Noirvember: My Name Is Julia Ross (1945)

I've been to some dubious job interviews in my time (and I'll take a moment to remind everyone that group interviews are a very special form of torture for some people), but I am thankful that I've never headed along for a job to then wake up some time later being called a different name by someone claiming I am married to them. I mean, hey, before I embraced the sober life it was always a remote possibility. That is the fate of our main character, Julia Ross (Nina Foch), in this enjoyable mystery noir.

While things move very quickly in this film, the runtime is only 65 minutes and it doesn't take long to set up the main premise, viewers get a quick sketch of the life of Julia Ross in the first few minutes. She is looking for work, most importantly, but she also has a male friend/potential love interest in the form of Dennis Bruce (Roland Varno). This will prove to be an essential wrinkle, of course. Once woken up in the household of Mrs. Hughes (Dame May Whitty) and her son, Ralph Hughes (George Macready), Julia is repeatedly told that she is actually Marion, the wife of Ralph. Attempting to escape, Julia inadvertently helps her captors as they continue to inform those in the local area about the sad ill-health of "Marion".

Based on a book, "The Woman In Red", by Anthony Gilbert, My Name Is Julia Ross is written by Muriel Roy Bolton, who helped to co-write the enjoyable The Amazing Mr. X only a few years later. It manages to stay just about plausibility, despite how brazen and overt the villains are, and weaves the plot around a couple of very enjoyable set-pieces. The ending is a bit abrupt, but anyone knowing the runtime before starting to watch the film should be ready for that.

Director Joseph H. Lewis was fairly prolific with his film output between the mid-1930s and mid-1950s, and this is almost right in the middle of this fertile period. He knows what he's doing, and he makes great use of a talented cast making the most of their colourful characters, whether in main roles or amusing supporting turns.

Foch is a decent lead, and she does well with a role that requires her to stay vulnerable and helpless for most of the runtime. Macready is enjoyably dastardly, and it's easy to loathe him whether he's being charming or showing his true nature, and Whitty is an absolute delight throughout. Varno is appropriately pleasant and harmless in the role of Dennis, and both Doris Lloyd and Joy Harington provide some lighter moments without overdoing the comedy of their scenes. I could happily mention almost everyone else involved, but then it might take longer to read this review than it would take to watch the actual film.

As simple and slim as the short runtime would suggest, this is a great little noir that everyone should be able to make time for. Balancing a sense of fun and menace in equal measure, it may not feel essential, but it's one I can see myself revisiting every so often.

8/10

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Noir-vember: The Big Clock (1948)

Based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing, and with a screenplay mainly credited to Jonathan Latimer, The Big Clock is a superb classic noir that also has a lightness of touch to give it a greater sense of fun than most of the other films it could sit alongside.

Ray Milland is George Stroud, the hero of the piece. He works for a crime magazine, and he's long overdue a holiday with his wife, Georgette (Maureen O'Sullivan). Unfortunately, he also works for a very demanding and ungrateful boss (Earl Janoth, played by Charles Laughton). After another very bad day at the office, so to speak, George ends up on a drunken evening out with Pauline York (Rita Johnson). Pauline is an on-off girlfriend of Earl, and she thinks that she and George can team up to effectively spite him. That's not about to happen, however, as Pauline winds up dead, and George is tasked with trying to find the perpetrator for a scoop. He isn't told who the victim is, which leads to him unwittingly getting his team to look for a mystery prime suspect who starts to feel VERY familiar.

Although it has that aforementioned lightness of touch, don't go thinking that The Big Clock doesn't keep winding up the tension as events unfold. It is, to use the overused phrase, a coiled spring throughout most of the middle section. Things look bleak for George, despite the fact that he should be able to have the truth on his side. Director John Farrow makes great use of his cast, using them to lift the material (not that the script is terrible, not at all) with how well they all interact with one another, and he ensures that the plotting stays simple and clear throughout. Things may be a bit contrived in the first half of the movie, but it is so enjoyable that it doesn’t feel problematic.

Milland is a dependable lead, good at being the kind of everyman you want in this role. Johnson makes a strong impression with her few main scenes, allowed to have a lot more fun than O’Sullivan, who has to do little more than be the loyal and supportive wife throughout. Laughton is a great antagonist, working through a plan that is formulated by a conniving character also employed by him (played by George Macready), and you also get a performance from Elsa Lanchester that allows her to steal any scene she is in.

Although some may prefer their film noirs to have more darkness and grit, dismissing The Big Clock would be a big mistake. It’a a hugely entertaining thriller that only just misses out on being a minor classic. And I am now even more interested to check out one of the main remakes it had, No Way Out (1987).

8/10

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