No Hands on the Clock (1941)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Simply A Masterpiece

i must have seen a different film!!

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's one of the movies that Chester Morris starred in for Pine-Thomas, producers of good B movies for Paramount. Morris plays a private detective who has just married his occasional co-star Jean Parker, when they get involved in a missing person case in Reno.It's a decent effort, although director Frank MacDonald directs it with his budget clearly in mind, and Miss Parker seems to be doing a Paulette Goddard imitation. There are mild screwball overtones, and Morris is good at them, but there are too many suspects left in from Daniel Mainwaring's novel.Still, as with most of the Pine-Thomas productions, there's a good deal of pleasure watching actors and actresses either before they became famous (there's Rod Cameron away from the westerns), or past their glory days (Jack Norton, perennial comic drunk, plays a bar tender!), While by no means one of Pine-Thomas' better productions, it gets the job done.

Chester Morris stars as an investigator who finds lost persons. In his latest case, he found a woman (Jean Parker) and married her and is planning on a nice honeymoon in Reno of all places (nothing says romance than this city famed for its divorces!). Soon, however, Chester's pesky boss locates them and convinces him to take one more 'easy case'. Well, naturally the case is anything but easy and involves lots of peril. Can the couple manage to finish the case and survive at least long enough to consummate their marriage?There isn't anything especially deep or memorable about this film--it's a low- budgeted B-mystery and Hollywood made a bazillion of these back in the 30s and 40s. It's a bit better than many simply because Morris is so good in such roles and Parker is cute as his rather clueless bride--though I must admit that the plot is a bit more complicated and confusing than the norm.

In one of the first Pine-Thomas B films from Paramount Chester Morris and Jean Parker play a bargain basement version of Nick and Nora Charles in No Hands On The Clock. I'm thinking this might have been something that Bill Pine and Bill Thomas had in mind for a series, but Morris's next film was his first Boston Blackie.Morris is a detective specializing in missing persons cases and is hired to find the missing son of a ranch owner who enjoys the casinos in Reno and all they have to offer. Several murders later we find who's been responsible for a small crime wave including a fake kidnapping of the missing son in question.Dick Purcell has a nice role along with Astrid Allwyn as a known gangster whom the cops and the FBI think is responsible for all of this. Allwyn plays a very wise moll to Purcell, their scenes with Morris and Parker have some real bite.This definitely could have been a series had Morris not already signed for Boston Blackie.

This is a terrific unknown B-picture from the Pine-Thomas outfit at Paramount. Chester Morris plays a fast-talking (and thinking) private dick who drinks milk instead of whiskey. Jean Parker is his sassy, lacto-intolerant new bride. There are plenty of other good character turns, especially by Astrid Allwyn as a hot-to-trot barfly. Although the plot (from Geoffrey Homes of "Out of the Past" fame) is intriguing, it's a bit too complex for such a short programmer. However, the repartee and character "bits of business" are top-notch, and journeyman director McDonald maintains a breakneck pace while slipping in some clever camera angles. The cryptic title refers to a clock that represents eternity, located outside a funeral home facing the hero's hotel. Worth seeking out.