There’s aren’t a lot of stars from Golden Age Hollywood that I regard as “can’t miss.” It’s basically a list that starts and ends with Dick Powell.

Even Bogart had a misfire or two. John Wayne was a lumbering lump out of the saddle. Bette Davis, Crawford, Cooper, Grant, Stanwyck, all had their programmers and contractual obligation projects.

But Powell gave fair value every time out. If the writing was even half-decent, he’d give you crackling wisecracks and tough-guy talk in that William Powell meets Bogart persona he carved out in film noir.

“Johnny O’Clock” may not have the twistiest or most intricate plot of Peak Powell pictures like “Murder, My Sweet,” “Pitfall” or “Cry Danger.” But with Robert “All the King’s Men/The Hustler” Rossen’s script and Powell’s way with a line, this down-and-dirty double-cross thriller just sings.

“In return for certain information,” a cop teases…

“You’ll do what?”

“I’ll give you a break.”

“My arms or my legs?”

“Koch,” the inspector is called.

“How’d you spell it? ‘C-O-P?'”

Powell plays the title character, one of many aliases this big city casino manager has used since the war. But he’s got a dirty, greedy cop (Jim Bannon) elbowing and threatening to take over his half of the business he runs with the mob boss (Thomas Gomez) Marschettis.

The boss’s bomshell wife (Ellen Drew, not subtle and good at it) never got over Johnny. His hat check girl (Nina Foch) is mixed up with the crooked detective Blayden. People are going to die. People are going to disappear. And the inspector on the case isn’t the only one giving Johnny the stink eye over all of this.

That’s the perfect time for the hat check girl’s chorine sister (Evelyn Keyes) to show up, rattled and grief stricken.

“What do I do now, Johnny?”

“Dry your eyes and blow your nose — in the order named.”

Powell doesn’t get all the good lines. But the former musical comedy star knew how to make them pop, how to make the underworld argot sound natural, no matter how polished the tough guy in the tux might seem.

Lee J. Cobb wasn’t born with a stogie sticking out of his mug, but nobody was more at home with one, a fedora and a badge. He leans back into his role as Koch. He knows he’s here to look tough, ask questions and absorb Johnny’s zingers.

“You mind if I have a laugh in your face?”

Keyes, of “Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” makes the “love interest” a cynical, worldly but instantly love-struck foil.

Gomez oozes menace, as does John Kellogg as Johnny’s ex-con bodyguard/assistant. Look for future leading man Jeff Chandler in a bit part, cracking a joke at the poker table after the players hear a fusillade of gunfire.

“Somebody’s got a nasty cough.”

It’s a bit too slick to be one of the great noirs. The corruption is superficial, not something you feel and smell in the shadows. The “set-up” is a tad too obvious.

But Rossen’s plotting and dialogue keeps the picture moving, for the most part. A montage of close-ups of card shuffling and chips stacking at the casino has become a favorite cinematic shortcut for immersing us in gambling without showing any gambling to speak of.

And Powell delivers, a leading man who’d never steer you wrong, never let you underestimate him and never blow a punch line. Ever. I laughed and laughed at his comebacks.

The chorine wants the piano player to stop playing depressing music? A simple “Knock it off” would never do for Dick Powell.

“You, with the hands. Go. Home.”

Rating: TV-PG, violence

Cast: Dick Powell, Evelyn Keyes, Ellen Drew, Lee J. Cobb, Nina Foch, John Kellogg, Jim Bannon, Jeff Chandler and Thomas Gomez.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Robert Rossen. A Columbia Pictures release on Tubi, Amazon, other streamers

Running time: 1:37