Friday June 10 was Judy Garland’s hundredth birthday, and The New Yorker’s critic Richard Brody wrote a piece on “her greatest movie,” which appeared in the magazine’s newsletter “The Daily” on Saturday afternoon. I started reading it, and thought ‘I’ll have to tell Ann to look for this.’ By the time I finished the article, I wanted to watch it, too. So tonight we did. It’s only streaming for subscribers of the Criterion Channel, which I have considered joining but have so far resisted because while there are many movies on the service that I would happily watch, I just don’t think I would call it up that often. We mostly watch tv shows, and generally just one movie a week. We were able to find this available to rent  for $2.99 on multiple services, and that was acceptable.

I don’t know that I’ve ever even heard of The Clock before. It was Garland’s first non-musical. The storyline is simple: a small-town soldier boy from the Midwest, about to ship to Europe for World War II, gets a two-day leave from his camp in Maryland and takes the train to New York to see the big city. Overwhelmed, he convinces an office secretary he bumps into in Penn Station to show him around. As they go from location to location, they fall in love. They feel that’s ridiculous, no-one can fall in love that quickly, but they find it difficult to deny their emotions.

This is just a wonderful film from the actors, writers and director. It looks amazing, giving you a feel for New York even though it was filmed on an MGM soundstage in Hollywood. The background extras are beautifully handled, all seeming to be living their lives even when there are a hundred in a shot. (I was so disappointed when two young girls seemed just plastered to a brick wall when they were supposed to be outside playing; they seemed so out of place in this film.) Judy Garland is just luminous, so easy to fall in love with. Robert Walker maybe overplays the hick aspect of his character on occasion, but for the most part is a believable nice guy. The supporting cast is all good, especially James Gleason and his wife Lucile as a milkman and his wife, and Keenan Wynn who does a drunk scene that actually works. The four writers (including Robert Nathan and Paul Gallico) keep the story grounded in believability, even when it’s borderline preposterous. And Vincente Minnelli certainly knew how to photograph his soon-to-be-wife.

I usually don’t go out of my way to look for Judy Garland films, but I’m glad I did for this one. I enjoyed it thoroughly.