Nov 28, 2022
Johnny O'Clock (1947)
"You heard him tell about how many years we've been together, what we've been through."
"Ah, Johnny, baby, he'd be the first one to stick a knife in your back."
"It's there already. I can feel the blood sticking to my shirt."
#johnny o'clock#film noir#1947#american cinema#robert rossen#milton holmes#dick powell#evelyn keyes#lee j. cobb#ellen drew#nina foch#thomas gomez#john kellogg#jim bannon#mabel paige#phil brown#fred aldrich#jeff chandler#matty fain#george duning#disappointing that nobody asks what time it is in this film‚ only for the title character to yell IT'S JOHNNY O'CLOCK and start blasting#otherwise this is a very solid noir‚ propped up by having one of the most interesting protagonists you could find in this kind of film#Johnny is fascinating because he's neither hero nor villain; he's the epitome of shades of grey‚ his whole existence a tightrope walk#between good and bad‚ legal and illegal‚ right and wrong. it's an increasingly desperate position‚ as he desperately tries to keep#himself on the fence he's constructed and not get drawn into the machinations of the gangsters he's aligned with or the cop that's out#to break them (Cobb in a typically assured performance). he's like a crook's Hamlet‚ inextricably pulled into a conflict he isn't certain#he wants to be in. also of note is some very interesting (and surprisingly direct) queer coding between Johnny and his 'man' Charlie#a hoodlum who Johnny looked after and now lives with him as a kind of valet and chef‚ but whose responses to the events of the film are#closer to those of a jealous lover. at one point Keyes asks Johnny who he's trying to convince as a womaniser‚ her or himself‚ and it feels#like a significant dig at the lifestyle Johnny's constructed for himself. and lovely Nina Foch turns up which is always a delight
