Johnny Cool (1963)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Before Lee Marvin in 'The Killers' and 'Point Blank' there was 'Johnny Cool'. The name 'Johnny' in the title usually means a romantic loner; but this Johnny was such an irredeemably uncharismatic thug that by the end I was rooting for him to get what was coming to him in a way that I never did with the likes of Jimmy Cagney.After possibly the worst title song I've ever heard (sung by Sammy Davis Jr.), what follows is a real curate's egg vividly shot on location by Sam Leavitt in deliberately ugly black & white with an astonishing cast of cameo players (I particularly liked Mort Sahl's contribution). The bewitching Elizabeth Montgomery is wasted as a bored socialite who develops a crush on Johnny after seeing him karate someone in a restaurant, yet seems a bit slow to realise that maybe he's not really a very nice person. (She and director William Asher married the same year and together embarked the following year on the evergreen TV hit 'Bewitched', and she was lost to movies forever.) That the Production Code was by now on its last legs is attested to by macabre details such as the fact that he takes a knife rather than a gun with him to settle one particular score; while he improbably uses a big heavy suitcase with a bomb in it to blow up one victim rather than simply shooting him. And how did he make his getaway after machine-gunning someone else through the top floor window of a high rise office block from a window cleaner's cradle? However, the film is obliged to show sufficient restraint in its denouement to leave enough to the imagination to make the conclusion far more chilling than had we seen more. (And it's refreshing to see Elisha Cook Jr. come out on top for once.)

Offbeat, Violent, and incredibly Intense Gangster Movie Cobbled together by Rat Packers and a host of Character Actors. This Lively, but Depressing and sometimes Gruesome Mob Movie is Fascinating and Frightening at times.Henry Silva plays a Mafia Protégé sent to America by an Italian Gang Leader to Wipe Out the Competition and does so in many Varied and Brutal ways. Elizabeth Montgomery makes quite an Impression as a somewhat Naive Society Girl that is Mesmerized by Johnny Cool's Cool and Machismo and it unleashes Her Libido and She is Hooked, "I need you, I need you now!"Almost every Scene Features a Recognizable Actor or Two and the whole Movie is so Breathtakingly Fast Paced that there Isn't Time to Figure out who They are or why They are there. The Movie is Sleek and Snake Like winding its way from NY to Las Vegas.The Third Act has a couple of Scenes displaying some Nasty Torture Devices that can Send Chills even Today. Overall, the Movie is Different and while Not quite Stylish it makes up for it with a very Downbeat Demeanor, Rapid Pacing, and a Terrifying Tone. It Pushes the Production Code to its Limit.

An oddity from the 60's that has more the look and feel of a television show of the period such as "The Untouchables" or "77 Sunset Strip" only not as good.There are few reasons to watch "Johnny Cool" these days, certainly not for Henry Silva; he made a great heavy when he was four or five down the cast list – just fine in "The Manchurian Candidate" – but he's deadly as the lead in more ways than one.The main attraction for me was in spotting the host of familiar faces that pop up throughout the movie. It's almost a who's who of character actors of the time; Joe Turkel, Elisha Cooke Jnr., Brad Dexter, John McGiver; the list goes on and on. There is even Mort Stahl, Jim Bacchus and Joey Bishop, mainly as gangsters who get whacked by Johnny Cool. Most interesting are a couple of stars before they made it big on television: Elizabeth Montgomery and Telly Savalas. Sammy Davis Jnr. gets some scenes too, and sings the title song.The story of a young Sicilian outlaw who is mentored by an exiled American gangster, then sent to America to wreak vengeance on his enemies, actually seems to have too much plot, which isn't helped by a choppy script – nothing is developed before we move on to the next plot point. Director, William Asher, was the king of the TV sitcom. The shows he directed, produced and wrote read like a catalogue of TV shows of the 1950's through to the 1980's but his approach seemed pretty flat when translated to the big screen ("Beach Party" doesn't count). Despite being packed with incident, "Johnny Cool" generates little tension – "The Godfather" it is not.Asher may not have had the eye of an Elia Kazan or a Francis Ford Coppola, but he had an eye for beautiful women. This is where he met and married Elizabeth Montgomery; a year later, her career took off with "Bewitched".Now it's difficult to see her in anything without the memory of Tabitha, but she is stunning in "Johnny Cool" playing a naïve divorcée who gets caught up in the titular character's criminal activities. I think Elizabeth Montgomery was not unlike Grace Kelly, and like her, attracted men like moths to a flame – seeing her here, it's easy to see why. Although she gives it everything she's got in "Johnny Cool", it was tough going with the erratic script.The film is full of violence, which probably bucked against the censorship of the day, but now looks tame. There is a touch of irony at the end, but I can't help feeling that the central character is so one-note that it cancels out the good performances that surround it. However, "Johnny Cool" is just quirky enough to be watchable, but maybe just once.

'Lost' classic crime movie, with 'Rat Pack' member Peter Lawford as Executive Producer, and featuring Rat Packers Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop in single scene cameos, this is an often brutal mob movie featuring glacial Henry Silva as a pitiless, downbeat anti-hero pitting his wits and weaponry against a variety of slick-suited, big-city mobsters operating behind an outwardly respectable veneer. Opening the movie as a Salvatore Giuliano-type Sicilian folk-hero (the early scenes show a young 'Johnny' being taken under Giuliano's wing in World War II after witnessing his mother's death at the hands of the Nazis), 'Johnny' is reinvented and resurrected by Marc Lawrence's exiled 'Lucky Luciano' type syndicate boss, who has arranged his faked death in order to set him loose against the former Stateside associates who are now lining their pockets with his ill-gotten gains. Swiftly acquiring Elizabeth Montgomery's thrill-seeking, well-heeled moll (a cinematic half-sister to the similarly enthralled Claire Trevor in Robert Wise's BORN TO KILL), Johnny sets about his one-man vendetta amidst the boardrooms, casinos and fancy spreads with a singleminded ruthlessness that, in its settings and attitude (if not it's visual style) appears to foreshadow Lee Marvin's similarly brutal rampage through the well-heeled trappings of contemporary corporate America four years later in POINT BLANK. Comparisons aside, this is a slick slice of thick-ear hardboiled crime, aided by a snappy Billy May score and Sammy Davis Jr. theme which adds to the sense of pace and rhythm engendered by William (BEACH PARTY) Asher's snappy direction. And the ending's a killer (pun intended). Undoubtedly worthy of wider (any!) availability, as it's an often cynical, but arresting crime movie (pun similarly intended)with the makings of a cult. Catch it if you can.