The Big Clock (1948)

George Macready: Steve Hagen

Photos 

Quotes 

• Earl Janoth : [entering the conference room; people gathered at the table rise to greet him]  Sit down, gentlemen, sit down. I resent this, I resent this deeply. There are 2 billion, 81 million, 376 thousand seconds in the average man's life, each tick of the clock a beat of the heart. And yet you sit here uselessly ticking your lives away because certain members of our conference are not on schedule. Where is George Stroud?

  Steve Hagen : Roy's trying to find him.

  Earl Janoth : [to Steve Hagen]  I do not propose to be held up, not even by Mr. Stroud. Have you, uh, told others what we want?

  Steve Hagen : Ideas to build circulation.

  Earl Janoth : Not just ideas, Steve, dynamic angles. We live in a dynamic age, gentlemen, with dynamic competitors - radio, newspapers, newsreels - and we must anticipate trends before they *are* trends. We are in effect, uh, clairvoyants. Correct?

  [entire board replies "Yes, Mr. Janoth"] 

  Earl Janoth : [continues]  I have provided the tools, a budget of $37 million, a staff of 3,600, bureaus from Reykjavik to Cairo, Moscow to Buenos Aires. All this is waste, sheer waste, under a leadership of chuckleheads.

  Earl Janoth : [addressing board member Seymour Roberts]  Now, Mr. Roberts, you have exactly one minute to tell us how you propose to add 100,000 subscriptions to Newsways.

  Seymour Roberts : [rises to speak, a bit nervous]  Ahem, well, uh, I suggest that, uh, we offer prizes for the best letters from subscribers on, uh, how to preserve world peace. A thousand dollars each week, and a grand prize of $25,000 to be awarded to the...

  Earl Janoth : [looking at his watch, impatiently cutting him off]  General theory of the publishing business, Roberts, is to sell magazines, not to pay people to read them.