Johnny Apollo

Tyrone Power puts a sympathetic face on crime in his role as a young man who is drawn into the criminal underworld, after his father is imprisoned for embezzlement. While it does boast exciting action sequences, this film is not just your typical gangster movie: It goes to great lengths to show how a person, like Tyrone Power's character, who is completely disillusioned by his experiences following the discovery of his father's dishonesty, might turn to crime. Tyrone Power gives a sincere and heartfelt performance, which gives an added depth to both his role as Johnny Apollo and to the movie itself. Highly recommended to all Tyrone Power fans and those who enjoy excellent crime dramas.

Johnny Apollo was Darryl F. Zanuck's attempt probably at Tyrone Power's request to give him some more challenging material. Up to this time Power's films were mostly either costume period dramas or screen comedies. For the first time Ty is in modern dress and in a drama.

Power fits the title role of Johnny Apollo rather well. The name is a spur of the moment creation for Robert Cain, Jr. who would be called a trust fund baby today. His widower father Edward Arnold's indictment for some white collar securities violations has put Power's rather well ordered and soft universe to a sudden end.

Power tries to play it straight, but can't make a go of it. Circumstances put him and gangster Lloyd Nolan together. And Power discovers he's got a talent for the rackets. He also attracts the attention of Nolan's girl friend Dorothy Lamour.

Johnny Apollo is a good film with crackerjack performances by the cast that Henry Hathaway directed. It's probably best compared to MGM's Johnny Eager where Louis B. Mayer was also trying to broaden their studio's heartthrob Robert Taylor's appeal. Johnny Eager is the better film, but no one in Johnny Apollo need be ashamed of anything.

Best performances in the film are from Nolan as gangster Mickey Dwyer. Nolan was never bad in any film he was ever in. Second best is alcoholic mob attorney Charley Grapewin.

Dorothy Lamour was brought over from Paramount for this film, playing a part that Alice Faye or Betty Grable might normally have been assigned to. She gets two of her best movie songs to sing, This Is The Beginning Of The End by Mack Gordon and Your Kiss by Frank Loesser and Lionel Newman.

Johnny Apollo is a fine gangster film from a studio that normally did not do that particular genre. At least at this time.

Wall Street millionaire Edward Arnold (as Robert Cain Sr.) is indicted for embezzlement and goes directly to jail. Canoeing in his swim trunks, college student son Tyrone Power (as Robert "Bob" Cain Jr.) is shocked and disappointed. He disowns his dad and drops out of school. Now a convict's son, Mr. Power finds himself unable to find honest work. While waiting to see alcoholic lawyer Charley Grapewin (as Emmett T. Brennan), Power meets attractive Dorothy Lamour (as "Lucky" Dubarry) and paroled gangster Lloyd Nolan (as Mickey "The Mick" Dwyer). Power assumes the name "Johnny Apollo" and drifts into a life of crime...

This story is too loosely plotted, but not in a way that makes it difficult to follow...

Helping immensely is that the film is great looking, and directed exceptionally by Henry Hathaway. The black-and-white cinematography is especially noteworthy; photographer Arthur Miller might have received his annual "Academy Award" nomination for this one, if the studio wasn't backing him in "The Blue Bird" (1940). Then Fox' biggest star, Power shows he might have accomplished the same feat at MGM or Warner Bros. Singing and "Dancing for Nickels and Dimes", Ms. Lamour is luscious, especially in a leggy skirt and clinging top. Dependable supporting actors like Mr. Nolan and Mr. Grapewin get juicy parts, too.

******* Johnny Apollo (3/15/40) Henry Hathaway ~ Tyrone Power, Dorothy Lamour, Lloyd Nolan, Edward Arnold

Embezzler Edward Arnold goes to prison and son Tyrone Power tries to make it on his own honestly. Doesn't work out well. So Tyrone decides Pop was right and that the only way to make it ahead in the world is by being a crook. So he hooks up with gangster Lloyd Nolan and falls for Nolan's girl Dorothy Lamour. When Arnold finds out what his son is up to, he's none too pleased.

Enjoyable gangster drama with a fine cast. Some have said Power is miscast. I think he's okay for the part. It's not really a gritty movie, despite the plot. Maybe if it had been a tough film noir, I could see the point that Power was wrong for the role. But it's not and he isn't. Edward Arnold is good. I doubt the man ever did a bad acting job in his career. His character is somewhat poorly written and hard to relate to, but it's difficult to dislike him due to Arnold's sympathetic performance. Nice to see Charley Grapewin playing something besides a grizzled old-timer without most of his marbles. Beautiful Dorothy Lamour is always a plus and it's good to see her in a serious role. Lloyd Nolan pretty much steals the movie as the gangster Mickey Dwyer. Lionel Atwill is largely wasted as Arnold's attorney.

The biggest flaw with the movie is that its plot isn't always consistent. Arnold's character is a crook who first treats his son like crap for not being okay with his crookedness. Then later he treats his son like crap for becoming a criminal like Dad. Still, it's an enjoyable movie. The script's got some nice dialogue. Watch for the scene where Power chases, tackles, and beats Marc Lawrence's head against the ground! Yikes!

Tyrone Power plays privileged young man Bob Cain, Jr., who adopts the nom de guerre Johnny Apollo when he takes to a life of crime. (Incidentally, this movie thus kicks off a string of at least a dozen crime stories of the ‘40s and ‘50s named Johnny Something-Or-Other: Eager, O'Clock, Stool Pigeon....) Power chooses crime to spite his father (Edward Arnold) by emulating his dog-eat-dog ethics, for financial tycoon Arnold has been sent to prison for embezzlement, causing a rift between the generations.

After Power's initial snit over Dad's letting him down, his attempts to secure him an early parole lead, though `connected' shantoozie Dorothy Lamour, to the underworld. The muscles he developed rowing crew in the Ivy League stand him in good stead as muscle in the mob, for soon he becomes a trusted lieutenant in Lloyd Nolan's crime family (plausibility is not the movie's long suit). But Pop (who has reclaimed his spiritual center in the Big House by welding boilers) disowns his namesake when he learns of his new line of work. In due time, of course, Power ends up behind those bars as well. But that's far from the end of the tale....

The plot of Johnny Apollo, a major production, takes a few turns too many but manages to keep a just-passable amount of credibility. Though Power, in the lead, stays less than persuasive as a menacing mobster – he's too much of a pretty-boy, and lacks the acting resources to turn himself into a pretty-boy psychopath – the rest of the cast compensates. Predictably, Arnold is good, as is, in the role of a mob mouthpiece with a weakness for Scotch-and-milk, Charlie Grapewin (whose first film credit falls in the last year of the 19th Century!); the two seem to be vying for title of America's sweetheart, old-codger division. Best of all is Lamour, with her sad eyes and fetching pout, who leaves an impression here of a skilled actress, more than she managed in all the Hope-Crosby `Road' pictures put together.

Direction is by Henry Hathaway, an uneven craftsman who nonetheless rose to the occasion for a handful of movies; this can be counted among his stronger efforts, along with The Dark Corner, Kiss of Death, Fourteen Hours and Niagara. But Johnny Apollo cleaves more closely to the crime melodramas of the previous decade than to the unsentimental and ambiguous style soon to come. But, in it, one can nonetheless sense – particularly in its heavily shaded photography – the birth pangs of film noir, struggling to come into the world.