The Clock

1945 Directed by Vincente Minnelli

Every second a heart-beat

A G.I. en route to Europe falls in love during a whirlwind two-day leave in New York City.

Judy Garland Robert Walker James Gleason Keenan Wynn Lucile Gleason Marshall Thompson Ruth Brady Chester Clute Dick Elliott Moyna MacGill Ruby Dandridge Ray Teal Robert Emmett O'Connor

Alternative Title

Urlaub für die Liebe

drama romance

90 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sean Gilman ★★★★½ 2

What do you get when you cast a romantic drama with two of the most weirdly intense actors of the 1940s, if not of all-time? A weirdly intense romantic drama.
"What if we'd never met?"
"We couldn't not have met."
An apocalyptic version of the city symphony romance (Lonesome) with Garland and Walker touring New York in all its beauty (the park, the museum) and ugliness (the drunken fights, the bureaucracy). The crowds separate them, repeatedly. Public transit separates them, repeatedly. Minnelli surrounds them with others (the guy sitting just off-center frame, watching their mournful post-wedding meal, minding his own business but observing all is my favorite). But ultimately they are saved by the people, individuals who give them a lift, offer them a meal, help them manipulate the system. The war explicitly hangs over it all; as soon as they meet, their time is running out.
Review by Logan Kenny ★★★★★

at the end of WrestleMania 20, lifelong best friends and eternal underdogs Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit pulled off the impossible. after years of being told they were too small, not main event material, and being relegated to years of undercard work, both men beat WWE legends to cement themselves as the two world champions at the end of the biggest show of the year. these two brothers who the fans adored with all their hearts got to celebrate a lifelong dream together, holding each other alongside their titles as tears pour down their face and Madison Square Garden erupts in joy for their achievement. it is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. within…
Review by FernandoFCroce

"Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus!" (Whitman) The virginal vision of the city is a loving studio evocation, Vincente Minnelli promptly makes himself at home with the rhythmic bustle of Penn Station. The soldier (Robert Walker) is an Indiana kid in New York, the office secretary (Judy Garland) plays guide, confidante, and, finally, soulmate over the course of the two-day furlough. Their tour of parks and museums pauses long enough to take in the nocturnal hum of the setting—train whistles and sirens in the distance, chorales rising as the two lovers move toward their first embrace and kiss, filmed like planets stirred into monumental orbit. "Let’s allow our emotions free rein, shall we?" The skyscrapers are daunting, but the…
Review by olivia ★★★★½ 4

i loved this! <3 yes, i am indeed a sucker for romance.. how could you tell? judy garland was pretty sensational in this film; beautiful, charismatic and emotionally accessible and vulnerable, which made for a convincing portrayal of love at first sight. i believed everything about this film. a few scenes were a bit boring, but besides that i was all in the entire time. no my eyes did *not* get misty, what are you talking about....
Review by Meredith Riggs 🌼 ★★★★ 2

Unless you're a huge Judy Garland fan, watch a ton of WWII-era films, or just happened to watch this film, there's a good chance you haven't seen THE CLOCK.
This film is one of the great underrated romantic classics. Vincente Minnelli directed his IRL new bride, Judy Garland, and Robert Walker in Garland's first truly dramatic and non-musical film role. Both Garland and Walker give touching performances as a young woman and a sweet soldier who fall passionately in love while he is on a 48-hour furlough. Knowing that Walker's character will have to return to his duties for an indefinite amount of time and that he may not come back to the love of his life alive gives the modern viewer of a look at how a young couple might have felt during World War II.
Review by Carlos Valladares ★★★★★

What Vincente Minnelli does here with time and the city, and Judy Garland with emotion, is otherworldly.
Review by Jake Bart ★★★★★

What’s remarkable is that this was clearly a war-time shot in the arm on the MGM ledgers, but Minnelli imbues it with such a steadily escalating intensity. By the final stretches your heart is racing. The line from BRIEF ENCOUNTER applies here and it’s sustained for 90 minutes: “I've fallen in love. I didn't think such violent things could happen to ordinary people.” But Minnelli swaps Lean’s interiority by also foregrounding the ordinary (its vision of urban sprawl is vivid, if a bit idealized). The psychological acuity is still there (“I don’t feel very married” is a perfect character moment) but the singularity of voiceover and closeup are rejected in favor of the delicate democracy of Minnelli’s gliding camera and incomparable m-e-s. The single take subway separation might be my favorite moment in all the Minnelli I’ve seen.
Review by trolleyfreak ★★★★★ 1

'A story as gay as Spring... exciting as love itself!' (original tagline for Vincente Minnelli's The Clock)
Sandwiched in between one film that confirmed Minnelli as the outstanding colour stylist of the '40's musical, with a flowing camera technique to match (Meet Me In St. Louis) and another in which he showed his more outlandishly garish and overripe flair for visual elaboration (Yolanda And The Thief) came something tonally quite different, namely a very simple and quite magical comedy drama about a wet-behind-the-ears soldier (Robert Walker) on 48-hours' leave in New York, who 'meets-cute', courts and marries a secretary (Judy Garland), with the two leads personifying sentimental - but thankfully not too sentimental! - dewy-eyed young love.
Minnelli came to…
Review by Owen ★★★★½ 1

Walker's servicemen meets Garland's office girl during two days of leave in New York and they fall in love despite everything the city throws at them.
An absolutely pitch perfect romance, not really a romantic comedy even if it is defining the structure of so many of them because it also contains something true about the wartime experience. About desperation and loneliness and fear in amongst the classic meet cute and the New York tourist reel scenes.
As well as the, presumably unavoidable, zeitgeist of the times it manages this because of the intensity of the two leads. Garland's performance is a thing of skittish beauty, a nervous, easily bruised young woman kidding herself that she is at home in…
Review by Chris ★★★★ 4

There are some moments of serious vulnerability displayed by the two leads here that raise this story up beyond a wartime melodrama. Garland is great, probably the best performance I've seen her give. And not a song in sight. She excels here. And Walker too.
Two delicate characters played by two tragic actors.
If you want to add some extra pathos to your viewing know this:
It's said that during this film Garland's addiction to pills really took hold. The studio fed her tablets to keep her energy up and her weight down.
And Walker possibly fared worse. He learned during the filming that his wife Jennifer Jones was leaving him for David O. Selznick. He was never the same…
Review by PUNQ ★★★★

Now, this was sweet! Good to see Judy Garland get a suitable leading man and deliver something so simple and adorable.
Review by Jake Bart ★★★★★

Yeah, still one of the great Hollywood romances and in some ways the ultimate Garland vehicle, a film as vulnerable and open as she is on screen.

Recent reviews

Review by PT.

judy garland is so so good. the drunk guy bit was brilliant
Review by Logan Kenny ★★★★★

at the end of WrestleMania 20, lifelong best friends and eternal underdogs Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit pulled off the impossible. after years of being told they were too small, not main event material, and being relegated to years of undercard work, both men beat WWE legends to cement themselves as the two world champions at the end of the biggest show of the year. these two brothers who the fans adored with all their hearts got to celebrate a lifelong dream together, holding each other alongside their titles as tears pour down their face and Madison Square Garden erupts in joy for their achievement. it is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. within…
Review by Rick Zinn ★★★★

This is my first viewing of this movie, I had not heard of it. It was delivered to my mom with a bunch other of DVDs that we watch on Sundays. I had little idea what to expect, I watched the movie cold, no idea what so ever if it was a musical or what.
This was so good, Old Hollywood being Old Hollywood and so much set in the streets of New York City that I wonder how much Martin Scorsese must love this. The story is Robert Walker Plays a solider on leave in New York City and Judy Garland trips over him in A train station. A broken heel and she ends up showing him the town.…
Review by Anthony Peronto ★★★½

A system and a town designed to keep people separated, a couple who want to be together in the moment, & the individuals (played by one of the best ensemble of extras) that come into their lives and interact in ways monumentous and intimate. Charming fluff.
Review by niteowel ★★★

The first act is all over the place, but once the milkman shows up, we get a great movie.
Review by eliotkimball ★★

When love is real, stop the talking n let the visuals tell story
Review by BrettBuckalew ★★★½

Although the premise of a soldier (Robert Walker) on a two-day-long leave in New York City forging a romantic connection with a local receptionist (Judy Garland) makes this sound on paper like a proto-BEFORE SUNRISE in its time-constrained love story, THE CLOCK actually ends up being more rewarding as a love letter to the NYC of 1945. Aside from a first kiss in Central Park, Garland's Alice and Walker's Joe are never really alone in the movie--they get in a misadventure that results in them making an injured milkman's (James Gleason) delivery rounds, they're separated in a crowded subway station at one point, and even the two times that they eat together, the diners sitting near their table get involved…
Review by froggy 🌻 ★★★★½

Maybe love IS real... and maybe some things ARE fated... 🥺💕
Review by szcuddles ★★★★★

Judy Garland is fantastic in her first outing as a dramatic actress. I expected to be wanting some singing from her but she’s so fantastic to watch anyhow you don’t miss the musical hijinks. She and Robert Walker have a really sweet chemistry together and that helps keep the story from seeming too forced. By the end, you really want these two crazy kids to be together.
Review by nitingulati ★★★½

73/100
Review by Pavel Linshits ★★★

The moral of the story is watch where you're going or you might end up marrying Robert Walker. It's a sweet, hopeful film, which depicts New York beautifully and has some stand-out scenes (the milkman adventure, the wordless breakfast, the opening), but Walker is a bit bland, the whole bureaucratic adventures are extremely dull, and in the end I didn't actually care that much about these people who barely know each other getting married.
Review by Guyzo997 ★★★

A Judy Garland vehicle that’s a drama rather than a musical, a soldier is in New York City and is going to be shipped off to war in two days. Running into a secretary, they engage in a whirlwind romance, but will it blossom into something more? This melodramatic romance is clearly a product of wartime, but it’s still a decent film.
It would probably shock casual viewers to learn that the movie was entirely shot in the studio in Hollywood. The Grand Central terminal in particular is exceedingly well designed, it looks quite genuine. But it also means the city is almost a character itself, emphasizing the size of the city and the improbability of these two characters finding…