Watch that clock

This is about a film which has taught me to no longer trust reader reviews before watching it, think I'll look up some professional reviews instead, after the event.

All right, fifteen minutes later, there are none, neither at Rotten Tomatoes nor elsewhere.  In fact, the YT title is 'Drive-in Classic' - again you get the idea. For those who've been to drive-ins, you'd know you'd have a girl with you or else the gang, three packed onto the back bench.  

Happy endings were certainly the order of the day for pulp films of this 1961 type, a situation which had radically changed by 1974 when the Peckinpah, Tarantino and other lowlife slasher films made it to the big screen, seen by everyone driving by or peeping over the fence watching.  

My mates were quite surprised that I subsequently declined invitations to go see the latest with them, because I was about the wildest of the bunch until then.  My thing was far more pub music, you remember the scene?  Good meal beforehand. Why on earth would I want to sit through sicko stuff back then such as the cabal is doing to people now, esp. children?

Between 1962 and 1974, something went very wrong with society, standards did not just drop but they took a nosedive.  Deep Throat was 1972 and Debbie Does Dallas was 1978.  All of those just mentioned were lightyears from this 1961 film.  What went wrong in society between those years?

As a young man in those days, of course we saw all that was on offer, we did all that was going, the early 70s were when the harder drugs became freely available to all, as distinct from waiting for your man.

So ... back to this film, I started watching after it was in the sidebar after previewing the Dick Tracy and it gave all the appearance of being tawdry - everyone lying, everyone after the money an executed killer had hidden away, a really sleazy hour of celluloid, low budget.

But you know that situation when you're expecting something, e.g. poor, wooden acting and awful production values ... but then you find the cast doing the best they can with what they've been given and not only that ... there are nuances floating about.  Nuances in relations especially - I was pleasantly surprised, plus the crim's execution alluded to was a moral dilemma, shan't give any more away yet.  It's like a modern, mediaeval morality tale.

No wonder the type of guy who likes slasher films was not going to like it:

"In 1962, Director Edward L. Cahn made 11 films, most of them shot in his house. When the Clock Strikes is one of the better ones. It's got a fun gimmick, nice style, and it ends with a little suspense and an absurdly happy ending. The only thing missing is thanking God and cutting away to the clouds parting to reveal the sunshine." [Justin Decloux]

What a prat. That, chaps and chapesses, tells you all you need to know about filmgoers and reviewers - both types.  

I think where I find myself these days and perhaps I'm not alone in this is that we're being so ripped off, lied to and badly done by today by almost everyone that when sleazy moneygrubbing, golddigging, appears in an admittedly 1961 film where sane values were still about in society, I just switch off and was about to, but then there were twists ... and then more twists.

Plus that criticism about the film being made in his own house actually adds to it - quite a large place, enough room for a good action script.  But the two leads, though he's quite wooden in doing pathos himself, aren't half bad and his woodenness lends verisimilitude to his film character.

Yes, we've already said that it ends happily, but just how it does is quite heartwarming really, if a bit naive, as the reviewer Justin says, plus it was always leading that way, it wasn't just tacked on, it was the final twist, yet inevitable twist, if there can be such a thing.  

Think I might run it here on Wednesday.