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The Clock is a lovely little movie that offers Judy Garland one of her rare straight dramatic parts. It doesn’t hurt that she’s matched by a fabulously sincere and present performance by Robert Walker, and an overall tender tone that underscores the bittersweet nature of the romance. The Clock is a “small” wartime romance that packs a bigger punch than some of its more prestigious siblings.
It’s in the ways that The Clock goes against the MGM modus operandi of high-gloss and heavy glamour that prove so successful for this little movie. The story is simple: a soldier on leave (Walker) finds himself in New York City, meets cute with a girl (Garland), and they spend the rest of his leave falling in love and exploring the city. Along the way there’s appearances by several well-known characters including, including a drunk Keenan Wynn, James Gleason and his wife, Lucile Gleason, in small supporting parts that add color and texture to the central romance.
That’s it. That’s the entirety of The Clock in summary, yet it fails to do justice to its emotional majesty and fragility. There’s a deep well of insecurity and battered hope, both in the main characters, and in the country at large. The specter of World War II hovers around the edges of their thoughts and actions, including the complicated emotional goodbye as Garland sends Walker off. Tears have been shed along the way, but Garland’s young bride is smiling a peculiar way as she strides back in the bustle of the city with a sense of…something. Maybe of purpose? Maybe the bloom of new love hasn’t wilted with the cold light of day?
There’s a mystery at the heart of the romance, and the petty indifference and cynicism that they encounter that lingers both in the spirit and the imagination. Quickie romances are a common practice in the face of war and potential death, but it feels like these two likeable, sincere people found something special with each other. There’s a level of comfort in their interactions, an uneasy chemistry that seems to shift with the same fast pace as the story’s contours that’s quite refreshing.
It doesn’t hurt that director Vincente Minnelli has two lead actors as talented and enthralling to watch as Garland and Walker. Walker was a known quality as a “serious” actor, and he does incredibly well with his green corporal that’s adrift in the big city aside from this girl he found. But it’s Garland’s straight dramatic work that’s the real discovery, as if her numerous scenes of quivering need or rejection weren’t powerful enough. Her crying at the wedding reception she’s just gone through is a marvel, but it’s nowhere near as commanding as the quiet power she brings to their scene in a church or the morning after their wedding night.
The city itself functions as a third character, and one that is ever shifting to its mercurial moods and whims. A frantic search after they’ve been broken up underscores a big city’s ability to be both massive and small, caring and unfeeling at the same time. In scaling back the ambitions of the narrative, Minnelli once again provides a symphony of emotions, faces, and textures that give a little sting with the sweet. The Clock may be the greatest little movie in all of their careers.
