Hitchcoc This film is almost hard to talk about. The Dalton Trumbo novel involves a man who has been dismantled in war. He is just a trunk and a head, with his body hanging on. He still has his sexual organs. He is immobile, of course, and dependent for everything on his caretakers. One young woman, a nurse, take pity on him and gives him a sexual experience. LIke any of us, he has dreams, but he is unable to express them to anyone. He needs stimulation but is kept in a dark room and approached on rare occasions. If there is a true nightmare, this would be it. The most devastating thing is that he is really young and will probably live a long time. We are kept involved with his thoughts through a kind of personal narration. It may be the saddest film I've ever seen.

Scott LeBrun Joe Bonham (Timothy Bottoms) is a young American who went off to serve his country in WWI. On the last day of the war, his body is hit by a mortar shell. Poor Joe lives on, fully conscious, but with all four of his limbs amputated. He can't hear, he can't see, and he can't speak. However, he can still enjoy the sense of touch, and it is through this sense that he is finally able to break through to the people around him and communicate. But before he can get to that place, he's left with pretty much one thing: the expanses of his mind. He must spend his time recalling events from his life or otherwise having weird experiences that lead him to wonder what is "real" and what is fantasy.This is a pretty devastating anti-war film, devised by Dalton Trumbo from his 1939 novel (with uncredited script work by Luis Bunuel). The imagery is often extremely striking, and Trumbo, here directing for the first and only time, moves back and forth from colour to black & white with ease. He manages to hook you in, and build sufficient sympathy for this young man in this most difficult of situations. The pacing is quite deliberate, but Trumbo does find ways to keep your attention, especially as Joe has philosophical discussions with Jesus Christ (played warmly and wisely by Donald Sutherland). This gives "Johnny Got His Gun" a pretty surreal quality, which plays right into the dreams vs. reality theme.Bottoms does a likable job in the lead role, including those times when he only can act through head movements. The strong supporting cast includes Jason Robards as Joes' father, Charles McGraw, Peter Brocco, Eric Christmas, Eduard Franz, and Diane Varsi. The moments with Varsi as a kindly nurse are very moving."Johnny Got His Gun" is interesting and offbeat through and through, and is worth a look. Certainly it deserves to be known for more than just inspiring a Metallica song ("One") and video.Seven out of 10.

bkoganbing If you are at all squeamish than please avoid seeing Johnny Got His Gun. Not there is anything to see that is particularly, but Timothy Bottoms character in and of himself is one frightening example of what can come out of war and should it.The unkindest cut of all is minutes before the armistice was declared in operation and the guns ceased, Timothy Bottoms receives a blast from a mortar shell. Everything that makes one relate to what's around is now gone from him, four limbs, the windows to the senses all gone. But more of his brain is intact than the doctors realize and the film is narrated by Bottoms trying to communicate and also his memories of much better times before the Great War.Dalton Trumbo of the Hollywood Ten had been back working for over a decade now from the blacklist, but here he was not writing a script but also was the director filming his own novel. No doubt certain people were looking for a hidden subversive message. But the only message that Johnny Got His Gun delivers is war is very bad thing and does terrible things to some human bodies.Of course the title is a past tense of that opening verse of George M. Cohan's period flag waver Over There. So many young men from so many countries marched to war with those songs thinking war was some kind of honor thing. Honor if there ever was any in war was lost in that conflict where automatic weapons, poison gas, and the tank came to the fore. Kids with 19th century ideals like Bottoms as we see his reminiscences came up against something that flag waving nostrums didn't take into account.Bottoms is brilliant in the film that first gave him stardom and the rest of the cast performs well. Credit goes to Dalton Trumbo for a necessary, but harrowing piece of cinema.

random_avenger On the last day of Word War I, a soldier named Joe (Timothy Bottoms) is hit by an artillery shell that doesn't kill him but destroys all of his limbs, face, vision, hearing and ability to speak. He wakes up in a hospital where he can feel people's presence in the room by the vibrations they make on the floor but cannot communicate with them in any way, causing him extreme anxiety. All he has left is his imagination which he uses to revisit his sometimes surreal memories of his childhood and youth, remembering especially his father (Jason Robards), girlfriend (Kathy Fields) and deceased army buddies. He also has conversations with Jesus himself (Donald Sutherland), but not even He seems to know how to help.The contrast between reality and Joe's dreams is marked by switches from black & white to colour. In the hospital room we can hear Joe's desperate voice trying to make contact with the doctors and nurses who either don't pay attention or just can't understand him. Only one of the nurses (Diane Varsi) truly wants to see him as a human being anymore. It's very easy to feel his pain and hearing him begging the doctors via Morse code to either make him a public demonstration of the horrors of war or just kill him is one of the most effective anti-war scenes ever. The very last scene should haunt the audience for a long time after the film has ended.Even though a bedridden shadow of a man sounds like an unlikely subject for a film, Johnny Got His Gun succeeds excellently. The anti-war message is heavy, but what other kind of message can you have about a world war? The heart-breaking story, diverse visual style, steady direction and strong performances by Bottoms, Robards and Varsi make the film a powerful work of art. It is one of the best war films I've seen and I'll recommend it to anyone looking for an effective cinematic experience in any genre.