ABOUT THE FILM:

Judy's only non-singing role for MGM, and one of the few times she's seen in a contemporary story in contemporary clothing. And it's the last time she would appear in a black & white film at MGM as well. She looks beautiful and her acting is so natural that you tend to forget that she's acting. She's that good. She and Robert Walker make a great pair, but sadly this is the only time they ever worked together.

The Clock is a lovely wartime love story about a very impresionable young soldier (Robert Walker) who meets and falls in love with a New York City office worker (Judy) while on his 48 hours leave. It's filmed with just the right amount of tenderness by Minnelli, who famously makes New York a "third character", even though the film was shot on the MGM lot in Culver City, California.

• The film was released in the United Kingdom as "Under The Clock".
• The film was originally to be directed by Jack Conaway, he was replaced by Fred Zinnemann after becomming ill while shooting the location shots in New York. Zinnemann was replaced by Vincente Minnelli after his footage was deemed unusable, and he and Garland did not "click" (Garland wanted Minnelli all along, as he had just directed her to great success in Meet Me In St. Louis - the biggest hit of her career thus far).
• The cost of the Pennsylvania Station set on Stage 27 was $66,450.
• Sadly, the original Penn Station in New York City was torn down in 1963 to make way for what is now the Madison Square Garden complex. The lower level tracks remain basically the same.
• Producer Arthur Freed, musical director Roger Edens, and screen writer Robert Nathan all make cameo appearances in the film, a la Alfred Hitchcock.
• Moyna MacGill, who plays the "Woman in Restaurant" was Angela Lansbury's mother!
• MGM purchased the unpublished short story in 1943 for $50,000 at the urging of producer Arthur Freed.
• Martha Green wrote an early draft of the screenplay, but Freed did not like it so he assigned Joseph Schrank and Robert Nathan who wrote most of what we see in the film today.
• This was producer Arthur Freed's first dramatic film.
• The unofficial theme song of the film is "If I Had You" which is used in the underscore. Judy recorded the song for Decca Records on July 7, 1945.

* Much of the data on this page is provided Hugh Fordin's fantastic book ""The World Of Entertainment" (now available under the reprint title "M-G-M's Greatest Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit"); and the many Garland biographies both in and out of print, including the wonderful book by Scott Schechter "Judy Garland - The Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Legend".