Bob est devenu Johnny Appolo, un truand. Sa déviance dans le crime est lié au fait que son père a été arrêté. Lui-même arrêté, il retrouve son père sous les habits d'un gardien de prison.Bob est devenu Johnny Appolo, un truand. Sa déviance dans le crime est lié au fait que son père a été arrêté. Lui-même arrêté, il retrouve son père sous les habits d'un gardien de prison.Bob est devenu Johnny Appolo, un truand. Sa déviance dans le crime est lié au fait que son père a été arrêté. Lui-même arrêté, il retrouve son père sous les habits d'un gardien de prison.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Récompenses
- 2 victoires au total
- Warden
- (as Selmar Jackson)
- Announcer
- (voix)
Avis à la une
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!
Lloyd Nolan plays a low-key gangster and Tyrone Power plays a guy who exhibits good and bad. Dorothy Lamour, Edward Arnold, Charley Grapewin and Lionel Atwill all add to this talented cast. Lamour's tough-talking "dame" character and good cinematography helped this movie be characterized as a very early entry into the film noir genre.
The problem with the movie was the believability of the story. There were too many unanswered questions in here. Why was this person arrested? How and why could this happen, and that? There are lots of holes in here and sometimes they were so prevalent they broke up the continuity of the story.
Okay for one curious look but not worth a purchase, although it's still not available on DVD anyway, and few people buy new VHS tapes anymore.
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.
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.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesIn the scene with Johnny and his father talking in the bedroom, the photo over Johnny's shoulder of his mother, is a picture of Tyrone Power's mother.
- GaffesWhen Mickey comes into the judge's offices after the judge has smashed the two whisky bottles, he comments that the room smells like a brewery. It is more likely that the room would smell like a distillery rather than a brewery and Mickey would be aware of the difference.
- Citations
Prisoner Tom Dugan: I steal an empty slot machine and get 10 years, and this guy steals a million and gets 5. Figure that out, will yuh?
Main Reporter: [Sarcastically] That's why you got the 10 - to figure it out.
- ConnexionsFeatured in Les enquêtes de Remington Steele: Cast in Steele (1984)
- Bandes originalesThis Is the Beginning of the End
(1940)
Written by Mack Gordon
Performed by Dorothy Lamour (uncredited) with Harry Rosenthal (uncredited) at piano
Played as background music often
Meilleurs choix
- How long is Johnny Apollo?Alimenté par Alexa
Détails
- Date de sortie
- Pays d’origine
- Langue
- Aussi connu sous le nom de
- Dance with the Devil
- Lieux de tournage
- Sing Sing Penitentiary - 354 Hunter Street, Ossining, New York, États-Unis(exteriors: prison)
- Société de production
- Voir plus de crédits d'entreprise sur IMDbPro
- Durée1 heure 34 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 1.37 : 1