Johnny O'Clock

Robert Rossen's first film as director. Johnny O'Clock, played by Dick Powell, is a partner in an elegant gambling house who tries to keep the operation clean, while the tension between him, his partner and the partner's wife is already moving toward a killing. When a hat-check girl is found dead her sister Nancy comes to the city and Johnny's world begins to come apart. Rossen had worked as a screenwriter, and the film's strength is in the writing: the dialogue is short, hard, and never says directly what anyone actually wants. Powell's cold performance is among the best examples of the period that carried him from musical stardom into noir. Evelyn Keyes plays Nancy and Lee J. Cobb the detective working the case. Rossen would shortly become a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee and his career would be split in two; this film belongs to the period before that. Who it is for: viewers who like forties noir and sharp dialogue. Who it is not for: anyone expecting an intricate puzzle, since the film is more interested in atmosphere than in solutions.