Watch Johnny Apollo For Free

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Good movie but grossly overrated

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

While not a classic for the ages, this pre-noir gangster adventure is an excellent example of the studio product churned out in a short time to top a two-film bill at your local theatre in the 1940's, and one of the things that makes it great fun for committed film fans is the use of familiar faces to back up Tyrone Power, playing a rich kid turned bad boy, and Dorothy Lamour, who surprises us by offering a good deal more in the acting department than in the Crosby-Hope Road films, where she functioned primarily as tropical window dressing.One fascinating performance is offered by the underused Charlie Grapewin, perhaps known to the average film goer as Uncle Henry in The Wizard of Oz, or as Grandpa in Grapes of Wrath (Grapewins's most sympathetic and memorable role is as burned-out Jeeter Lester in Jonh Ford's misunderstood Tobacco Road). In Johhny Apollo, Grapewin's take on the burned-out lawyer who takes milk with his Scotch and mumbles Shakespeare when to evade confrontation is both funny and endearing and he becomes a pivotal plot element as the plot thickens.And thicken it does, with lusty Edward Arnold tossed into jail for embezzlement, and his disowned son, Power, taking up with gangster Lloyd Nolan (always reliable, but here essayed with a nasty undercurrent); much of what Nolan's brutal ganglord does adds a noir element to the film,and a brief scene in a steam bath is right out of Sam Fuller.Add thug Marc Lawrence from Broadway, Jonathan Hale, reliably a doctor, Fuzzy Knight as a nervous prisoner, and from the Son of Frankenstein, Lionel Atwill, cold and calculating as the lawyer without ethics--until money is dangled his way. The pace never flags, and, except for a short and absurd tagged-on ending that Zanuck probably demanded on behalf of Power fans, the film builds to a dynamic shoot-out in a prison. Not a great classic, but a perfect example of 20th Century Fox machine making a film worth watching.

In the early 1940s Hollywood must have been running out of titles about shady gangster types. Among other titles there were "Johnny Allegro," "Johnny Eager," "Johnny O'Clock" and some others I forget. By the 1950s they had pretty much run out of "Johnny"s, no one willing to essay a project called "Johnny Aardvark," and they'd switched to other characters with everyday first names but unique last names. In "Legend of the Lost," John Wayne was Joe January."Johnny Apollo" is apt enough as far as that goes. In 1940, Tyrone Power was one of Twentieth-Century Fox's most handsome leading men. He melts the tarty heart of Dorothy Lamour minutes after their first meeting. She tells him to make a wish, then adds after a pause, "I'll bet that wish was about a woman." (I waited for him to say, "No, a man.") It's often described as a gangster movie but the core theme is the relationship between father (Arnold) and son (Power). Arnold is a wealthy man who is convicted of some kind of shenanigans in the stock market and spends time in jail, where he redeems himself by becoming a model prisoner and enthusiastic welder in the boiler shop.Disillusioned by the discovery of his father's illegal activities and denied any responsible job because of the stain on the family name, Power drops the "Robert Cain, Jr." moniker and becomes "Johnny Apollo." He rejects his sadder but wiser father, saying, "I know thee not, old man." Well, not that, exactly.He also barges ahead recklessly in the pelf department by becoming mixed up with the notorious racketeer Mickey Dwyer (Nolan). Power becomes one of the brains in Nolan's gang but not a soldier. He's never involved in violence. In fact, there's very little violence in the movie. An ice-pick murder takes place in a steam room. (Kids: An ice pick is this long thin round instrument with a sharp point, used for chipping ice from big blocks in order to make alcoholic drinks called "highballs.") Almost all the action takes place during a jail break at the end, not particularly exciting or well staged, though directed efficiently by Henry Hathaway.I found the movie a little flat, although as usual I hoped for a happy ending, which arrived apace. I don't know exactly what it's missing. If there had been more physical movement it might have added some momentum and the movie would have been a fast-paced and unpretentious gangster flick. If the writers had decided to go in a different direction, it might have been an interesting drama about family relations and the heritability of criminal tendencies. You know, nature versus nurture? Instead it seems like a Lamarckian mistake, like Soviet agriculture. It's a little dull, though it's always good to see Edward Arnold playing something other than a money-mad and power-driven blowhard. You ought to see him register "disappointment" when Power tells him off.

***SPOILERS*** Nothing more then an average crime drama with an incredibly schmaltzy ending "Johnny Apollo" is only worth watching because of its all star cast that includes Tyrone Power as both Johnny Apollo, a name he took off a theater marquee, and collage swimming and rowing champ Bobby Cain.It's when Johnny finds out that his dad Wall Street investment giant Robert Cain Sr, Edward Arnold, was indited for embezzling his clients that his entire life turned upside down. Not being able to face his collage classmates in that his father is an indited, and later convicted, crook Johnny drifts from one menial job to another trying to support himself. With the name Cain not helping Johnny, who's at the time known as Robert Cain Jr, to keep a job he changes it to Johnny Apollo and ends up working as a debt collector or muscle man for bad guy mobster Mickey, known as "The Mick", Dwyer played by perennial good guy-in almost all his other movies-Lloyd Nolan.It's when old man Cain, known as Pop's behind bars, finds out that his clean cut collage boy son Robert/Johnny is in fact "In" with the "Mob" that he completely disowns him. This was an odd why of Pop's Cain treating his son Johnny who only got "In" with the "Mob" in order to spring him from behind bars with an early parole. The person that Johnny gets to do the springing is mobbed up shyster lawyer and ex-judge Emmett T. Brenner, Charley Grapewin, who got it through the grapevine, the D.A's office, that he can get Pop's off if his son Johnny turn evidence on his boss "The Mick".The movie gets more and more ridicules as it goes along with "The Mick" getting the lowdown that Brenner is setting him up, but not knowing that his boy Johnny is involved in it, has Brenner iced, with an ice pick no less, while he's drying out, from too much scotch & milk, at a local Turkish Bath. The undoubtedly most bizarre part of the movie is saved for last with "The Mick" and his gang, including Johnny Apollo, indited on a number of fraud and embezzlement counts, just like old man Cain was, and sent up the river, Sing Sing Prison, for some 3 to 5 years."The Mick" who's supposed to be so smart doesn't plan to go on the lamb, together with his gang, but in fact turns himself over to the prison officials in order to break out the very next day! This brainless and cockamamie plan on "The Mick's" part, with Johnny willingly going along with it, even if it succeeds will not only add twenty or more years on his already short 3 to 5 year sentence but may very lead to the death, in an inevitable shoot-out, of a prison guard as well as "The Mick" and the members of his gang themselves!****SPOILERS**** If you have a diabetic condition avoid at all costs the unbearably sugary ending in order not to overdose on it. Johnny and his dad are reunited outside, not in, prison with Johnny's girl Lucky, Dorothy Lamour, "The Mick's" former gun moll who alerted Pop's about the prison breakout-and almost got himself killed in trying to stop it-at Johnny's side as well.

JOHNNY APOLLO was an early attempt by Fox at film noir, but it pales by comparison with other entries during the busy '40s era of crime melodramas. Part of the fault has to be the story itself, which is highly improbable and full of holes, and the casting of handsome and intelligent TYRONE POWER as the kind of guy who would go into a life of crime because his father landed in jail.EDWARD ARNOLD is his crooked father, LLOYD NOLAN is a crime boss and DOROTHY LAMOUR is the nightclub singer who switches her affection from Nolan to Power as fast as a showgirl changes her costumes. She gets to warble a couple of torch songs rather nicely and looks attractive for all her close-ups, but she's not exactly right for heavy dramatic roles and Paramount would be using her more effectively in those "Road" pictures with Hope and Crosby.The story is pure hokum and nothing can disguise the fact that Power's motivations are too thinly sketched to be believable. In this genre, MGM's Robert Taylor had better luck with his JOHNNY EAGER opposite femme fatale Lana Turner. Tyrone deserved a better story and screenplay than he gets here.