Johnny One-Eye (1950)

Boring

Absolutely brilliant

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

***SPOILERS*** Based on an obscure Damon Runyon short-story the movie "Johnny One-Eye" is about an on the lamb wanted killer who was turned in to the D.A by his partner in order to save his own neck by coping a plea in a murder rap.We get to see Dutch gunned down on the Statan Island Ferry by Martin Martin, Pat O'Brien, who pulled a gun on him after dropping $50,000.00 in cash that he ripped off from both Martin and his partner Dane Cory, Wayne Morris. It's now some five years later and Martin now a successful businessman is told by this arrogant sleaze-ball Ambose, Lawrence Cregar, who got a spy in the D.A's office that Cory is making a deal in fingering Martin in the Dutch murder.Martin like a complete fool goes to see Cory, whom he knows is untrustworthy, who's now in the theater business and ends up getting shot by one of his men Cute Freddy, Harry Bronson,who ends up getting killed by Martin in the crossfire. Badly injured Martin despite having his picture on every newspapers as well as on the TV news walks from the midtown Theater District to Greenwich Village, about two miles, without anyone, man woman or cop, recognizing him as well as offering the badly injured Martin any medical attention.Hiding in this abandoned building Martin is discovered by Elsie, Gayle Reed, and her cute but badly inured dog, the poor mutt is blinded in one eye, Skippy. It just happens that Elsie's mother Lily White, Dolores Moran, is one of Cory's discoveries in the theater whom he promised to make a star. Befriending Elsie and her mutt Skippy Martin calls him Johnny One-Eye and tells the very young, she's about four years old, and impressionable Elsie that he's actually Santa Clause in disguise, Martin doesn't have a white beard and a Santa Clause outfit, from a wanted photo of himself that Elsie shows him in a local newspaper.The movie has Martin later find out about Cory's involvement with Elsie's mom as well as his mistreatment of both Lily Elsie as well as Johnny-One-Eye, or Skippy, whom the despicable hoodlum blinded by kicking the pooch in the face. Martin in trying to get Johnny One-Eye help or find him a home goes to this Greenwich Village veterinarian, Donald Woods, who tells him that the best thing he could do for very sick Johnny One-Eye is put the dog to sleep. It's later when Woods repairs Martin's chest wound that he goes to see Ambrose about having a meeting with Cory offering him $15,000.00 in finding out Cory's whereabouts so that he can pay him a visit and pay him back for what he did to him.True to form Ambrose double-crosses Martin by setting him up to be turned over to Cory, for $25,000.00. It's then that Ambrose's henchman a member of the D.A's staff and possibly Ambrose gay lover Francis, Lyle Talbot,gets cold feet in being afraid of losing his job, he was told by the lying Ambrose that Martin was to be turned over to the police. Where there's another shoot-out with both Francis getting cold cocked by Martin and Ambose ending up shot dead by an outraged Francis.Finding out that Cory is living across the street from where he's hiding out in the abandoned building, what a small world, Martin has him alerted by Elsie where he is that leads to the final shoot-out with both himself and Cory ending up dead. With what little life he still has left to him as he's dying from a bullet wound Martin tells one of the cops, who later came on the scene, to buy Elsie a new dog, Johnny One-Eye didn't have long to go by then, and make her think that the dog is her beloved pet Skippy or as Martin called him Johnny One-Eye.

When I looked up Damon Runyon on Wikipedia before writing this comment, I could find no reference to this story or this film. This has to be the most obscure Damon Runyon story ever put on film.As surely as Mark Twain is accepted as the chronicler of life on the Mississippi, Damon Runyon is his counterpart for life on the most famous street of all, Broadway in New York City. His characters whether he writes seriously or for comedy are a part of New York, they could not exist in any other environment.Johnny One-Eye is one of his serious and more obscure works. Old time gangster Pat O'Brien and Wayne Morris have done their share of bad things, but now have risen to some respectability. But when a hot shot prosecutor starts breathing down Morris's neck, he's ready to feed him O'Brien. That O'Brien won't have and when he confronts Morris, he's forced to shoot and kill one of Morris's gunsills. O'Brien is wounded himself.The wounded gangster is befriended by a little girl and her badly injured dog who has only one good eye. O'Brien has quite an interesting 24 hours before all is resolved.The film it bares the most resemblance to that I've seen is Odd Man Out. O'Brien certainly found a few more friends than James Mason did in his injured state though.Sad to say that this film is a cheaply made independent film with not so great production values. That's made up by the location shooting in New York a la Naked City. Look for a good performance by Dolores Moran as the showgirl mother of the little girl befriending O'Brien.Fans of Damon Runyon might want to give this one a look.

With one of the cooler sounding film titles going, I was surprised when the title character turned out not to be a gangster, but a down and out mutt belonging to a little girl. Johnny One-Eye gets his name from Martin Martin (Pat O'Brien), victim to a former partner's bullet, and holed up in a run down alley where young Elsie White (Gayle Reed) discovers his presence. Martin concocts a story claiming to be Santa Claus, which seems off the wall at the time, but winds up making some sense to set up the picture's finale.It's always interesting to see Pat O'Brien in one of his villainous roles, so diametrically opposed to the haloed characters like Father Jerry from "Angels With Dirty Faces" that one is more accustomed to. Here however, he's outdone by co-star Wayne Morris, who endears himself to the audience by kicking Elsie's dog out of the house. That pretty much establishes that Dane Cory (Morris) deserves whatever he's got coming.With apartments in New York City going well north of a million dollars these days, that Park Avenue penthouse Martin bought for five grand sounded like a pretty good investment.As for Johnny One-Eye, his real name in the story was Skipper, which must have been a popular pet name in the 1950's; my first dog was Skipper too, a fox terrier. The thing that puzzled me though was that after the dog's first appearance in the alley with that lame eye, subsequent scenes showed him with what appeared to be two good ones under all that facial hair. But then Johnny Two-Eyes wouldn't have summoned the proper pathos for a story like this.Yes it does get a bit melodramatic at times, especially when it comes time for the wind up. You might want to have a box of hankies around for the death of Santa Claus scene, maybe two if you have a youngster watching with you.

Despite the film's original storyline, director Robert Florey, who was well past his prime when this low-budget programmer was made, does injustice to a very original Damon Runyon's plot idea. An innocent but plucky young girl naively believes that a criminal fugitive (Pat O'Brien) who's hiding out in a deserted building in her neighborhood, is really Santa Claus. She keeps his presence secret and does her best to help him. Florey fills the story with bathos and saccharine sentimentality involving the title character, the girl's little dog, and the film ultimately becomes mired in its own mawkishness.More than a decade later Bryan Forbes would direct a critically-acclaimed film based on a similar premise. In 1961's WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND, youngster Hayley Mills mistakenly believes fugitive wife-murderer Alan Bates, who is hiding out from the authorities in the barn on her father's isolated British farm, to be Jesus Christ. The tact and taste with which Forbes handles the material is a paradigm of understatement and restraint. Although Mary Hayley Bell's (mother of Hayley} narrative was lauded at the time for its great originality, the plot premise appears cribbed from this unpretentious Damon Runyon B-film programmer.