by Janoth's jealousy. And murder of the Pauline York victim. Matthew: Yes. It's because of this long conversation going bar to bar and drinking and talking with York that Stroud misses the train. But he eventually realizes that and the train is gone, so he takes a plane. Down to West Virginia. It's interesting to show, like, trains are the standard transportation. Aircraft are the emergency transportation. And he meets her. He meets his wife at the cabin. They have this talk. He explains that he's out of a job. He's never gonna work in publishing again. And she has these wonderful lines where he's saying, you know, We're penniless and I have no job. And no prospects in this industry, and she's saying, Oh, it sounds too good to be true. True. It's so wonderful. And he's with her on that. He's happy to leave publishing behind. He'll go to work at a hardware store or something. In fact, Ian: early on, we saw Janoth be very antagonistic and distrustful of all these other media sources, complaining about the radio and The newsreels at the cinema and stuff like that, that these aren't good. Meanwhile, early on, we see Stroud as, Oh, maybe there's other venues. Maybe I can still use my skills in a different place. He is not beholden to print publishing in the way Janoth is. And that's part of where he has opportunities. Matthew: And we see that he has connections and can pull strings at newspapers and broadcast media and the like. Ian: Yes. Matthew: And meanwhile, while Stroud is down in West Virginia telling his wife how I've lost everything. It's wonderful. No reason to worry anymore. That's whenJanoth et has confronted Pauline about the fact that she was out all night with some other guy. She says things that makes him terribly upset and jealous because he, like most narcissists, the worst thing you can possibly do is subject him to ridicule. Exactly. And he murders her. Using as the murder weapon a, a sundial with a green sash that was part of a game that they played at one of these bars that they had been to. Ian: And it, it wasn't a game the bar was running. It was a Janoth fired him on the day where he was complaining about green ink. And he loves time. So a final, honestly, middle finger kind of parting gift to Janoth was giving him a green clock. Yes. And while they couldn't get a clock, but they got a suntile. Yes. Which is pointier. Matthew: There's this bar where the, the bartender says anything you can name, I've got it around here somewhere. And the bar is decorated with all kinds of clutter and he says a green clock and this is a bit of a struggle for the bartender but eventually he finds a sundial where he can loop around at a green ribbon and say here's your green clock and that's close enough but that ties them to this place and that's the murder weapon. Ian: Once again, the world building is so good. This bar is delightfully weird and fun, and that's just a fascinating, fascinating theming. I love it. Matthew: And after he commits this murder, Janoth goes to his right hand man and explains what happened, said, I just needed to talk to somebody to collect myself before I go to the police. And the right hand man said, Wait a moment. You don't have to go to the police. You do not have to give up everything. We may be able to fix this. And that by the way, is is George McCready. As Steve Hagen. So Steve goes to Pauline's apartment, cleans things up, finds the, the name of the bar on this, uh, sundial, and essentially removes any evidence that, that Janoth had been there. And Janoth had seen someone else leaving Pauline's apartment as Janoth was arriving. And of course that was Stroud. And that is Is where they figure, oh, if we can find out whoever that is, we can pin the murder on him. And that's where it becomes this investigation and Janoth calls Stroud at the cabin and once he starts explaining why we need you back in New York right away to run this investigation, they give enough information that Stroud realizes, Oh, they're looking, I think they're looking for me, but he doesn't yet know that Pauline is, is dead. Yeah. Because that's not public information yet. For the first part of this investigation, Stroud is just trying to head off finding this person they're looking for, knowing that it's him, and they're looking for him because he was, it was like war profiteering and government contract fraud. That would ruin him. Ian: Yeah. And he's just like, I just need to get out of here. Matthew: And I'm not even sure if at the very beginning he knows that it's him they're looking for. Because the name they use is a name that Pauline gave to Janoth. And it was one of the many aliases of this radio actor who was a friend of Stroud's that he had introduced Pauline to. Jefferson Randolph. Ian: Yes. Jefferson Randolph, it, who is, that's, that's his friend who does all of the different voices and characters, right? Matthew: Yes, he can do like every president and every, you know, stock character type you want. He'll, he'll do that on the radio. Yes. Man of a million voices. And they use him later to impersonate a police officer. Ian: As part of the deception, but he's, he's a fun background character of kind of, this is so much a, like, Janoth's large reach of industry versus Stroud's interpersonal one on one connections. Matthew: Yes, yeah, they're different networks and different sets of resources. Ian: And they are both powerful in that sense, but Stroud knows the people on a personal basis. He cares about them. Janoth likes to fake that with information, but he actually doesn't have that one on one connection. Right. And that makes it really easy for Janoth to point everything in a direction and Stroud to say, Oh, I have a guy there. Mm hmm. And then kind of turn the entirety of a. A piece around. Switch it's side. Matthew: And it's an interesting balance that Stroud has to, to find here because he has to run this investigation. He has to make it at least seem like he is seriously running this investigation in an effort to find this person that they're looking for. Yet of course he doesn't want the investigation to succeed. So because they have the name of this bar where they got the, the sundial, he has to send an investigator to this bar. So he picks the person who is going to fit into this bar the least. He's going to stand out like a sore thumb. Nobody's gonna like him. Everybody's gonna suspect him. And eventually after this guy just sits there at the bar all day looking, waiting around to see something useful. And the bartender and Our radio actor friend talked to him enough to know that he's he's a figure out. Oh, he's looking for George They tell him all this bizarre stuff and throw him completely off Do you have the description they gave? Ian: Because the description they gave is such a a fun character design. Ian: I want to fire up something like Fallout 4 and just try to make this crazy description in the character generator. Matthew: It is something from Monster Factory, isn't it? No middle sliders. It is. No, Ian: no middle sliders on this guy. Matthew: You're right. That's an example of how the personal connections that he has with people helps George out because These guys are friends and they know all somebody we don't know is looking for George. We're not gonna help him find George Ian: we are his buddy. But they're also trying to figure out what's going on, why they're being asked these things. So the, like, the information that there's an investigation is slowly seeping out of the Janoth building. Matthew: And some of the people involved in the investigation are starting to wonder about George's decisions. Like, why am I, you're not sending me to such and such where I know people are. No, no, no, no. I need you in this other place because you, and George just has a quick line of patter to use the resources, but use them inefficiently. Ian: Right. And, and that's the thing, you've got to slow it down, but you can't be seen slowing it down. It's a careful balancing act. Matthew: Yes. And another critical clue that they have is that there's a painting during the. Evening that we saw before the murder George and pauline stopped in this antique store and bought a painting and they actually had to outbid this character played by Elsa lanchester who is just so great. She she is Manic and crazy in this weirdly constrained way and of course, we've seen Elsa Lanchester before in movies that we've talked about on the podcast, because she very famously played the Bride of Frankenstein. Yeah. And she was also married to Charles Lawton. Ian: Wait, what? Matthew: They were this famous Hollywood couple. She played one of his wives in a movie where he played Henry VIII. And and we've seen her in so many other roles. She was in a small but fun little role in the original movie version of the razor's edge that we talked about on the Patreon. And a couple of movies we haven't yet talked about on the podcast, but we will. So she's just such a fun character actor to show up and and again, you wouldn't think she fits in this movie, but she does. Ian: I don't know if we've seen as many things that Lawton's in, but I mean, any guy who's got his own separate filmography page on Wikipedia, that's a sign of just how much work he's done. He was in things all over the place, so having him, who plays usually more, like, dramatic characters in that sense, him playing this. This character, this, you know, villain character here, I can imagine his previous filmography giving it weight, and then having her in there being a, Oh hey, it's a power couple playing almost against each other at times. It, it makes some of the scenes where he and some of the other people are getting frustrated at her character even more poignant when you know that those two are married and probably laughing it up at, off stage after, about this. Matthew: That's great. Ian: Ah, yeah. Matthew: Yeah, he was so prolific as well. He was prolific. He's just such a useful type and a very, very talented actor as well. Ian: Mm hmm. Lots of kings. Lots of kings through all of his stuff. Matthew: Yeah, including Janoth in a way. Ian: Yeah, including Janoth in a way. Matthew: So this painting now becomes another MacGuffin that can trace the, the person that Pauline York was found, was seen with to this antique dealer. Ian: Yeah, and that is, that's because Stroud is a collector? Matthew: Right. I take it? He is a collector of the paintings of Louise Patterson. Ian: Mm hmm. Who is just Matthew: fun. Right, and we learn later, Elsa Lanchester is playing Louise Patterson, who's going, trying to buy her own painting. Yes. But when they get that lead, he, he's able to draw on other resources from Janoth Publications. So he gets the editor of Artways to go and interview Louise Patterson, and to see if she knows anything about people who collect her art, and turns out that, yeah, she saw the person who was buying this the hands painting the night before. Ian: So that becomes a, a weird plot point where, that's one of the ones where it backfires on him. He's like, oh, like, I know, I'll distract people by making this a plot point. Ah, dang it! That was her? Matthew: Oh. So then he comes up with an excuse to send the art editor to Pittsburgh to investigate some lead about it being in a museum somewhere down there. And it gets him out of the way. Yes. But Elsa Lanchester is just, such a weird, fun character and she is, she's asked if she could draw a sketch of this person. Come down to the Janoth offices later on and we'll pay you like $100 for a a sketch of the person that you saw. Ian: And she's just delighted, happy to do it. Doesn't want to hurt one of her fans. Matthew: Yes. Yes I don't have I don't have so many collectors that I can afford to send any to prison and earlier on when the art editor is Interviewing her and saying, you know, we're looking for one of your collectors and oh, so am I for about 15 years? Yes And she's got like a million kids from all different husbands. She has had over the years Yeah, what in the world and yet she's still painting. That's great You Ian: Yeah, it's, that's wonderful. She's, she's absolutely like living her life, doing her best, but she's this very, very wild card in the entire thing, but in a movie where every single person is playing everything with this deep seriousness, he is delightful getting to swim across the top and ham it up a little. Matthew: And somehow, all of these different characters, all these different tones, come together in a way that they really shouldn't. The weird, heavy villainy of Charles Lawton as Janoth, the put upon good guy of Stroud, the weird mania of Patterson, the fun comic stuff of the radio guy. Director John Farrow manages to make these feel like they're part of the same world. Ian: Yes. John Farrow's got a long list of directorial credits, but I think that this is one that shows him putting a lot of those different pieces, which are, some are memorable, some are not, but he puts a lot of them, a lot of that power into this. This is someone with experience behind the camera at that point. Matthew: You're right, it's that confidence in knowing how to bring this together. Confidence in letting the actors do what they are good at. Yes. Ian: And, let's be honest. We know how this story will play from there. As he goes, the information starts to close in. And the building gets locked down. That's always an important part to this story, it seems. Matthew: It is, because the net gets tighter and tighter. As they follow these leads, they get to more potential eyewitnesses. Like the guy who runs the antique store where the painting was bought. They've got Patterson, who they think is one of the witnesses who's gonna be on their side. And there was another witness, I think, but I forget who. Yes, I'm trying to remember. Oh, the, At the first bar, the hat check girl and the bartender. Yes, that was it. And there again, the, the bartender is this wacky comic character. Who's just fun to watch in the few seconds he's on screen. And yet, it doesn't seem forced, it doesn't seem to derail anything. Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Matthew: So yeah, once again, they have the giant building locked down, and they have these eyewitnesses being shown, essentially everybody in the building, as they leave. In order to spot the person who they know is in there. Ian: And we mentioned the fact that Stroud went all the way out and then came back, but I believe his wife comes back as well. Matthew: Yes. Ian: So, his family is now in the building. Because they're all dragged back in with this hunt, Matthew: I presume that his son is off with the nanny and housekeeper But his wife is there and he finally lays everything out to his wife exactly what happened exactly What what what is happening and why he's in jeopardy and the fact that he didn't really do anything wrong Ian: Mm Matthew: hmm, and she at first just seems like she's had enough and she listens to this and then she leaves Ian: And comes back with help! Matthew: Yes, because she listened to when he was describing what was happening and what he wished he could do, but he can't because the phones are tapped and the building's locked down. She is able to come and go. So she's able to go out and find his friend, the radio guy and find a lead about the cabbie who picked Janoth up at Pauline's apartment right after the murder. And she's out there doing all this critical investigation off screen in those critical final moments. Ian: And so, in this perfect moment, after an entire film where we've seen her be down and upset and sad about his job and career, we see She has a bit of that spark in her as well, and some of what they bonded over, I think, might have been this same kind of journalistic drive. Matthew: Yes. Ian: That's why it grated on her. The same, the same processing and churn of it. was not as good on her in her mind either. She's got that skill. And I love the idea of like, the misunderstanding that gets fixed. I am a person who cringes so hard at sitcoms and such due to misunderstanding. So the misunderstanding that this movie starts with of like, Oh, you're having an affair, aren't you? And you don't care about our family. And the job is more important. And he finally gets to spell it all. It's like, I don't like this job. I tried to quit. Now they're framing me for the murder of the person I was discussing writing a tell all book to get back at this boss that's ruined our lives for seven years, honey. And her response is, Oh, yeah, I'll go. I'm gonna go. She goes like, Hey, honey, here's the weapon to hit him with. That is so perfect. It's such relief compared to some of the ways even more modern stories will milk drama by making it all the worst thing. This actually fixes it by being the best thing. Matthew: You're so right. There are so many stories where, if they're in sitcoms or whatever they're in, it's, if you people would talk to one another for a moment. This would be resolved. And this is a story where all the concerns and suspicions are reasonably well founded. And they do talk. And eventually it is the fact that they talked that allows these smart people to figure things out and help one another. It's great to see that. Ian: It's great to see that. Oh my goodness. Sigh of relief. Matthew: He might be the Crimeways editor, but if this were 2021, she's the one who would have a true crime podcast. Yes. And would be figuring things out and getting things done. Ian: Mhmm. Goodness. So now we've got this collision. All of the, the Janoth powers , that Stroud's been trying to juggle. are coming to a head. He's stuck in the building. Matthew: And there's another factor here, that is Bill, played by Henry Morgan, a relatively young Henry Morgan, who is Janoth Muscle. Janoth will throw around threats about people's careers. He will throw around money. He's also got a guy with muscles and a gun when that's what he needs. It's another one of the tools he owns. Ian: Yeah. Matthew: And I don't think Bill actually speaks a word. He gestures and glowers. Ian: He's got a little bit of that like jaws from 007 James Bond movies going on. There's a little bit of that like personable Maybe he could be turned, kind of, I'm doing this, this is my job, this is what I'm good at, kind of, henchman attitude. Matthew: You're absolutely right. He's just this predator. Ian: That top hench. Matthew: Yes. Yeah. He is, that's a very much a Jaws vibe. Mm hmm. I like that. Ian: And that, fills the same role that, you know, the, the muscle in the other versions has. It's, it's so much, so much different though when you've got this singular figure instead of these multiple figures coming around corners, like in No Way Out. The Big Clock's version is more, is more pressing danger instead of cornering. Matthew: Right. And, and in the Big Clock, there isn't even the veneer of these guys having any official role like they do in No Way Out uh, they are, these are ex special forces people who are hired for special security operations by the the Secretary of Defense's office. No, this is just a guy who Janoth keeps at the ready. Ian: Yep. Matthew: To do things that can't be done any other way. Ian: Another tool in his belt. Yep. But, with all of this coming through, security is sweeping the building, Stroud hides in the best place to hide. The title. Matthew: Yes. It's in the big clock. And that's an interesting framing device. The very, very beginning of the movie is during this manhunt in the building as Stroud is trying to stay away from the guards who have been given orders to shoot, to kill, I don't think private security guards in a. office building can do that. But yeah, we see him hide in the big clock and the rest of the movie is him in the big clock remembering, oh, how did I get into this situation? And this point that you're describing now is where we sync back up with that. He's hiding in the clock and heading into that final act Ian: where the confrontation finally happens. Stroud gets his evidence from his wife, he's gotten everything cornered, and he's able to prove that Hagen is the killer. Wait, what? Hagen? Janoth's right hand man. Yeah, the evidence points to Hagen for the cleanup. Matthew: Right, because Hagen has in his office things he got from Pauline's apartment. The cab who picked somebody up at Pauline's apartment right after the murder went to Hagen's apartment. Nobody actually, actually saw Janoth, so you put all these pieces together, it's Hagen. Ian: And it's kind of wild to have this reveal, having Stroud accuse a different wrong suspect. It's Matthew: like, and George, you're, you're almost right. Ah! And of course, Earl Janoth is thinking, you know, Don't worry, Steve. You're not in this alone. I'll make sure you have the best lawyers. Ian: Yeah, Janoth looks in this and says oh I can give up, I, I can throw out this tool to save myself, they're all interchangeable to me, and that lack of, lack of empathy turns around and bites Hagen at the very end, which is why Hagen turns around and says, no, it was Janoth. Matthew: Yeah, because he had no idea that it was one of his own people who was the patsy they were looking for, but it's okay with him if that's what it takes to keep himself out of jail, or out of the chair. Ian: Mhm, and upon being revealed, Janoth shoots Hagen and runs, Matthew: tries to escape via his private elevator, but Stroud has previously disabled the private elevator as a way to trap Bill, he's been trapped in this elevator for the last ten minutes but that means that there's an open elevator shaft behind the door to Janoth's private elevator. Ian: And Janoth falls to his death. Yeah. And the end of the film is, , the same as the book. It's the, pretty much the headline, Earl Janoth, ousted publisher, plunges to death. Yes. Which is such a fitting thing where at the very end he becomes the news story. Matthew: Well, the very, very end is something different. Because we have to back up and talk about what's been happening with Elsa Lanchester as Patterson. Because she came in, and she was going to be their sketch artist and draw them a picture of the culprit. This is this movie's version of the photo analysis that was being done with the computers in No Way Out. They're waiting for her to complete this sketch. But she doesn't want to. Point the finger at Stroud. So she works and works. It creates this sketch and then unveils it and it's this Cubist thing that gives has absolutely no Relevance to identifying a human being and she's just so giggly proud at this. She knows what it is done This is or her way of saving him. Ian: It is remarkably similar in some ways or at least stylistically similar to Renee Magritte's You son of man. Matthew: Yes. Ian: The bowler, the man with the bowler hat and the apple in front of his face. It is, it has got that same level of like, it's a guy. He didn't say anything about being identifiable, did ya? Matthew: But I really feel like I captured him. Yeah, exactly. It's like, but at the very end of the movie, after, after Janoth has fallen to his death and Stroud is in the clear and they briefly tried using the, the radio guy as a fake police officer, but Hagen could see through that. But he's in there in the room too. Patterson comes into the room, just looks and points and says, It's you! It's like, wait a minute, we already know who the killer is. But no, the radio guy is one of her missing husbands. Ian: Yes! I forgot that. That's such a, like a wild side plot. Matthew: Once again, all these weird tones that they combine in this movie and yet it somehow works. Ian: How does the big clock have something that feels like the progenitor of an episode of Community's background B plot? Matthew: It's got the same energy. That is about right, yeah. Huh. So it's, it's an interesting ride, and you can see why this appealed to both readers and, but also people who wanted to turn this into a movie. It gives you Yes, it's relatively constrained. There are not a whole lot of sets. I don't think it was a super expensive movie to make and yet It's very dynamic I know I was trying to count and I lost count of how many scenes we have that are in a different set That are a medium close up of a guy on a telephone. Because so much of it is people are out in the field and then they have to drop a dime in the phone and call back to the crime ways offices to report what they have found and have it put on the big investigation board and all of this. And it is, the phone was their technical network and people going out there and doing the, the, the legwork and spending the shoe leather was the way to gather the information. And. It could have been very boring and yet it wasn't both because of the structure and because of the way it was shot. Ian: Yeah Matthew: And I think this means that we are headed towards our final questions So stay tuned for those final questions when we talk about whether we think you should screen this movie and how we feel about its, its future. But in the meantime, if you are enjoying the IMMP and you want more of the podcast, please go to immproject. com where you'll find all of our back episodes and you'll also find some ways to support the podcast. On our Patreon. You can. Join us starting at 3 a month and that will get you lots of bonus audio content. You can also just follow us free to keep an eye on what we're doing. And at our shop, you can find t shirts and coffee mugs and all kinds of fun things. You'll also find on immproject. com ways to keep in touch with us. And that includes our contact page where you can send us email. You can send us honest to goodness physical mail by the U. S. Postal Service. And you can also find a link to our Discord. We would love to hear from you in any of these ways. What did you think of this movie? Any other Movies that got different adaptations at different times. Any books that got different adaptations at different times. And how do you feel about those? And Ian, where can people find you? Ian: I can be found as itemcraftingmostplaces. Currently my website itemcrafting. com is under renovation, but you can also come join me on Twitch at itemcraftinglive. I start every stream playing some of the Sonic Adventure 2 Chao Garden and then hop into whatever we're playing for the day or crafting. So come on over, say hi, join me for some, some games and crafts. Matthew: Those are fun streams. And you can find me at ByMatthewPorter. com That's where you'll find links to whatever I'm doing. Be they podcasts or be they things like the YouTube channel where I have the Draft House Diary, a review of every one of my visits to the Alamo Draft House. As well as things like travel videos, like my trip to the Roswell UFO Festival. Ian: Aha. Matthew: So now, it is time for final questions. And it's a movie, so our first question is, Screen or no screen? Ian: Screen. Matthew: Yeah. Ian: Honestly, this was great. I enjoyed our previous episode's film, but this is such a pure version of it. And I'll admit that it was very nerve wracking and I got very frustrated. There's something about the way the business is just handled and like how nasty it is that gets under your skin, but it works and it makes, it makes the, the catharsis of the end of this film even stronger. It's just a wonderfully done suspense story. And I'm saying, it's worth watching and you'll find something you'll like world's building characters, wackiness. Drama. There's, there's a bunch in here for everybody. Matthew: I agree. I say screen this, no Way Out was interesting, but it had all of these other hooks into it with international espionage and politics. It being the Department of Defense and the Pentagon was the focus of it all. This is so pure and self contained and also I think the fact that it is so much older, gives us a certain distance and lets us see this little self contained world that the movie presents. But I, I like this version better, if I have to compare the two, and I definitely say screen this. And you know, there's a reason why I showed these movies to you in this order. Oh. Because No Way Out, I saw in a theater. I saw it with Mrs. Darling Wife at the time, Miss. Sweetheart Girlfriend. And she said, after the movie, well yeah, that was good. Well, you've seen The Big Clock, right? And I hadn't. I had never seen or read The Big Clock. And she said, Well, we've got to see The Big Clock. It's this. It's the original. So, I don't know whether we rented a VHS or recorded it when it was reshown on TV, but we watched this movie on VHS. And I was amazed. It was so good. It was one of these movies that this gap I didn't know existed. My cinema experience that that she was able to fill in. And, and that's why I wanted to show them to you in this order, because this is the order in which I saw them. Ian: Oh, yeah. And I can, I can understand how that would even make the big clock have more impact just because knowing how this is going to play out makes the big clock even stronger. It's. There's not really a spoiler aspect to this story. The bad guy will get it in the end. It doesn't, oh, it doesn't avoid saying that, I'd say. Matthew: Right. And even the performances. But it's just a how. Yeah. Ian: Yeah. Matthew: There are some good performances in No Way Out. Gene Hackman, he's, he's good. It's not the best Gene Hackman performance, but even an okay Gene Hackman performance is a great movie role. Kevin Costner is Kevin Costner, he, he's not such a great character actor. He's a little bit wooden. He's good when you plug him into the right roles. Ray Milland is just so expressive and so, so smart and cool and relatable at the same time that it's great to follow him as George Stroud. And I feel so much more of a connection watching this character get into and out of trouble than I did with Kevin Costner's character and of course, yeah, yeah, Charles Lawton is, is, is amazing in this setting. Ian: He is fantastic. Matthew: So I say screen this, definitely. Ian: Oh, yes. Matthew: And that brings us to the, the next question, which again is difficult. And we had a little trouble with this, or at least more things to talk about with this when we talked about No Way Out, which is revive, reboot, or rest in peace? This is the second English language adaptation of a popular novel. Ian: And we discussed the other versions. I still, I still think that nothing will ever be as cool title wise. As the French version called Police Python 357. And that is the most awesome name. Matthew: We will watch that. Neither of us have seen that. So if you want to hear us talk about that, go and join the Patreon. Because we will be talking about Police Python 357. Ian: That name. But let's see what this gives us to work with. If we were to go off of a a revival off of the big clock. Which would we go? Would you go the story of the rise of Earl Janoth and him making all the Ways publications? Would you go with what happens to this giant industry after he dies? I must say, that second one, the idea of a giant company dealing with things, and just the wildness of it, there's a little, I, this is complete tangent. The Hudsucker Proxy has got to have a little bit of the big clock in it, just because of the way it depicts a giant corporation and that sort of stuff, and I keep on wanting to connect them in my brain. Matthew: You're absolutely right. The way it depicts this corporation, this conglomerate, as a kingdom of its own is so similar between those two movies, this and The Hudsucker Proxy. And so the idea Ian: of, and so the idea of doing like the, the Janoth, the Janoth Empire crumbling with the death of its king feels like a movie that could work because those other films prove that that formula functions. But I want to see a reboot. Because I want to see a new adaptation of the big clock, the novel. And I know what I want it as. Matthew: Yeah? Ian: I was a little uncertain where to set it before, but I think I know now. What's that? I want a tech media company. Oh. Give me the big clock in the era of webcams and streaming. Give me the big clock meets BuzzFeed. All of these large these the publications aspect of the original The Big Clock, removing that political aspect showed how it fits in other industries. And it'd be fascinating where the the image the picture that's being done is a video on this old machine, this older computer, that's the good one for rendering. So the video is still rendering there for upload. But until it's done, no one wants to touch that keyboard because this thing will crash if you do. And that makes it a timer. And you can wind up with you know, you might have a witness who isn't even in the same time zone, because they were seeing something on a teleconference. Matthew: Oh, I like that. Ian: What's it like when one of the characters you're dealing with Is a VTuber, and so their online persona is a completely different face than their real life persona, and that adds to some of this mistaken identity stuff going on. Matthew: And we've got the combined complications of facial recognition technology and AI image generation. Ian: Yes. It's like this is, is this footage doctored? What are we dealing with? It's still a bunch of people who, if this is a, if this is a media group that got big, got popular fast enough, you've got a bunch of people with money. who have all of these new connections in there and all of these new stresses and pressures popping up, you know, Oh, yeah, you were gone for a couple days. Yeah, because I went to a convention. But that means there's a bunch of people who saw me there. And that means there's a bunch of witnesses that might have noticed something and pulling people in from there. I think that there's an opportunity to do a new version with this new environment that throws fresh takes on all of the pieces of classic evidence. Matthew: Mm hmm. What I thought about in terms of a reboot of this or another adaptation was it was very similar to what you're talking about. What occurred to me was I want to set this in the video game industry. Ian: Ooh. Matthew: Talk about an industry that has some giant corporations, many of them with billions of dollars to throw around, with strong and sometimes awful personalities at their heads, a history of treating people terribly. When it suits the company, I think that is another version of what could today be this corporation, this company that is in some ways creative and in some ways an oppressive empire. But it brings a lot of the same possibilities you talked about with new media as well. But when it comes to the possibility of a revival, which again in our terms can be a sequel or a prequel, in which what we saw was canon, I'd be interested in a quiet prequel. Ian: Okay. Matthew: A little self contained thriller about this missing person's case in West Virginia and this young local newspaper editor who's smarter than the police nearby, who has these insights and in the end is able to solve this missing person's case that the police were ready to give up on. And that's Young George s Strout. Ian: Oh, that is good. Especially if you litter the entirety of that movie with, with Ways magazines. Matthew: Yeah. You just, you have those in the background or on the coffee table, on the news and ways. Ian: Janoth is this looming force that will come in maybe he's even a timer. Oh, maybe there's a little bit of , the police are, the police are trying their best to deal with this, but they're not great at it, or they're even not good. doing so properly. Yep. Because of something else. You're our local newspaper guy and you can do this because of your skills before all the national publications descend on us. Yes. As this gets longer. And so him breaking the case just before the big names, these magazines that are everywhere show up, that could be brilliant. Matthew: So that, that could be fun. And you could set it in the 1940s and that would be interesting. You could send it now too, but a period piece where you're, you're limited by the limited technology. You're, you're boosted by the importance of local newspapers at the time. Ian: Yeah. That might be the That would work quite well. Matthew: I don't know who you would cast as a young Ray Milland, but I'm sure you could find a good actor for that. Oh, mom has an idea. Okay. Okay. Mom thinks Timothee Chalamet. Oh! Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Ian: He could maybe be good. Matthew: Tom Holland? Ian: Tom Holland would be good. Yes. Matthew: So that would be fun. So I would be That would be Ian: very fun. Matthew: I'd be happy with either that kind of a revival or a reboot, bringing it into the 21st century. Ian: But I think both of us agree that the big clock as a narrative structure is one that should keep going. We don't want this to be a singular instance because it's the sort of drama, it's the sort of story that we're seeing a little less of. And I want to see more of. There's that that thrill of having all the pieces and putting the puzzle together, not discovering the pieces. Matthew: Right. And it's a procedural investigation story that isn't about cops. Or even about people who are cop adjacent. Yeah. And I think that then there's a lot of power to that, especially when you add the whole complication of I'm investigating a crime where I am the person I am going to discover, but I didn't actually do it. Ian: I love that. Yeah. Talk about discussions of journalism. Matthew: And I think that's going to do it for this episode of the Intermillennium Media Project. Ian: I think so. Matthew: And we've got some fun things ahead because we're going into December. Ian: We are. Matthew: We're headed for the holiday season and we've got some fun plans for the holiday season. Ian: We always do. I love them. Matthew: Yeah, we'll have we'll have fun stories and and remarkable views. So I hope that you'll join us in a couple of weeks for more tales of media from the 20th century Ian: And in the meantime, go find something new to watch