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GazerRise Fantastic!

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

utgard14 Parolee John Eager (Robert Taylor) has everybody fooled that he's gone straight and is trying to make an honest living as a taxi driver. In reality, Eager hasn't given up his criminal life at all. He's still a racketeer and he's working to open up a new dog track but is finding opposition from a vigilant district attorney (Edward Arnold). Eager starts dating pretty society girl Lisbeth (Lana Turner). When he finds out she's the stepdaughter of the D.A., he tries to use his relationship with Lisbeth as leverage against her stepfather.Glossy crime drama from MGM with some film noir touches. Love the dialogue and the cast is terrific. This is one of my favorite Robert Taylor performances. Far more enjoyable to me than all of those sappy romantic melodramas from the '30s. Edward Arnold, of course, can do no wrong. Lana Turner looks gorgeous (no surprise) and does fine in a role that requires little from her but to be a naive lovestruck young woman. Van Heflin plays Taylor's cynical alcoholic friend who has many of the movie's best lines. He's the scene stealer in this, by the way, and deservedly won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. As with any old movie where there's a close male friendship, many reviewers read into it things that may or may not have been intended. Watch it and decide for yourself. The rest of the cast is full of great actors. Just take a gander at the cast list for this and you'll see how much talent was involved here. It's really a quality movie with a solid script, good characters, and a powerful ending.

mark.waltz A fabulous cast, a brilliant screenplay, and a truly dynamic pairing really create TNT here, Taylor and Turner as beautiful a couple as could possibly be on screen during the golden age of cinema. Even in spite of their age difference, Robert and Lana spark,e and this is a single pairing that even outdid Lana's four films with that dear Mr. Gable. Robert Taylor is a parolee, and she is the daughter of one of the prosecutors (Edward Arnold) who sent him up the river. Taylor is obviously not done with the shady life, and Arnold is out to expose the corruption involving Taylor and a dog track he is preparing to open while living the seemingly honest life of a cab driver.Van Heflin deservedly won the Oscar as the drunken philosopher who is the heart and soul of the film, dying inside due to his consumption, but still filled with the truth of life in spite of that addiction. You get the impression that this idealistic drunkard imbibes because he is disgusted with a world that is beyond his comprehension. In fact, the drunker he is, the more in tuned with his wisdom he is, showing how deceptive alcohol can be when it makes you open your eyes metaphysically while closing them physically.There's a great supporting cast with characters who sparkle with cynicism and hardness. Taylor's young niece is all young lady on the surface, suddenly exploding in rough talk out of nowhere. The character of Turner's fellow sociology student partner is also amusing as she constantly keeps inserting her foot into her mouth. Former Warner Brothers "B" star Glenda Farrell has a cameo as an old acquaintance of Taylor's whose desire for help from him has an ironic connection with the finale. Patricia Dane, as Taylor's obvious mistress hysterically mispronounces "Herod Agrippa" and does not remotely display a "heart of gold" underneath film characters like this usually later reveal.Edward Arnold also is winning as Turner's father who finds himself the victim of blackmail thanks to a vicious game Taylor uses her in, showing a disgust with both Taylor and himself as he goes against his own moral code to protect his daughter. Ultimately, the film surrounds the heat between Taylor and Turner which explodes in a scene where Turner falsely believes herself to have impulsively committed murder. This is a speedy film that is a preliminary to the growing genre of film noir, not as dark as those to follow within two years,but utilizing the same types of camera shots and tough dialog that was on the verge of taking over the screen. The fact that pretty people are not leaving a really pretty situation makes this noir enough for me, and one that remains a classic to this day.

Larry41OnEbay-2 JOHNNY EAGER Premiered January 17 of 1942, it was both produced and distributed by MGM the BIG studio. The story & screenplay are by James Edward Grant (John Wayne's favorite writer) = HONDO, SANDS OF IWO JIMA, THE ALAMO. Also co-writing the screenplay was John Lee Mahin (Clark Gable's favorite writer) = BOOM TOWN, WIFE VS. SECRETARY, CHINA SEAS & TEST PILOT. The cinematography is by Harold Rossen some of his best films were THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO & TARZAN THE APE MAN! The director was legendary Mervyn LeRoy who made THE WIZARD OF OZ, I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG & LITTLE CAESAR! Among the familiar faces you may recognize are some great character actors: Henry O'Neill plays the parole officer, and Barry Nelson is a small time hood, Charles Dingle appears as a race track manager, and as an Italian thug Paul Stewart and finally in a small but important role you will see Glenda Farrell as a cop's wife. And here's something for you to look for, people tell me they like it when I point out something to look for. And here's your clue, "No detail is too small – nothing appearing in a movie is wasted or by accident." Even the cop who gets his beat changed and has to ride the bus has an important role. Leading man Robert Taylor has the distinction of being MGM's longest contract star and it was an inspired decision to cast him in the title role as Johnny Eager, Gangster. This was a departure from his usual good guy, matinée-idol roles. At first glance this perfectly handsome, gentleman would seem miscast, but he soon proves otherwise with an air of menace and calculation he acts every inch the tough guy. He was so good looking it's even written into the script of the film that women can't help but stop and stare at this striking actor. But no one never gets the sense that he is "trying" to be a heavy, he simply is… In fact, "Johnny Eager" would be the start of a new phase in Taylor's career, just like Dick Powell & Robert Montgomery would cut loose from their "nice guy" leading man roles and reinvent themselves darker, harder-edged playing a "flawed hero" if not a totally "bad man" persona. In this film Taylor is terrific as the cynical, selfish, big time hood who was recently paroled and who's only priorities are making more money and avoiding a return to the big house. He was born Spangler Arlington Brugh and grew up wanting to be a cellist or singer until he discovered the theater. His performance in the original 1935 version of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION made him a star. The next year he gained even more fame opposite Greta Garbo in CAMILLE. He was married at the time of making this film to actress Barbara Stanwyck. Lana Turner plays the part of the sociology student Lisbeth Bard, who has the power to turn any man around. She is captivating with her luscious, LUX blond beauty and in her physical prime critics considered her one of cinema's greatest beauties, and justifiably so. She simply shimmers and sparkles, glitters and gleams like a white diamond on the big screen. Her rapport and sexual chemistry with Taylor is so electrifying that it may remind you of another great Film Noir title THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, with John Garfield. During filming, rumors circulated that the two were having an affair and the attraction translates onto film. Turner was usually known more for her riveting looks than her acting ability, but in this film she turns in a deeper, more sincere performance, running the gamut from cool, assessing fascination to frantic, desperate angst, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was directed by Mervyn LeRoy, her trusted mentor. Lana Turner was famously discover in a Hollywood drugstore and cast as the "sweater girl" and murder victim in THEY WON'T FORGET. She was Clark Gables most frequent costar and ended her long career with widescreen soap operas PEYTON PLACE and IMITATION OF LIFE. Edward Arnold plays her step-father who's also a judge and arch enemy of Robert Taylor's character. He usually played the heavy and became famous as the bad guy in three Frank Capra masterpieces, YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON & MEET JOHN DOE! But who did I save for last… In my opinion it is Van Heflin who steals the show in his star turn as Johnny's best and only friend Jeff Hartnett, and a strange one at that -- a maudlin, conscious-ridden, cerebral alcoholic, the type who seems like he would be the last person fit for the criminal world. But despite this, he sticks with Johnny, and the viewer and gives a once in a lifetime performance! Remember he was the star of SHANE, 3:10 TO YUMA, PATTERNS and THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS. But what did he win an Academy Award for, this film JOHNNY EAGER.

sandra small The celebrated German philosopher Immanual Kant's premise of theory was that there is no originality, because we are influenced by what we experience. In that case Johnny Eager (1942)is a clichéd gangster film. But the clichéd roles give way to nuanced characters, which have originality within their various slants of their respective stereotypes. Director Leroy achieves this by adding to the clichés of sharp suited mobsters and their dolls anomalies as in the emotional, erudite gangster with ethics.A classic stereotype, (well observed and researched by the production team) is that of Lana Turner's character; Lizbeth Bard. She is the clichéd sociology student. That is she is a middle class naive ingénue, whose fascination with her subject matter gets her in too deep. This role gave Turner credibility as an actor! Likewise, the film gave Taylor the credibility he deserved as an actor of dimensions. His caricature of the solipsistic gangster gave him an edge which usurped his 'pretty boy' image. Nevertheless Taylor's Johnny Eager seems to have a sense of his beauty that has the women running to him. One example is the scene when the women run to serve him at the desk near the start of the film. This begs the question of was Johnny Eager's looks that had the women eating out of his hand? or was it his 'gangster' image that attracted them? Could Eager have had the women falling for him with just looks alone? His character wouldn't be half as sexy in the role of Bard's other love interest, that of the sweet, well intentioned good -guy as in Robert Sterling's character; Jimmy Courtney.The other stand out performance (deserved of his Oscar) is that of Van Heflin playing the complex ,sesquipedalian and polymath, Jeff Hartnett. He is the cerebral side kick of Eager. Like the women, he has got in too deep with Eager because of his homo erotic attraction to the latter.Mention should also go to the excellent turns by Edward Arnald as the over protective Dad, who has come from nothing,making it as a respectable lawyer, with ambitions for his daughter to marry a wealthy socialite with a good name. His over protectiveness as Bard's Dad gives way to a subtext of incest. This has Hartnett (Heflin) mention the famous psychologist Freud.Also outstanding in this film is the clever script, which is evidently well researched, as in the example of the naive sociology student. The direction of the film is a credit to Mervyn LeRoy who portrays the clichéd caricatures of the characters to almost perfection. . The film takes allot of twists and turns, which defines it as 'film noir'.This was the film that altered the career of Robert Taylor, transforming him from a 'pretty boy' film star to a credible actor. It definitely is worth seeing.