Wonderful World of TCM: Johnny Got His Gun

Like many out there of a certain age, for years, my only exposure to this film was seeing the clips in Metallica's "One" video. Man, "Johnny Got His Gun" looked BAD-ASS in that video. Some poor dude is believed all but dead, and we hear his thoughts as he tries to communicate. It's all in a dreary black and white...and of course there is some guitar shredding going on along with James Hetfield's imposing vocals.

I think it's safe to say many a teenager thought back in the day, "I GOTTA see that movie!"

It's never been easy to find, and rumors swirled for years about its availability or likelihood of video release, but recently Criterion released the movie on DVD. I opted to catch it on Turner Classic Movies.

Boy, am I glad I didn't buy the DVD.

"Johnny Got His Gun" is much, much, much more enjoyable in clip form. No disrespect intended to legendary screenwriter and Blacklist icon Dalton Trumbo, but 110 minutes of his anti-war message becomes oppressive. I don't mean because it's anti-war, but because it's dull.

Unfortunately, the chilling atmosphere so pervasive in the rapidly-edited clips in the Metallica video is overwhelmed by the laboriousness of the rest of the movie when you watch the whole thing. There are some effective scenes, but they pale beside some of the clunkers. Let me paraphrase a sample exchange from one of the colorful, sunnily-lit passages showing lead character Joe before he goes to World War I and is physically decimated:

Young Boy Joe: What IS democracy, anyway?
Joe's Dad (Jason Robards): [THOUGHTFUL EXPRESSION] Well, I reckon like any form of government, it has something to do with young men killin' each other.

OK, the whole screenplay isn't this obvious, but it ain't subtle, either, and Trumbo the director (for the only time in his career) doesn't help any. I suppose the film is supposed to be agitprop, and I can't fault it too much for being that, except I also hoped it would be entertaining, if not as BAD-ASS as I might have hoped when I was, what, 14.

Having said all that, the stark black-and-white scenes with the injured Joe are indeed haunting and effective. The more dreamlike color flashbacks, though--not so much. I'm likely in the minority here, but "Johnny Got His Gun" is a big disappointment to me.