Johnny Cool (1963)

 

One of the few Hollywood movies featuring Henry Silva as the star doing the things he does best. This movie is a little before its time in its depiction of Mafia violence. Throughout the film Henry Silva assassinates people with knives, blowing them up in pools, shooting them in crowded stations, and and shooting them through windows of high rise buildings. This movie also has an interesting commentary on class as Johnny Cool comes from a world of violence, as a person who has had to fight his whole life. The Mafiosos he goes against aren't ready for him to come in and disrupt their life of prestige and privilege like a battering ram. The narrative of this movie not involving Johnny Cool is a little all over the place, just going from mobster to mobster sometimes without explanation of who they really are. It feels more like a cameo opportunity for the rat pack at times rather than actual characters. For a film like a noir movie it feels predictable the whole way and never had anything I didn't expect which is made up for by Silva going on a rampage.

The film actually starts in WW2 with a young Salvatore Giordano, who later becomes Johnny Cool, killing a Nazi soldier after pulling the pin on his grenade. His mother is killed by the other soldier. Salvatore fights with the Italian resistance and years later becomes a Robin Hood type figure. After being caught by the police, Salvatore is saved in a real body double situation where the authorities shoot a body believing it to be him but it isn't. He is rescued by mobster Johnny Colini, an American Mafioso exiled to Rome. Him and Salvatore clash over their respective backgrounds and what they do with their money and how they make it. Johnny overs Salvatore his empire and to call him his son if he goes to America and kills the men who plotted his downfall and exiled him.

Once in America, after at least two years of school in Rome, Salvatore, now using Johnny's name, throws his money around and makes enemies real quick. He also gets a girlfriend by the name of Darien "Dare" Guinness (Elizabeth Montgomery) a woman from privilege as we see later who is taken by Johnny's more bad boy ways. He can get things done while others can't. Johnny quickly throws his money around by winning money at horse races. He eventually ruffles feathers enough to where he holds a gun to a young Sammy Davis Jr. who plays a lucky roller. Dare is eventually roughed up and raped by men working for Vince Santangelo (Telly Savalas).   This prompts Johnny to grab a kitchen knife and kill them, putting the knife in the garbage. He eventually tells Dare about this and she runs off with him. 

The second half of the movie mostly consists of Johnny moving from target to target. He assassinates a man at a train station, blows up a guy in a pool, which is troubling because you think for a minute his kids could die too because they are outside with that guy. He goes to a Vegas casino and knocks out one of Colini's enemies and shoots the other through a pillow. Lastly he assassinates Telly Savalas' character by taking a lift up to the floor of the building and gunning him down through the window. 

In the end of the movie it is Dare who leaves their car and meets one of her friends for a swinging yacht party. While partying she realizes how much being with Johnny has changed her and she prefers a more quiet life again and her life of privilege. At the same time she reports where Johnny is to the remaining Mafia members. They capture him and this is when Silva goes full Silva, showing his rage and intensity that would come more in his later movies. They start to show him being tortured. The movie ends with the FBI coming to arrest Dare.

My biggest problem with this movie is that I would've preferred either more mystery or more style. I don't mind knowing that Colini and Salvatore will work together but I wish Johnny didn't announce himself to the mafia right away. I think it would have been more interesting if he was a little more subtle and maybe this went the Yojimbo route of turning the Mafiosos against each other. Given its similarities to noir movies I think I knew where the relationship between him and Dare was going to go. If I couldn't get that more style during some of the kill scenes would have bene nice. This is 1963 and people like Peckinpah weren't around yet but even someone like J. Lee Thompson would have made this movie look more interesting. I still like Silva going on a rampage and all the cameos by the likes of Elisha Cook Jr., Brad Dexter, and John McGiver among many others. 

Rating: 6/10

Trivia: Director William Asher and Elizabeth Montgomery who played Dare were married in the same month the movie was released in the United States. 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWDO-fLDk2E