Johnny O'Clock (1947)

Director: Robert Rossen

Writers: Robert Rossen, Milton Holmes

Composer: George Duning

Starring: Dick Powell, Evelyn Keyes, Lee J. Cobb, Ellen Drew, Nina Foch, Thomas Gomez, John Kellogg, Jim Bannon, Mabel Paige, Phil Brown

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Time Was Running Out For Johnny O'Clock ... and so were his women!

Plot: New York gambling house operator Johnny O'Clock is junior partner in a posh casino with Guido Marchettis and Chuck Blayden, a crooked cop. But Blayden is trying to cut into the casino's profits and warns Johnny not to interfere with his intention of becoming Marchettis' full partner. Blayden ends his relationship with coat check girl Harriet Hobson, then disappears. Later, Harriet is found dead in her apartment, apparently from suicide. Police Inspector Koch begins an investigation.He questions Johnny, Harriet's sister Nancy, who is infatuated with Johnny, and Johnny's associate, Charlie. When Blayden's body turns up in a nearby river, and when it is learned that Harriet death wasn't suicide but murder by poison, Johnny and Marchettis become prime suspects in both cases.To make matters worse, Pete Marchettis discovers that his wife Nelle is having an affair with Johnny. Out of jealousy, he sends hired gunmen to kill Johnny in a drive-by shooting while Johnny is driving Nancy to the airport. Johnny, now certain that Marchettis has betrayed him, goes to the casino to end their business partnership.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Johnny O'Clock wouldn't be in this mess if he hadn't been squirelling around with all those dames.  He's one troubled dude.  Is that why he's such a brooding downer?  I don't think I saw him smile or laugh once.  Powell does a fine job but for my money, it was Cobb who stole the show as a drab, solid, hardened detective who's out for Johnny and to clean up the criminals.  He was great and the picture would've benefited from more of him.  But then this is called JOHNNY O'CLOCK and not INSPECTOR KOCH.  And while I'm thinking about it, That's a terrible last name.  Drinking game:  take a shot every time someone says his last name and you'll be hammered in twenty minutes.  It's so bad with the number and frequency that it calls attention to itself, hurting the picture for anyone who picks up on (and it's easy to notice and not stop noticing).  

The writing has your standard 40s crime dialogue and for the most part it's good.  It's when it gets into the melodrama with the broads is when it goes south, and there's enough of it to realize Rossen and Holmes were weak on writing female characters.  That's also where the picture shifts halfway in to deal with Johnny's relationships with his women and it starts to drag.  Until then, they'd done a nice job with the pacing of that first third only to crawl from that point on until the finish line was in sight.  The ending isn't a winner either with it's odd mix of emotions.  Johnny's a criminal but he's also the nicest and most charming of all the criminals in the picture so Inspector Koch gets his man but he's not really sore at Johnny, hinting that he'll put in a good word so his punishment won't be so bad.  It was just a little too happy for my taste.