‘Johnny O’Clock’ or — Watch Out?

Johnny O’Clock has a name that’s fun to say out loud (go on, try it yourself). This could be why everyone always calls Johnny O’Clock by his full name. Never John, Johnny or even Mr. O’Clock but always Johnny O’Clock.

Johnny O’Clock (Dick Powell) runs a casino with his partner Guido. Johnny O’Clock likes to be professional and not do anything stupid which is why he returns the expensive watch Guido’s wife, Nelle, has given Johnny O’Clock. She gave one to her husband, too, but the one she gave to Johnny O’Clock has a romantic inscription engraved on the back. Nelle and Johnny O’Clock use to date and she still isn’t over him but Johnny O’Clock knows getting mixed up with his partner’s squeeze would be a stupid thing to do.

Yet when the apparent suicide of a hat-check girl from Johnny O’Clock’s casino is linked to the murder of a crooked cop it’s not long before Inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb) is breathing down Johnny O’Clock’s neck, and when Kock starts playing Guido and Johnny O’Clock against each other that’s when Johnny O’Clock decides it could be time to cash in his share of the casino and make a quick exit.

It looks like time (get it?!) might be running out for Johnny O’Clock.

So ‘Johnny O’Clock’ (1947) is a straight forward, unremarkable Noir that doesn’t reinvent the genre or do anything particularly different or radical. Yet director Robert Rossen was primarily a scriptwriter and provides the script here and it’s the dialogue and attention to character detail that really make ‘Johnny O’Clock tick. So the secondary and background characters are excellent, and might even be of more interest than the leads. A minor character or a walk-on might just have one line but chances are it’ll be a zinger or loaded with character depth; the scene between Koch and a nosey, elderly neighbour is a great example of this.

The story is pretty cool, too. It doesn’t exactly barrel along at a rate of knots but the way narrative beats are delivered and plot points revealed is satisfying, especially the moment when Guido and Johnny O’Clock suddenly figure out what the other is hiding, something done with no dialogue at all. It’s quite impressive.

The script is nicely written with plenty of quips, digs, smart-assed retorts and typical Noir-isms. At one point a woman informs Johnny O’Clock that her previous lover was killed.

“An accident?” Johnny O’Clock asks.

“Yeah,” she replies. “The War.”

The film is filled with lines like that.

I really enjoyed ‘Johnny O’Clock’. It has a compelling story, witty dialogue, fully realised characters and contains an ending that, without giving too much away, is refreshingly sympathetic and caring. If you’re a Noir fan this is very much recommended, so make like Nelle and give Johnny O’Clock a watch.