JOHNNY COOL (1963) UNDERRATED GANGSTER FILM

JOHNNY COOL (1963) – Okay, this weekend I once again met someone who never heard of this film, so I resolved to do what little I could to spread the word about it by reviewing it here on Balladeer’s Blog. 

Even among cult films, Johnny Cool has a certain prestige. It was released in October 1963 – the month before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Peter Lawford, JFK’s brother-in-law and Rat Pack member was a co-producer and got fellow Rat Pack figures Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop to appear in the movie.

Sammy was still wearing his pre-glass eye eyepatch in the film and also sang the movie’s title song. There’s a boatload more kitsch casting in Johnny Cool, which I’ll cover as we go along.

Our story begins in Italy, where aspiring young Sicilian hoodlum Salvatore Giordano (THE Henry Silva) is rescued from the police by former American Mafia bigwig Johnny Colini (Marc Lawrence himself). Like the real-life gangster boss Lucky Luciano, Colini was arrested and deported to Sicily after getting sold out by his organized crime rivals and allies back in the States.   

Colini mentors the violent diamond-in-the-rough Giordano and grooms him into an instrument of revenge for himself against his enemies in America. When the homicidal prodigy is polished and ready, Colini rechristens him Johnny Cool and sends him to the U.S. to settle accounts. 

In New York City, Johnny Cool is practically bursting at the seams to unleash his savage instincts and quickly dispatches quite a few targets on his list. He also picks up gorgeous Dare Guinness (ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY), a worldly divorcee who goes along for the ride with our charismatic – albeit unhinged – protagonist.

From New York City to Los Angeles and finally to Las Vegas, Johnny Cool leaves a long line of victims that he kills off in a variety of conventional and unconventional ways. He doesn’t just blow them away with firearms, he also butchers them with steak knives, batters their faces beyond recognition, dynamites them while they’re swimming and otherwise acts like collateral victims are a feature, not a bug.

Among the figures who fall to Mr. Cool’s killing spree are TELLY SAVALAS as Vince Santangelo, JIM BACKUS as Lou Murphy, MORT SAHL as Ben Morrow and JOHN MCGIVER as O.B.

Johnny also encounters the aforementioned Sammy Davis, Jr. as an expert gambler nicknamed “Educated” and Joey Bishop as a car salesman. ELISHA COOK, JR. appears as an undertaker.

Our main character’s targets eventually catch on that he’s acting on behalf of the exiled Colini. When Cool proves too elusive, they manage to corral his lady Dare and beat her up as a warning to Johnny to cease and desist.

Needless to say, he ignores the warning and keeps piling up dead bodies. Dare realizes she’s involved with an animal who might take her down with him, so she betrays him into the hands of the gangsters who want him.

She then turns herself in to the police to take whatever sentence she’ll get as Johnny’s accomplice while Johnny himself is tortured and killed by his and Colini’s enemies.

Johnny Cool is certainly not as good as, say, the independent gangster films of John Cassavetes, but I consider it superior to something like Blast of Silence among cult crime flicks.

P.S. Shortly after filming, Elizabeth Montgomery married Johnny Cool‘s director William Asher, with whom she went on to the television series Bewitched.