Füge eine Handlung in deiner Sprache hinzuUS Treasury agent George Morton persuades convicted criminal Johnny Evans to help him destroy a drug smuggling ring in exchange for early parole.US Treasury agent George Morton persuades convicted criminal Johnny Evans to help him destroy a drug smuggling ring in exchange for early parole.US Treasury agent George Morton persuades convicted criminal Johnny Evans to help him destroy a drug smuggling ring in exchange for early parole.
- Regie
- Drehbuch
- Hauptbesetzung
- Joey Hyatt
- (as Anthony Curtis)
- McCandle's Secretary
- (Nicht genannt)
- Treasury Man
- (Nicht genannt)
- Ranch Guest
- (Nicht genannt)
- Pallbearer
- (Nicht genannt)
- Nightclub Patron
- (Nicht genannt)
- Courtroom Spectator
- (Nicht genannt)
- Nightclub Patron
- (Nicht genannt)
- Train Passenger
- (Nicht genannt)
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This is a frequently used plot of a government agent or policeman secretly infiltrating a criminal organization and it works very well with Duff and especially Duryea, playing the leads. Winters is a sympathetic call-girl and McEntire is great as a duplicitous character. The day-for-night locations in Mexico (or a stand-in for it) are dramatically shot with overhanging clouds and trees that seem to glow in the shadows. William Castle directs and he's at his best. Not a major noir by any means, but a fine film that deserves to be restored.
To Castle's credit, he extracts very good performances from Duff, Winters, McIntire, Kelley and, especially, Dan Duryea, a con doing time who has sworn revenge against US Treasury agent Duff, but turns out to be more decent than imagined after seeing his wife killed as a consequence of consuming narcotics.
Soaring above the film's lofty acting standards, Duryea posts possibly his career-best show in a rare and surprising role as a seemingly inveterate baddie with a decent streak which ultimately redeems and finds him love and happiness. The revenge he warns Duff about turns out to be the wonderful woman who recognizes his worth in the end.
Winters and McIntire also deliver superb performances, the latter as the cold and calculating master villain. Interesting to note that the following year, 1950, Duryea, Winters and McIntire would re-assemble in one of the greatest Westerns ever, WINCHESTER '73.
As would a very young Anthony (Tony) Curtis, who in JOHNNY gets a small and wordless but crucial part as a baby-faced good for nothing... other than killing.
Cinematography deserves considerable praise throughout, the highlights being the early scenes at a dockyard, the apparent alacrity of all in a restaurant/dancing room, and the hangar at the end.
Chases and other action sequences are crackingly well staged, including the shootouts and, above all, the decisive plane-police car crash.
True, the script does not rise above some predictability, but then it is based on true FBI reports, and you know that good will win over evil. Thank God!
Those first two films were by the resourceful Anthony Mann; Johnny Stool Pigeon is by William Castle, no Mann but later to become the king of cheapie horror flicks after an apprenticeship in noir (his When Strangers Marry may be the best of his juvenilia).
It's a creditable if not especially memorable effort, thanks mostly to a cast headed by Dan Duryea, Howard Duff, Shelly Winters (in her sexpot phase) and, in a non-speaking part, young Tony Curtis (here billed as "Anthony," a better billing than he got in the same year's Criss Cross, where his manic rhumba with Yvonne De Carlo went uncredited).
Narcotics cop Duff knows his only chance to crack an international drug ring is by springing a convict (Duryea) whom he'd help put in Alcatraz. The oil-and-water team of unwilling partners travels from San Francisco first to Vancouver then, gang moll Winters in tow, to a dude ranch near Tucson run by the mob.
The plot's volatility depends on the possibility of Duff's being sold out by Duryea or recognized by Curtis, who spends half the movie knitting his brows in an effort to remember where he'd seen Duff before. Reckoning finally comes at a dangerous drug buy at the Nogales border crossing.
As a straight arrow, Duff's not bad, though in more ambivalent roles in movies like Shakedown or The Naked City, he can turn into a slithery chameleon. The reliable Duryea does his soured cynic number -- he had it down pat by now. Winters adds a dash of hot sauce, but it's a sketched-in part at best. Johnny Stool Pigeon adds up to a pretty routine hour-and-a-quarter of noir -- but that's far from faint praise.
Wusstest du schon
- WissenswertesThe old plane seen outside the airport hangar at the end, was a captured Japanese Nakajima B5N ("Kate") Torpedo Bomber from World War II. It had been shot down at the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
The plane had been sent to Arizona and stored at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, in Tucson, Arizona for warfare aeronautical studies during the beginning of the war. It was lent to the movie producers.
- PatzerNear the end, when Morton and the plane are on a collision course, we see through Morton's car window the plane has lifted off, and is about to clear the car, but when they cut to the crash, the plane hasn't left the ground.
- Zitate
Terry Stewart: [in Canada, while Johnny and Terry are dancing] Where're you from, Johnny?
Johnny Evans: The States - California.
Terry Stewart: Ohh, California... you mean there's still a place where it's warm and got palm trees... and you can lie out in that lovely hot sun all the year round...
Johnny Evans: I guess so. You know California?
Terry Stewart: Uh-uh. Ah, I was brought up in Tucson - Arizona. Wish I'd never left it. Been in this dump for 2 years. The only time I've ever been warm was once I went to sleep with a cigarette and I set the bed on fire.
- Crazy Credits[prologue] In their never-ending task of law enforcement, the officers of the Bureau of Narcotics and the Bureau of Customs of the United States Treasury fight many battles such as the one you are about to see. Their successes are a tribute to their skill, intelligence and courage. To their fearless officers we respectfully dedicate this picture.
- VerbindungenReferenced in Johnny Staccato: An Angry Young Man (1960)
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- Herkunftsland
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- Johnny Stool Pigeon
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- Laufzeit
- 1 Std. 16 Min.(76 min)
- Farbe
- Seitenverhältnis
- 1.37 : 1