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No Hands on the Clock
A wise-cracking private detective's honeymoon is interrupted by a kidnapping case.
Release : | 1941 |
Rating : | 6 |
Studio : | Pine-Thomas Productions, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Director of Photography, |
Cast : | Chester Morris Jean Parker Rose Hobart Dick Purcell Astrid Allwyn |
Genre : | Drama Crime |
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Best movie of this year hands down!
To me, this movie is perfection.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
It's one of the movies that Chester Morris starred in for Pine-Thomas, producers of good B movies for Paramount. Morris plays a private detective who has just married his occasional co-star Jean Parker, when they get involved in a missing person case in Reno.It's a decent effort, although director Frank MacDonald directs it with his budget clearly in mind, and Miss Parker seems to be doing a Paulette Goddard imitation. There are mild screwball overtones, and Morris is good at them, but there are too many suspects left in from Daniel Mainwaring's novel.Still, as with most of the Pine-Thomas productions, there's a good deal of pleasure watching actors and actresses either before they became famous (there's Rod Cameron away from the westerns), or past their glory days (Jack Norton, perennial comic drunk, plays a bar tender!), While by no means one of Pine-Thomas' better productions, it gets the job done.
Chester Morris and Jean Parker star in this mystery that seems to have more comedy than mystery. They are newlyweds and are about to go on their honeymoon, when he is hired to find a missing person, as Chester is a detective. This film has a very relaxing and natural feel to it, as Chester and Jean banter back and forth. The viewer enjoys their company so much, you wish you could hang out with them for all the excitement and fun and games, particularly Chester. One might call it the Dean Martin trait. (They seem like the poor man's Nick and Nora Charles.) I tried to follow the mystery, as someone is indeed murdered. I did follow it, up the last 20 minutes or so. But what this has going for it is good company. If you're lucky enough to find this unknown little mystery, you've got one little gem, that has charm in spades.
Detective Humphrey (Chester Morris) is newly married to Louise (Jean Parker) and is assigned a task to find a missing man in Reno. So the story begins.................and good luck following what happens! This film is played as a comedy which can be a bit irritating at times. For instance, Humphrey and Louise shouting at each other in the shower scene that also includes a comedy policeman routine. We also have a scene where Oscar (George Watts) and Louise carry on a conversation with Humphrey standing in the way of them both and it is overdone. The quality of the film isn't very good and this ruins the overall experience as we have to sit through moments of complete darkness. What on earth is happening? This is doubly frustrating as the film starts at quite a good pace and then gets faster while introducing various new characters. And you have no idea why they are in the film. And then you get thrown into moments of darkness so you end up thinking "who the hell are these people in this scene that I can't see and where on earth is this story going now?" Chester Morris and Jean Parker are both likable in the main roles - a sort of "Thin Man" team - and the film is resolved in that familiar gather everyone together routine to announce the killer but by that stage you won't have a clue as to what is happening and who is who. The film is over-complicated. Shame that it is also poor quality.
This is a terrific unknown B-picture from the Pine-Thomas outfit at Paramount. Chester Morris plays a fast-talking (and thinking) private dick who drinks milk instead of whiskey. Jean Parker is his sassy, lacto-intolerant new bride. There are plenty of other good character turns, especially by Astrid Allwyn as a hot-to-trot barfly. Although the plot (from Geoffrey Homes of "Out of the Past" fame) is intriguing, it's a bit too complex for such a short programmer. However, the repartee and character "bits of business" are top-notch, and journeyman director McDonald maintains a breakneck pace while slipping in some clever camera angles. The cryptic title refers to a clock that represents eternity, located outside a funeral home facing the hero's hotel. Worth seeking out.