Who can resist a sociopath you believe you can reform?
Today's random movie rec is Johnny Eager, a 1942 movie starring Robert Taylor, Van Heflin (he won a supporting oscar for this role) and Lana Turner. It's an excellent, if overlooked, film noir.
Johnny Eager, the protagonist of the film, is a mobster recently released from prison who finds his future plans of illegal wealth stymied by a zelous, incorruptible prosecutor who can see beneath Johnny's fake-repentant facade. But the prosecutor's daughter, the young and rather naive Lisbeth, thinks Johnny has been unjustly treated by the world, has paid his debt to society etc etc etc - insert any cliche you like. It doesn't hurt that Lisbeth is attracted to Johnny - as much for his bad guy persona as for his looks. And thus, enter Johnny's cold-blooded and clever plan - to make Lisbeth fall for him and then use her to compromise her father.
Why is this movie so good? Well, Taylor and Turner have yummy yummy chemistry together and the dialogue is well-written, but it's really the characters that make it stick out. Robert Taylor plays a sociopath (rather unusual as up until that point he's been playing sweet-natured lover boys) and does a wonderful job of it - Johnny is a man who cares for nobody, certainly not enough to allow it to interfere with his plans. He is ruthless and smart and even if he is a bad, bad man, I found him fun to watch and rather rooting for his amorality to win the day. Part of the fun of watching the movie is wondering if he would ever allow his human emotion - simple kindness, or gratitude, or love to surface or do they even exist for him. Van Heflin plays an alcoholic, intellectual, self-loathing friend of Johnny - probably the only friend Johnny has ever had. There is a HUGE homoerotic subtext (barely subtext) in the movie as to why he choses to stick to someone whose ways of life he finds repugnant. Rather surprising for a movie made in 1942. And Lana Turner is gorgeous as Lisbeth. She is naive and sheltered and rather carried away by romantic notions, but she is someone you like nontheless. Part of the fun of the movie is watching her selflessness (even if it's based on incorrect assumptions) chink away at Johnny's shell. My favorite scene is where Johnny goes to see her after his grand scheme has been pulled off and she believes she has murdered someone and he finds that she has almost lost her mind from guilt and is not concealing the "murder" to protect herself but to protect him only and plans to turn herself in once he is out of danger. The way he is struck by something that would have never occured to him - her selflessness and how his shell is finally cracked and he confesses everything to her only for her not to believe him is....mmm. Gorgeous.
Anyway, go watch. Here is a youtube clip from a pivotal scene:
You can find the whole movie on youtube.
Johnny Eager, the protagonist of the film, is a mobster recently released from prison who finds his future plans of illegal wealth stymied by a zelous, incorruptible prosecutor who can see beneath Johnny's fake-repentant facade. But the prosecutor's daughter, the young and rather naive Lisbeth, thinks Johnny has been unjustly treated by the world, has paid his debt to society etc etc etc - insert any cliche you like. It doesn't hurt that Lisbeth is attracted to Johnny - as much for his bad guy persona as for his looks. And thus, enter Johnny's cold-blooded and clever plan - to make Lisbeth fall for him and then use her to compromise her father.
Why is this movie so good? Well, Taylor and Turner have yummy yummy chemistry together and the dialogue is well-written, but it's really the characters that make it stick out. Robert Taylor plays a sociopath (rather unusual as up until that point he's been playing sweet-natured lover boys) and does a wonderful job of it - Johnny is a man who cares for nobody, certainly not enough to allow it to interfere with his plans. He is ruthless and smart and even if he is a bad, bad man, I found him fun to watch and rather rooting for his amorality to win the day. Part of the fun of watching the movie is wondering if he would ever allow his human emotion - simple kindness, or gratitude, or love to surface or do they even exist for him. Van Heflin plays an alcoholic, intellectual, self-loathing friend of Johnny - probably the only friend Johnny has ever had. There is a HUGE homoerotic subtext (barely subtext) in the movie as to why he choses to stick to someone whose ways of life he finds repugnant. Rather surprising for a movie made in 1942. And Lana Turner is gorgeous as Lisbeth. She is naive and sheltered and rather carried away by romantic notions, but she is someone you like nontheless. Part of the fun of the movie is watching her selflessness (even if it's based on incorrect assumptions) chink away at Johnny's shell. My favorite scene is where Johnny goes to see her after his grand scheme has been pulled off and she believes she has murdered someone and he finds that she has almost lost her mind from guilt and is not concealing the "murder" to protect herself but to protect him only and plans to turn herself in once he is out of danger. The way he is struck by something that would have never occured to him - her selflessness and how his shell is finally cracked and he confesses everything to her only for her not to believe him is....mmm. Gorgeous.
Anyway, go watch. Here is a youtube clip from a pivotal scene:
Click to viewYou can find the whole movie on youtube.