Blu-ray Release: The Big Clock

Blu-ray Release Date: May 14, 2019
Price: Blu-ray $26.42
Studio: Arrow/MVD

Adapted by acclaimed screenwriter Jonathan Latimer from a novel by the equally renowned crime author Kenneth Fearing, 1948’s The Big Clock is a superior film noir suspenser that pulls off the none-too-simple task of combining screwball comedy, noirish intrigue and heady thrills.

Overworked true crime magazine editor George Stroud (Ray Milland, Dial M for Murder) has been planning a vacation for months. However, when his boss, the tyrannical media tycoon Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton, Island of Lost Souls), insists he skips his holiday, Stroud resigns in disgust before embarking on an impromptu drunken night out with his boss’s mistress, Pauline York (Rita Johnson, Sleep, My Love). When Janoth kills Pauline in a fit of rage, Stroud finds himself to have been the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time: his staff have been tasked with finding a suspect with an all too familiar description… Stroud’s very own!

Directed with panache by John Farrow (Around the World in 80 Days), who stylishly renders the film’s towering central set, the Janoth Building, The Big Clock benefits from exuberant performances by Ray Milland and Charles Laughton, who make hay with the script’s snappy dialogue.

A huge success on its release, this fast-moving noir was remade years later as the Kevin Costner vehicle No Way Out.

Arrow’s lustrous new Blu-ray edition includes the following:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation transferred from original film elements
• Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• New audio commentary by film scholar Adrian Martin
• Turning Back the Clock, a newly filmed analysis of the film by the critic and chief executive of Film London, Adrian Wootton
• A Difficult Actor, a newly filmed appreciation of Charles Laughton and his performance in The Big Clock by the actor, writer, and theater director Simon Callow
• Rare hour-long 1948 radio dramatization of The Big Clock by the Lux Radio Theatre, starring Ray Milland
• Original theatrical trailer
• Gallery of original stills and promotional materials
• Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Christina Newland