JOHNNY COOL—-before Frank Sinatra bounced him from The Rat Pack, professional hanger-on Peter Lawford had a hand in producing this 1963 tomato of a gangster flick. #3 Rat buddy Sammy Davis Jr. contributed a cameo as Associate Rat Henry Silva stars, playing a remorseless one-man vengeance machine on the loose, killing his way through 103 dreary minutes.
Directed by William Asher, on a break from his Beach Party fests (he doesn’t dig drama, you’ll notice, if you bother to chisel this from the debris pile). Elizabeth Montgomery draws the female lead. They married on the day this was released, went on to Bewitched immortality. She’s not bad, but it’s such an ugly downer, and Silva is one-note all the way.
Notables convinced by Lawford to have walk or die-on’s include Rat packer #5 Joey Bishop, Telly Savalas, Jim Backus, Mort Sahl, Richard Anderson, Marc Lawrence, Brad Dexter, John McGiver, Joseph Calleia, Joan Staley, Elisha Cook, Robert Armstrong, John Dierkes, Hal Baylor and Joe Turkel. Watching the preview (often available on You Tube) is good for laughs. Too bad the movie is so lousy.
Havent seen it in years but remember being let down with the end product and such a great cast of familiar faces to a kid who loved the movies and a chance to see Henry Silva take a lead role before he went off to Italy in the 70’s.
Thanks for pitching in. I just now returned from my month in Colombia, so have been out of the blog loop for a bit.