Johnny O'Clock

You play very cute, and nasty!

Johnny O'Clock has everything under control. He has a partnership in a thriving casino and all his little peccadilloes are at ease in his world. Then things start to go awry, his partnership with Marchettis comes under severe pressure on account of Mrs Marchettis' dalliances, and worst of all, the hat check girl he had a soft spot for has turned up dead. Johnny is feeling the heat, from every corner of his world it seems.

At the time of writing this, Johnny O' Clock has under ten reviews written on IMDb and barely 200 votes cast, one can only assume that Johnny is badly under seen! Without knowing the issues of accessibility on TV and DVD, it may just be that this little noir treasure has slipped through...

I have to say I was quite disappointed with this. Dick Powell is the eponymous character, a casino manager who on the face of it is as hard as nails, but a little scratching under the surface reveals that he's actually quite a soft old chap. He's had an affair with the much younger wife (Ellen Drew) of his partner (Thomas Gomez) and she is determined to get him back. Just what is she prepared to do, though? Meantime, Lee J. Cobb is a detective trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious suicide of a woman that brings her sister (Evelyn Keyes) into town, and onto Powell's radar. The crime mystery elements are all too often subsumed in the half-baked romantic intrigues that really drag down the pace to little better than a melodrama with ev...