mamalv Review of Johnny Eager

Johnny Eager (1941)

Robert Taylor is wonderful as the sociopath gangster!

[10/10 · 8 February 2005]

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. There is a split second scene when he is going to drive her home, he closes the car door with both hands open on top of the door, as it closes we see his hands seeming to be throwing an imaginary thing away, his distaste for anyone or anything is apparent. No one means much of anything to him and this is the tip-off. A small but affective movement by Taylor. He seduces her, then makes her think she has killed a man, to make Arnold play along with the opening of his Dog Track. Van Heflin plays Johnny's alcoholic friend Jeff, who is constantly trying to make Johnny understand that there is something to be said for helping others and not being so selfish. He is magnificent in his role, and won the Academy Award for his thought to be homosexual overtoned, portrayal. When Johnny is visited by Robert Sterling, Lizbeth's former love, he is stunned to find that Sterling wants to give him money to go away with Lizbeth, because she is so in love with him, and sick over the hidden secret that she holds within. 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. A comment was made years ago that there was never a sexier woman than Lana Turner being held in the arms of Robert Taylor, in this scene. In the end Johnny realizes that Lizbeth loves him and that for once in his criminal, selfish life he is really in love. He shows her the so called dead man to cure her hysteria, and then goes out in a hail of bullets, held in the arms of Van Heflin his best, and only friend. This is a great film noir, and I truly believe that Taylor deserved a nomination for this portrayal........See it, you will be a Taylor fan forever.