Johnny Eager
Tags: romantic, murder

Plot synopsis:
Johnny Eager (Robert Taylor) masquerades as a taxi driver for his gullible parole officer, A. J. Verne (Henry O'Neill), but in reality, he is the ruthless head of a powerful gambling syndicate. Verne introduces him to socialite Lisbeth "Liz" Bard (Lana Turner), a sociology student. Johnny and Liz are attracted to each other, but then he discovers that she is the stepdaughter of his longtime nemesis, John Benson Farrell (Edward Arnold). As a crusading prosecutor, Farrell was responsible for sending Johnny to prison, and now as the district attorney, he has gotten an injunction preventing Johnny's expensive dog racing track from opening.
Johnny decides to use Liz as leverage against her stepfather. When she comes to see him, he has Julio (Paul Stewart), one of his underlings, burst in and pretend to try to kill him. During the faked struggle, Julio drops his gun. Lisbeth picks it up and shoots Julio when he seems to have the upper hand. Johnny then hustles her out of the room before she can realize that the gun is full of blanks and Julio's blood is actually ketchup. Later, Johnny threatens to expose her as a murderer unless Farrell removes the injunction. Farrell gives in.
Johnny is depicted as a man without a conscience. When childhood friend Lew Rankin (Barry Nelson) gets fed up with his subordinate role in the gang and starts plotting against him, Johnny murders him without the slightest qualm. He lies to his devoted girlfriend Garnet (Patricia Dane) to get her to go to Florida while he romances Liz. Mae (Glenda Farrell), a prior girlfriend, asks him to help get her incorruptible policeman husband transferred back to his old precinct because his long commute is straining their marriage. Johnny not only lies, claiming he no longer has any influence, he also hides the fact that he got the man transferred in the first place because he would not look the other way. When Jimmy Courtney (Robert Sterling), Liz's high society former boyfriend, becomes alarmed because Liz is going to pieces due to a guilty conscience, he offers Johnny all his money to leave the country and take Liz with him. Johnny cannot figure out his "angle", why he would do such a selfless thing. In fact, the only soft spot Johnny seems to have is for his intellectual, alcoholic right-hand man, Jeff Hartnett (Van Heflin), and even he is not sure why. Jeff has an insight, telling his boss that "even Johnny Eager has to have one friend."
However, when Johnny learns that Liz intends to turn herself in, he discovers the meaning of love for the first time in his life. He confesses to her that he staged the whole incident, but she does not believe him. To prove his claim, he decides to produce a live Julio, but Julio has defected to Johnny's dissatisfied partner, Bill Halligan (Cy Kendall). Johnny manages to bring Julio (at gunpoint) to Liz, but in the process, touches off a gunfight with Halligan and his men. He kills Halligan and Julio, but is himself shot down by a policeman on his way home after his shift, who in a twist of fate turns out to be Mae's husband.

Review: Several years later, Heflin played a somewhat similar but rugged and drunk Musketeer with a broken marriage in "The Three Musketeers." The casting of "Johnny Eager" is the secret to its success.Robert Taylor made a name as the good looking good guy in the movies, but he is even better when he plays the bad guy in a handful of films.
Yet amongst the several negative roles ("Conspirator", "Undercurrent", "Ride, Vaqeuro", "The Night Walker"), Taylor in "Johnny Eager" is able to present the versatile actor he was.The lovely Lana Turner is overshadowed by Taylor and Heflin, not just by the script but their individual performances.
Robert Taylor doesn't ace every scene but he gives a more than credible performance as Johnny Eager, an inventive pragmatic and violent when called for gangster trying to open a legit dog track from behind the scenes.
The coldly practical Eager circumvents the problem by compromising the judge's daughter (Lana Turner) but loses his balance on the tightrope he's walking when he falls hard for her dame.Eager has a crisper look than most noirs and director Mervyn LeRoy deftly handles the storyline and avoids run of the mill by injecting minor but telling incidentals that indicate Johnny's slow transformation.
Robert Taylor is a reformed gangster on parole at the beginning of "Johnny Eager." After meeting with his parole officer and two sociology students - one of whom is the gorgeous Lana Turner - Johnny transforms himself into the gangster he has remained.
Little does he know, her father is the prosecutor who has an injunction to keep a dog track from opening in which Johnny has a financial stake.According to Lana Turner, she and Taylor flirted and made out, and Taylor told Stanwyck he wanted a divorce.
He has no idea how to love or to be loved.Van Heflin won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as Johnny's friend Jeff, an alcoholic philosopher and Johnny's conscience.
MGM produced this well-written, well-produced gangster saga, a type of film that was very unusual for the studio.As the alcoholic, self-loathing, philosophizing buddy of Johnny Eager (Robert Taylor), Heflin steals the show.
His crying scenes are enough to choke a person up, and his possible suggestion of a homoerotic attraction to Eager is unique in a film of this era.It's unfortunate that Heflin's subsequent roles and performances were generally dull.
But at least in Johnny Eager, Heflin set a standard for screen acting that remains a role model to this day.Robert Taylor plays his scenes with Heflin with some dramatic tension and a hint of subtext, while still remaining comfortably within the confines of a handsome Hollywood leading man.
Director Leroy achieves this by adding to the clichés of sharp suited mobsters and their dolls anomalies as in the emotional, erudite gangster with ethics.A classic stereotype, (well observed and researched by the production team) is that of Lana Turner's character; Lizbeth Bard.
His character wouldn't be half as sexy in the role of Bard's other love interest, that of the sweet, well intentioned good -guy as in Robert Sterling's character; Jimmy Courtney.The other stand out performance (deserved of his Oscar) is that of Van Heflin playing the complex ,sesquipedalian and polymath, Jeff Hartnett.
Like the women, he has got in too deep with Eager because of his homo erotic attraction to the latter.Mention should also go to the excellent turns by Edward Arnald as the over protective Dad, who has come from nothing,making it as a respectable lawyer, with ambitions for his daughter to marry a wealthy socialite with a good name.
However, the film just doesn't have that grittiness to it you'd expect for the genre--though all the actors in it did a very good job.The film stars Robert Taylor as the mobster "Johnny"--quite a departure from his 1930s "pretty boy" image.
This and his subsequent actions serve to convince Heflin and the audience that Johnny has no soul--though late in the film he comes to actually feel guilt for destroying Lana and he makes amends in a very rousing and violent finale.As I said, the acting was extremely good as was the dialog.
Nonetheless, Taylor puts a lot of punch into his part, outshining the film's Oscar winner Van Heflin, who plays his heavy drinking philosophizing associate..
Johnny Eager doesn't fall in *love*.Robert Taylor stars in the title role and is very good as the classy criminal.
Turner's character is a key component of JOHNNY EAGER, but she spends considerable time offscreen.Van Heflin won the Oscar for playing Jeff Hartnett, a well-read alcoholic and Johnny's best friend and confidant.
A selfish crook like Johnny Eager knows nothing about love or sympathy, but even Johnny Eager needs a friend.Heflin would go on to such movies as SHANE (1953) and 3:10 TO YUMA (1957) in the 1950s, but he actually won an Academy Award for this film early on in his career.
The film works fine either way.)A big-time racketeer who uses people for his own advantage, Johnny doesn't understand love and has no real friends except Jeff.
It's hard to understand why, since it's a decent enough movie with two notable stars, Robert Taylor and Lana Turner.
One would think people would be interested in seeing the film that provided the Best Supporting Actor of 1941, Van Heflin's shining moment.I caught this on TCM recently and I'd recommend checking it out if you have the time.
JOHNNY EAGER was one of MGM's early entries into film noir territory and it's an atmospheric and tough crime melodrama that gives Taylor and Turner some emotionally charged scenes.
The plot takes a lot of twists and turns before the complicated story runs its course--with Van Heflin in his Oscar-winning supporting role as the man who tries to be Johnny's conscience.
Seems to me Heflin played much better roles after the war in leading roles for which he was never nominated again--namely 'Green Dolphin Street' (excellent work) and 'The Three Musketeers' (both times opposite Lana Turner).You may be interested in reading my feature article on LANA TURNER appearing in the Spring 2002 issue of FILMS OF THE GOLDEN AGE.Robert Taylor gives a solid, convincing performance in the title role.
(Some Spoilers) Davilishly handsome Robert Taylor as paroled crime bigwig Johnny Eager with the eye-popping gorgeous 21 year-old Lana Turner as Lisbeth Brad.
As well as Van Heflin who received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as Johnny's sad sack drunk and scholarly pal Jeff Hartenett put on quite a show in the MGM glossy crime/drama "Johnny Eager".
At his monthly parole board hearing Johnny meets two sociology students Lisbeth Bard and Judy Sanford, Lana Turner and Dana Lewis, and both fall, Judy outwardly and Lisbeth secretly, for the good-looking former hoodlum.
Robert Taylor is darkly handsome and effective as the ruthless Johnny Eager as he finds out that his good looks and success with women turned out to be his Achilles Heel.
I'm not even really a fan of Robert Taylor or Lana Turner but Van Heflin is all right.
Those qualities also sustained a folio as full and lengthy as Taylor's.Van Heflin turned in fine character performance (he always seemed a striking forerunner of Arthur Kennedy) which was one of his numerous outstanding performances.All in all, "Johnny Eager" is quite entertaining, as long as one's willing to go with the uniquely MGM type of dramatic fantasy.I was..
Van Heflin plays Taylor's cynical alcoholic friend who has many of the movie's best lines.
Heflin Tears It Up. Robert Taylor (as Johnny Eager) is a racketeer on parole; he is posing an honest taxi driver, but actually runs a successful criminal organization.
Mr. Taylor is charismatic as gangster "Johnny Eager" and Ms. Turner is lovely as "Liz" Van Heflin (as Jeff Hartnett) is the actor and performer to watch in this film.
In an otherwise routine production, Heflin delivers an unfolding, landmark supporting performance.Nothing is quite as good as Heflin's performance in "Johnny Eager", but Taylor's drunken crashing of the "poker party" makes the second half much more entertaining than the first half of the gangster story.
******* Johnny Eager (12/9/41) Mervyn LeRoy ~ Robert Taylor, Van Heflin, Lana Turner.
His choice of Robert Taylor in this role was outstanding; Taylor played (Johnny Eager),"The House of Seven Hawks",'59, a Taxi Cab driver who wore the uniform in most of the scenes with a small bow tie and cap.
In one scene Eager told his girl friend, 'He did not care to make love at 4PM in the afternoon', however, he fell madly in love with Lana Turner,(Liz Bard),"Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde",'41, who looks young and beautiful in her role as a Judge's daughter who is fooled into killing Paul Stewart,(Julio),"The Joe Louis story",'53.
Edward Arnold,(Jeff Hartnett),"The Devil & Daniel Webster",'41, loved his daughter Liz very deeply but Johnny Eager managed to get him involved in his various crimes in the Dog Racing business which almost broke his heart.
Robert Taylor plays a convincing tough guy with no compromises, but someone who softens up and does the right thing at the end.Heflin has some interesting lines but, personally, seeing a drunk in major role like this wasn't much fun to watch or hear.
I love the film noir genre and thoroughly enjoyed this fast paced if far removed from reality morality tale on the life and times of reformed (or is he?) gangster Johnny Eager, played at a fair lick by Robert Taylor.
Heflin deserved his Oscar for his booze - soaked portrayal of Eager's side-kick and conscience Jeff Hartnett, but Taylor and Turner deserve top - marks too.
However, if you watch closely the real love story seems to be between Van Heflin and Robert Taylor.
Handsome, quick on his feet and quicker on the draw gangster Johnny Eager (Taylor) meets the hottest-of-hot young Hollywood dames, Lana Turner, here the District Attorney's daughter.
This time there ain't gonna be too many survivors.Robert Taylor and Lana Turner were never better - they were both young and hot and riding in this souped-up racer of a movie.
Today the Van Heflin character appears so insufferable that the public would instead be more likely to be willing Johnny to shoot him - and it would have been Robert Taylor who received the Oscar..
Robert Taylor driving cabs in the hope of Lana Turner but only wins Van Heflin.
The chief interest of this film is the appearance of Robert Taylor as a double and complicated character, part gangster, part renegade, who desperately tries to behave and get ordinary for society standards, as he loves Lana Turner with a father in a very high position - Edward Arnold at his hardest.
Robert is not altogether successful in leaving his gangster life behind and trying to scrap it for the sake of Lana, but his ambiguous situation turning into a tragedy is saved by Van Heflin, a drunkard, as his only friend, as it proves, when all is lost.
Van Heflin actually saves the film and makes it more than interesting - it's a true noir but very early as such, and Robert Taylor is surprisingly good as the opposite of all you have seen him in before - the stately perfect gentleman and saviour of the world, like the perfect knight in shining armour, here just one case for the gutter among many..
his could have been really good if it had been cast with actors similar to Edward Arnold and Van Heflin in the two major roles.
As it is, it is very entraining, slick Hollywood product.Heflin may be the only actor before Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia" to win an Oscar for playing a gay role; and he does a beautiful job as the man besotted with drink and with the preposterously named title character.Arnold is always good.Turner does well, but imagine the power of this had a real actress like Gloria Graham been cast in her role.
I've never seen it in Little Caesar, but on Van Heflin's part in Johnny Eager it's definitely there.Edward G.
Johnny (Robert Taylor), out on parole, hides his thriving gambling and extortion business behind his front as a cabbie, and when he fixes it so that he seems to cover up a crime done by his lover (Lana Turner), he has her father, his nemesis the judge (Edward Arnold) in a spot.Not a memorable thriller or noir by any stretch of the imagination, the script is tired and unoriginal, the dialogue badly written, the direction aimless, and the acting varies greatly.
Johnny Eager (Robert Taylor) pretends to be a taxi driver for his parole officer.
Former crime boss John 'Johnny' Eager (Robert Taylor) is out of jail and now content to have a job as a taxi driver, he's good humoured about the good old days when he had flash suits and fast cars and he tells his parole officer this every time he checks in.
Decent thriller, high on melodrama, so not particularly Noirish, Taylor is very watchable as the nice guy Johnny, a pleasant romantic character, but he is a little stretched as bad guy Johnny, Van Heflin steals the show as the romantic, poetry and prose spouting friend and sidekick Jeff Hartnett, who takes Johnny's abuse in order to be supplied with alcohol for which he deservedly won an Oscar..
This is one of them.Robert Taylor gives everything He's got trying to change His image and be taken as not just another pretty face, but is quite out of his depth here, although he does manage to tread water amongst a Sea of other Thespians with a young Lana Turner in a small but impressive Role.The Dialog is showy and pretentious and is a bit corny, but Van Heflin's AA is deserving because he is really the one who outdoes all and squeezes every tear drop out of this juicy part.
Robert Taylor and Lana Turner are roguish and fetching, respectively, but Mervyn LeRoy, despite his prolific list of credits, was a pretty hopelessly boring director, and nothing about this film stands out.
It's fine, but there's not much about it to motivate a modern-day audience to revisit it.It would probably be a mere blip in cinema history if not for the fact that it won Van Heflin a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Taylor's alcoholic and lachrymose best friend.
Johnny Eager blackmails Farrell by implicating his daughter Liz Bard (Lana Turner) in a murder.
The cast are all OK but I didn't really connect with Robert Taylor and I felt disappointed with the role played by Lana Turner.
The gangster Johnny Eager (Robert Taylor) has a scheme to pose of taxi driver to his parole officer Mr. Verne (Henry O'Neill).
What will Johnny do?"Johnny Eager" is a great film-noir, with the story of a selfish cold- blooded gangster that learns the meaning of love.
Robert Taylor is perfect in the role of a notorious and manipulative gangster and Van Heflin has magnificent performance in the role of his only friend.
Robert Taylor was to lose his pretty boy image in this film about a sociopath gangster "Johnny Eager." Never before had the audience seen him in such a distasteful role, as such a bad guy that you just wanted to kill him yourself.
Johnny meets Lizbeth (Lana Turner)and uses her to blackmail her father, played wonderfully well by Edward Arnold, the District Attorney trying to put Johnny away for good.
When Eager goes to her, the scene on the balcony between Taylor and Turner is so sexy, so real that you just knew they were really in love outside of the film.
Edward Arnold and the rest of the law were terrific, as well.I don't really understand why others refer to Johnny Eager as a film noir.
It is one of my favorites of all time.THE LEADS: Robert Taylor (Johnny Eager), although slightly too young to play this big-boss gangster character, gives a convincing performance, making a great sociopath.
GAH!Van Heflin deserved his best supporting actor Oscar for his role in this film (a rare win for a pathetic character).
Robert Taylor as Johnny Eager, gangster/criminal/racketeer, has done his time and turned over a new leaf.
If you want a scintillating, involving, and very intelligent crime drama with great performances by all, including character actors Edward Arnold, Robert Sterling, Barry Nelson, Paul Stewart, Glenda Farrell, and Van Heflin, in his Oscar-winning role as Johnny's literature-spouting best friend.
Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Van Heflin, each one absolutely pitch perfect.
As always, with films of that time, a driving morality, here embodied in Van Heflin's character.
And Johnny Eager/Robert Taylor knows it was wrong-but he thought he knew what he was doing..
Leading man Robert Taylor has the distinction of being MGM's longest contract star and it was an inspired decision to cast him in the title role as Johnny Eager, Gangster.
But no one never gets the sense that he is "trying" to be a heavy, he simply is In fact, "Johnny Eager" would be the start of a new phase in Taylor's career, just like Dick Powell & Robert Montgomery would cut loose from their "nice guy" leading man roles and reinvent themselves darker, harder-edged playing a "flawed hero" if not a totally "bad man" persona.
Edward Arnold plays her step-father who's also a judge and arch enemy of Robert Taylor's character.
But who did I save for last In my opinion it is Van Heflin who steals the show in his star turn as Johnny's best and only friend Jeff Hartnett, and a strange one at that -- a maudlin, conscious-ridden, cerebral alcoholic, the type who seems like he would be the last person fit for the criminal world.
gangster films so great in comparison to those from other studios like MGM's Johnny Eager.
Though he was really too "pretty" for the role, I thought Robert Taylor did a fine job of playing against type, and probably impressed me the most among the cast.