Movie Reviews: Johnny Cool

Johnny Cool    
directed by William Asher

It's always interesting and maybe even a little unsettling in a fun way to realize that actors or actresses that you think of in only one way actually can have a wide range and be convincing in different roles. 

I remembered the actress Elizabeth Montgomery from being a child back in the Pleistocene period watching reruns of the bland tv series Bewitched in which Montgomery played Samantha. 

Samantha is a sorceress who despite being far more powerful and intelligent than her ordinary ad exec husband, is content to be (mostly) a compliant housewife who uses her magic to get her husband out of various silly jams or give folks lessons on how to be better people. She was a "good" witch.

In Bewitched Montgomery was often attired in relatively sensible clothing. Plain, staid, and blah were the normal descriptions for the Samantha character. So it was something of a shock to me to watch Johnny Cool. 

In this movie Montgomery struts her stuff and shakes what her Mama gave her, playing a socialite/party girl with a very high sex drive, a taste for bad boys, and a penchant for toplessness and va-va voom form fitting clothing.

Johnny Cool is an imagination of what would happen if real life American Mafia boss Charles "Lucky" Luciano, deported to Italy, had tried to take revenge on his erstwhile stateside comrades. Luciano died of a heart attack in 1962 so I imagine this 1963 film's inspiration would have been obvious to its audience.

In Italy deported American mobster Johnny Colini (Marc Lawrence) stews over slights from other mobsters. Colini may have status in Italy but no one in America listens to him any more, especially new boss Vince Santangelo (Telly Savalas). In fact, Vince might just be ready to remove Colini aka Johnny Cool from the planet.

But Colini has a plan. Colini has rescued Sicilian outlaw Salvatore Giordano (Henry Silva) from the police, faked Giordana's death and given him his own name. In return the new "Johnny Cool"  must go to America and eliminate Colini's enemies. 

But the abrasive Giordano/Johnny Cool isn't exactly grateful and has his own plans, which may or may not include following instructions but definitely involve doing the do as much as possible with American socialite Dare Guiness (Montgomery). Along the way Johnny Cool and Dare encounter various hoodlums, carry out assassinations, make love, get assaulted, and of course, do the twist. You HAD to do the twist in the early sixties. 

Other stars included Sammy Davis Jr., Mort Sahl, Jim Backus, Richard Anderson (from The Six Million Dollar Man), and Joey Bishop. The Dare character isn't just a sexpot. She's important to the plot. 

The other stars, with the exception of Savalas, don't impress much. Silva plays his character as congenitally choleric, which doesn't allow for much nuance and thus little sympathy. There are some cinematographic elements which would later appear in Scorsese and Tarantino works.  TRAILER