Turner Classic Movies celebrated Judy Garland's birthday and scheduled a full day of her films. I chose to watch The Clock, a romantic drama she made in 1945.
The movie is about a soldier, Robert Walker, on a two day leave in New York City. He accidentally meets a girl, Judy garland, when she trips over his leg and breaks her shoe. From that point on they begin to fall for one another resulting in a whirlwind romance that leads to marriage. The clock in the title is both the clock at the old Hotel Astor where they meet and the ticking clock as his 48 hours in NYC winds down.
This was the first straight dramatic role, without singing that Garland ever did and she is excellent as the city girl caught up in an an unexpected romance. Walker exudes charm of a country boy visiting the big city for the first time. The story is straight forward and quite touching, unlike the "meet cute, fight and make up" scenarios of modern romance pictures. Aside from getting split apart in a bustling subway there is no contrived conflict to propel the story along. The film relies on the two actors to tell the simple story of two people falling in love.
With time the film has become a classic but it wasn't well received on initial release. Audiences were not pleased to find that garland did not sing, plus it was released about three weeks after the war in Europe had ended and movie goers wanted to move on from films about the war.
At The Movie House rating **** stars
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