The clock has expired

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The clock has expired
Original title Night passage
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1957
length 89 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director James Neilson
script Borden Chase
production Aaron Rosenberg
for Universal Studios
music Dimitri Tiomkin
camera William H. Daniels
cut Sherman Todd
occupation

Night Passage is an American Western of James Neilson from the year 1957 . It was based on a novel by Norman A. Fox .

content

Grant McLaine was five years ago by the railway company dismissed because he was suspected of a robbery having taken part in the railroad. Since then he has been making ends meet with his accordion playing more badly than well. His former boss, however, has him called after all this time because he is faced with a problem: the railway line needs to be built and the workers want their wages, which have already been stolen twice by the gang around Whitey Harbin and The Utica Kid. Since the workers are threatening to leave the construction site if they are not paid, Grant McLaine is supposed to personally take care of the money the third time the wages are transported to the railway line. If the money arrives safely, it would also mean that he was wrongly accused of robbery and would be allowed to work for society again.

Although he takes the job because he wants his old job back, McLaine is still in a bind : The Utica Kid, who has long wanted Whitey Harbins to head the gang, is none other than McLaine's little brother. When the gang robbed the train with the wages, McLaine hides the wages in the provisions of the orphan boy Joey Adams, whose life he had previously saved. When the gang can't find the money, they take Verna, the wife of Grant's ex-boss, hostage and demand payment of the money within the next 24 hours.

McLaine follows the gang to a ghost town , where he reveals his relatives to The Utica Kid and asks to join the gang. The Utica Kid is suspicious of his brother as a righteous man, and Whitey Harbin is now picking up on McLaine because of The Utica Kids. McLaine reports to The Utica Kid where he hid the money. He now plans to secretly disappear with Joey and the money. The gang's informant , a railroad worker, appears to collect his share of the supposed profit. He recognizes McLaine as the guardian of the funds and there is a shooting. McLaine, Verna and The Utica Kids friend Charlotte Drew are cornered. Joey takes McLaine's side and The Utica Kid rushes to his brother, refined. Together they kill the members of the Whitey Harbins gang. Whitey manages to shoot McLaine, but The Utica Kid throws himself in front of his brother and saves him while he is killed in the process. McLaine shoots Whitey in revenge. McLaine then leaves with Charlotte Drew.

production

Originally, Anthony Mann was supposed to be the director of the film. At the time, he had already shot westerns like Mutiny on the Snake River or The Man from Laramie with James Stewart , but was not convinced by the script, so James Neilson took over the direction shortly after filming began. However, this also happened at the instigation of Stewart, who had made it into his head to deviate from the very tough types embodied in Mann and finally to be able to indulge his predilection for playing the accordion. Mann rejected these musical interludes. It was the end of the cooperation between Stewart and Mann. It was Neilson's first directorial work; later he shot numerous episodes of the Disneyland series .

Anthony Mann justified his departure from the project in an interview in 1967:

“The story was so incoherent that the audience wouldn't have understood. But Jimmy was taken with the movie. Because he should play the accordion and do some stunts that actors love. He didn't care about the script, so I left production. The film was a flop and Jimmy always chalked me up. "

- Anthony Mann, 1967

The film was shot in Durango , Colorado as the first Technicolor Technirama film. James Stewart was given the opportunity to sing in a film for the first time after the 1936 born Zum Tanzen . In The Clock Has Expired, he interprets the titles “Follow the River” and “You Can't Get Far Without a Railroad” , which came from the pen of Ned Washington . He accompanied himself on his favorite instrument, the accordion, and his playing was later dubbed by a professional musician. The clock has expired came into US cinemas on July 24, 1957. In the FRG the western started on December 20, 1957.

criticism

Critics complained that the inexperienced director "let his lead actor Stewart get away with a few artificial scenes" and that Audie Murphy "still seemed embarrassed in front of the camera" even after ten years of acting. They also found that Dan Duryea was "one of his most pathetic representations".

The lexicon of international films called Die Uhr expired as a "high quality Starwestern with tangible conflicts and well-calculated tension", while other critics in Die Uhr ist expappen only saw a "mediocre Western" that also flopped at the box office.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zit, after Donald Dewey: James Stewart. A life for the film . Henschel, Berlin 1997, p. 335.
  2. ↑ Donald Dewey: James Stewart. A life for the film . Henschel, Berlin 1997, p. 335.
  3. ↑ All three: Donald Dewey: James Stewart. A life for the film . Henschel, Berlin 1997, p. 335.
  4. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 8. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, p. 3925.
  5. ↑ Jonathan Coe: James Stewart. His films - his life . Heyne, Munich 1994, p. 150.