No singing here but...
If there were ever any doubt that Judy Garland was an accomplished actress this film is proof postive. Don't miss it.
Exactly. No singing, no dancing. Just Judy. She was truly a talented lady.
Reid: "We need some butts rushed to the lab for DNA analysis."
Its true. Quite spankable in the clock as well, if you don't mind my saying.
Less so in Judgement at Nuremberg, but she did an excellent job in that roll.
Agreed and I'm in the minority. While I think Garland's had a fine singing voice, I don't like musicals so I find her non-musical roles to be her finest.
shareHonestly, I rate Judy among my favourite actresses of all time - and for one simple reason: she could do anything. Within a mostly musical career, she managed to run a pretty long gamut of emotions. She was always believable, always genuine. Her performance in The Clock is among the most touching I've seen. The movie in general though is one of my favourite romantic films ever, and I think a lot of that is down to the quality of her performance.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a HUGE fan of Judy's music also. But I think as an actress she was so limited by the studios formula to cash in on her talents. She could have been an acting legend as well as a musical one. They should have allowed her to make slightly fewer musicals and slightly more serious drama roles, a noir role, something light and funny.
She could have been great in a sort of Hepburn/Tracy type thing.
Ahh well.
Judy was a very fine actress. But she'd been that since childhood. What happened in "The Clock" and later "A Star in Born" is that Minnelli and Cukor, respectively, urged her to "act." As if there was anything wrong with her technique or talent prior to these roles. The result was over-reaching on Judy's part--particularly in "Star." She is still lovely to look at in "The Clock" and that evens out those moments when you can almost hear Minnelli saying, "more, more--more of that!"
I think she is more realistic and has more chemistry with Van Johnson in the final scene of "In the Good Old Summertime" than in all of "The Clock" with the equally jittery and totally miscast Robert Walker.
Put down the crack pipe. Robert Walker, a fine and underrated actor
was perfectly cast! Garland is so wonderful and charismatic that it's
very easy to underrate his sincere and touching performance. He has
so many bits in this film.
You're also dead wrong about "Star", where Garland gives the single
greatest musical/dramatic performance of all-time (beating out her
closest competitors, Streisand in "Funny Girl"; Liza in "Cabaret").
Garland has many, many moments of subtly in both "The Clock" and "Star"
and her losing the Oscar for the latter is the biggest joke in
movie history.
She did a fantastic job in this movie.
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Jim Hutton (1934-79) & Ellery Queen 🎇