Johnny Nobody

Bizarrely-plotted British drama with religious overtones. Set in a small southern Irish village, it starts off dramatically with William Bendix's character, a successful author, hauling himself down to the local bar where he offends the highly religious locals by loudly proclaiming his atheism to all and sundry. Someone sends for the village priest, Nigel Patrick, who attempts to calm down the blasphemer, but now riled even more, he defiantly dares God to strike him down on the spot, if He indeed exists. Cue Aldo Ray as "Johnny Nobody", who promptly steps up to shoot him, claiming amnesia and proclaiming that he was divinely inspired to do the deed.

At the ensuing trial, there's a sensation when Patrick's priest is asked on the witness stand if God could indeed have divinely intervened, causing an adjournment as the trial erupts in uproar, with it seems all the locals, including by extension, the jury, buying into the "God made me do it" defence of the accused. Taking a particularly keen interest in the case is a local female journalist Yvonne Mitchell who seems especially interested in the evidence Patrick will give when the court resumes after the weekend. But Patrick suspects there's more to this than meets the eye and decides to use the intervening 48 hours to follow up a lead arising from cryptic postcards containing Biblical quotations sent to his office, no doubt to try to influence his upcoming testimony. This leads him to a small country village and a number of scrapes, including a revelatory re-encounter with Mitchell, a run-in with a band of traveling folk and the local police on his tail as he then races back to the conclusion of the trial, where God seems to have the last word after all, or does he...?

I was intrigued by the initial premise, right up to the breakdown in the court trial, thinking the film might either continue on with a deep debate into the existence of God, like a sort of serious version of "The Man Who Sued God" or instead go the full mystery-adventure route like a good episode of later TV series like "The Avengers" or "Department S' but no such luck either way. Rather, Patrick escapes to the country to do some Father Brown-type sleuthing as the film lapses into an adventure caper, including an unlikely attempt at murder involving a galloping race-horse which makes you wonder why the perpetrator didn't just run him down in a car and the good father boarding a speeding train like that Bond fellow. As for the shocking conclusion, no doubt designed to make the contemporary viewer scratch their head and think "Well, maybe...", I must admit I found it hilariously preposterous.

Actor Patrick directs himself here, but with no real flair or imagination as he lets the story lead his camerawork and while the lead performances are all just about okay, the movie was too implausible and disjointed to do anything other than amuse me, which I know wasn't the aim.

JOHNNY NOBODY is a strange little movie that doesn't really gel all that well, although it proves to be quite entertaining at times. It begins with a bizarre set-piece in which an atheist rants and raves in an Irish pub, understandably upsetting the punters, before a random stranger executes him. The focus then shifts to priest Nigel Patrick (who also directs) as he investigates the killer's motives for his crime. The latter half adopts a kind of preposterous 'wronged man' template with some good suspense scenes that are the best part of the film, but then we get a ridiculous climax that must have been laughed off the screen by audiences of the era.

William Bendix gives another brilliant performance as a blasphemer. Aldo Ray performs in a strange and unique role. The conclusion of the film may not come close to Dietrich-Laughton in "Witness for the Prosecution", but one could see a comparison with the original "Bad Seed"

There's a terrific idea at the heart of this Irish-set thriller, particularly if you're a Catholic. A drunken Irish-American atheist stands outside a Roman Catholic Church in a small Irish village and defies God to strike him dead when out of nowhere a stranger appears and does just that in front of the local priest and the whole village. Since the killer doesn't appear to have a past or an identity, he becomes known as "Johnny Nobody", hence the film's title.

So far so good; unfortunately we get the denouement about two-thirds of the way through and it's not a very good one. From here on things get progressively more far-fetched, like a cross between a poor man's "The 39 Steps" and "Witness for the Prosecution".

Actor Nigel Patrick both directs and plays the sceptical priest, Aldo Ray is the killer and a really rather good William Bendix, the victim. Others in the cast include a miscast Yvonne Mitchell, Cyril Cusack and Niall Macginnis as well as the usual stock company of Irish players. On its level it's entertaining matinee fare but it could have been so much better.

"Mulcahy" (William Bendix) is a bit of a stirrer. Amidst a deeply religious Irish community, he invites the wrath of god by daring the deity to strike him down. To the shock of the crowd, that's exactly what happens. Thing is, it isn't a thunderbolt - but a bullet fired from a gun by a bystander. He makes no attempt to escape, and only adds to the enigma when the police can find no clue as to his identity. He (Aldo Ray) claims amnesia - not divine intervention - and looking the gallows fairly and squarely, he has to rely on the local "Fr. Carey" (Nigel Patrick) to try to put together the pieces. I did quite like the subject matter - and as we proceed to the courtroom aspects of the plot, the writing does raise quite a few interesting questions about the role of religion - and God - in the judicial process, and these are well posed by defending counsel Niall MacGinnis to the judge (John Welsh). Sadly, though, the story hasn't quite the courage of it's potential convictions and the last twenty minutes or so fall firmly into the standard pattern of crime-noir and that rather disappoints. Still, Nigel Patrick's direction keeps it all moving along well enough and he has assembled a reliable and solid cast of familiar, and personable, faces to help this into the top tier of standard Saturday afternoon features.