The movie The Big Clock was released in April of 1948, adapted from a book by the radical, Depression-era poet Kenneth Fearing. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, Fearing’s work zeroed in on advertising and media long before it was the thing to do. In honor of poetry month: this edition of Fishko Files.

Jeanine Basinger is the Chair of Film Studies at Wesleyan University and the author of numerous books and articles on film.

Geoffrey O'Brien is the author of Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir, among many others.

Robert Polito is a professor of writing at the New School and edited the Library of America's Kenneth Fearing: Selected Poems.

Fearing's book "The Big Clock" (1946) and the film The Big Clock (1948) are available on Amazon.