Screenpix had this movie.

I was unfamiliar with this movie. I watched it for a rare instance of
Henry Silva starring in a Hollywood movie. In fact, he's first lead. Of
course he's playing another heavy but nobody plays heavies like Silva.

In Italian and Spanish movies he did over the years, he was a leading
man and he was supposed to have been quite popular in Europe, but he was
born in Brooklyn.

Hollywood used him for all sorts of ethnic roles over the years --
Russian, Greek, Central European -- but his father was Sicilian and his
mother was from northern Spain. I always think of him as Chunjin -- a
North Korean! -- in The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

In this movie, Silva's character was literally born in Sicily, one of
the few times he's not playing another ethnicity.

Score and orchestrations and conducted by Billy May, except for two songs
(including the title ballad) that Sammy Davis sings. Davis appears on
screen as an "educated" dice player.

Written by Joseph Landon, adapted from the novel The Kingdom of Johnny
Cool (1959) by John McParland.

Directed by William Asher. Second lead is Elizabeth Montgomery! The two
would marry after production wrapped but I have no idea if they were
already an item or if they became an item working together on this.

Asher was her third husband and she had her three children with him.

As a boy during WWII in Sicily, Giordano aids his mother from being
dragged off by a soldier. The soldier has grenades on his belt. Giordana
pulls the pin on one and drags his mother away. A man in the hills
shoots other approaching soldiers. Giordano escapes into the hills and
is taught to be a guerrilla fighter against the Fascists by Gulliano, a
character named for an actual man. Years later, Giordano (Silva) has become a
peasant leader and gives the government grief. He lives like a king but
still makes sure the peasants get some of the spoils.

Of course, the government is coming for him. He gets taking during a
wedding reception that he is hosting, witnessed by Mr. Anderson (Richard
Anderson), a newspaper correspondent. He is assasinated.

But wait! It's a trick! Another man about the same age has been
assasinated and they'll make it look like Giordano and have a body to
parade through town!

He's actually been taken by Johnny Colini (Marc Lawrence). He's a
Sicilian who went to Chicago to become a notorious mobster. Giordano
thinks he disgraced his Sicilian heritage. Colini tells him despite
sharing his takings with the peasants, he was still being a gangster.

Colini wants revenge against the entire American mob, most of whom
conspired to take him off the table by giving evidence against him to
Congressional investigative committees. Colini was forced into exile.

Organized crime in the United States isn't wiped out. With Colini gone,
it's just further consolidated.

Off screen, he's been groomed by Colini to be his assasin, to take his
revenge, and then because he cannot trust his own family, to take over
Colini's criminal enterprise. Colini is clearly the Red Reddington of
that era, able to control a vast unseen intelligence network.

After two years, Giordano has been sent to New York. He's calling
himself Johnny Colini or Johnny Cool, the nickname given to Colini by
newspapers. The plot is absurd: Over a couple of days, he's to wipe out
a massive list of Colini's enemies to make it appear that Colini has a
vast army of henchmen instead of just one.

At a restaurant, the recently divorced Dare Guinness (Montgomery),
dressed in an elegant black evening dress, is bored at dinner with her
ex husband, a man much older than her. He pays her generous alimony. He
gets absurdly drunk and the bartender cuts him off. He gets beligerant
and one of the men on the hit list gets rough with him. Johnny tells
them who they are and that he's there to get into the mob and roughs up
one of the men. Suddenly Dare is in lust and decides he's a Real Man.
They end up hooking up as she meets him at the race track, having
overheard where he's meeting up with other mobsters.

The mob figures out very quickly that Johnny is a real threat. He's
taken to a dice game, having gotten the call at Dare's apartment. He
can't quite figure out that he's been followed the entire time, sigh.
While he's away from Dare, two mob henchmen are told to send him a
message by abusing Dare. She's raped and beaten up off screen. At the
dice game, a situation is set up to kill or beat up Johnny but he
doesn't fall for it. After learning of Dare's injuries, Johnny returns
to kill the two henchmen.

This is part of the plot 'cuz Johnny is faking a huge Colini operation
which doesn't exist. Various mobsters discuss how Johnny couldn't have
learned whom the two henchmen were.

Still attracted to the danger, Dare wants to play along, and Johnny
tells her the truth of his background and what the plot is.

Johnny picks off mobsters one by one. Louis Murphy (Jim Backus) is doing
a dirty deal, assisted by Miss Connolly (Wanda Hendrix), his
confidential secretary. As he conducts the other "businessmen" out of
his office, he does his Mr. Magoo laugh.

Johnny's magical surveillance has let him know what kind of brief case
Murphy carries, has it copied and initialled then uses it as a way to
get close enough to Murphy to kill him. This happens at crowded New York
Penn. It's thought to be unpermitted filming as some of the railroad
passengers look at the camera.

Others on Colini's target list are John McGiver, and Telly Savalas. In a
scene at Las Vegas, a friendly Ben Morrow (Mort Sahl! What's he doing
there?) tells Johnny that he's been used by Colini who had earlier
promised HIM that he'd inherit his criminal empire if he'd take out a
number of opponents. Johnny believes him but kills him anyway.

Savalas is killed because Johnny uses a built-in window washer platform
on a brand-new office tower.

Elisha Cook plays an "undertaker" whose morturary is used by the mob to
torture and interrogate.

Johnny gains Dare's assistance with one killing. She's sent ahead to Los
Angeles to rent a car. The planning is ridiculous as Johnny wipes his
prints from the car but Dare has used her own identification and Joey
Bishop, used car salesman, is all over her anyway 'cuz she looks just
like... Elizabeth Montgomery. We see Bishop doing a live remote
commercial from his car lot during the program he sponsors. Was that
still a thing in 1963? She rents a flashy sports car on Johnny's
instructions.

A mobster lives in the Hollywood Hills and used legal tricks to keep his
ex wife from seeing their two sons, and even sent her out of the country
during her custody month on a nonexistent movie production so she couldn't
have the boys.

The two boys hear their mother but their father lies that she had been
there. He demands that they change and join him in the beautiful pool.
Whiie they are changing, slowly because they fear their father, Johnny
flings a time bomb to explode dynamite into the pool. It blows up
immediately, killing him but the boys are uninjured. Nevertheless, they
witnessed their father's murder.

Dare starts getting nervous. Told to just drive around for a few hours,
she stops at a beauty salon (there was nothing they could do to make her
more beautiful) but can't get in. She encounters a friend who invites
her to a party on a yacht but puts her off. Then she sees a cop
inspecting the vehicle probably due to a BOLO and she didn't feed the
parking meter anyway. She goes to the party.

She gets rip-roaring drunk and wakes up alone, still on the boat,
hungover, and naked. Her hair is no longer perfect but even a hungover
Elizabeth Montgomery is quite an erotic sight. One of the movie stills
at IMDb shows the scene.

She sees the headline about the man she helped kill and learns that the
two boys were there. She then confesses everything to her friend and
contacts Miss Connelley to tell her where Johnny will be.

She tells her friend that she'd still go to Johnny if he asked so she's
having him killed to prevent her from going to him.

The FBI (Douglas Henderson) figures out where she is and pick her up.
Her friends try to provide her with an alibi but Dare just indicates
that she's willing to confess.

Johnny hasn't killed everyone on Colini's list, nor did he take over
anything. Colini himself still lives.

Elizabeth Montgomery was said to have gotten quite banged up during
production and even performed the rape scene, which ended up on the
cutting room floor.

The script isn't very good but Henry Silva is terrific and Elizabeth
Montgomery gave her big scenes her all. I really enjoyed her performance
despite the lousy lines.

Plenty of actors we know better from television and the movie seemed
like a reuninion of a portion of the cast from The Manchurian Candidate.

Filmed in genuine 4:3 as Edison intended, so maybe they were just
thinking about running it on television.

Screenpix showed it with a shrunken image, sigh.

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> Screenpix had this movie.
>
> I was unfamiliar with this movie. I watched it for a rare instance of
> Henry Silva starring in a Hollywood movie. In fact, he's first lead. Of
> course he's playing another heavy but nobody plays heavies like Silva.
>
> In Italian and Spanish movies he did over the years, he was a leading
> man and he was supposed to have been quite popular in Europe, but he was
> born in Brooklyn.
>
> Hollywood used him for all sorts of ethnic roles over the years --
> Russian, Greek, Central European -- but his father was Sicilian and his
> mother was from northern Spain. I always think of him as Chunjin -- a
> North Korean! -- in The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
>
> In this movie, Silva's character was literally born in Sicily, one of
> the few times he's not playing another ethnicity.
>
> Score and orchestrations and conducted by Billy May, except for two songs
> (including the title ballad) that Sammy Davis sings. Davis appears on
> screen as an "educated" dice player.
>
> Written by Joseph Landon, adapted from the novel The Kingdom of Johnny
> Cool (1959) by John McParland.
>
> Directed by William Asher. Second lead is Elizabeth Montgomery! The two
> would marry after production wrapped but I have no idea if they were
> already an item or if they became an item working together on this.
>
> Asher was her third husband and she had her three children with him.
>

OK, you made me look it up, but it was easy since Ian had already done all
the research on Wikipedia. I’ll start this by saying Montgomery was born in
1933:

In 1954, Montgomery married New York City socialite Frederick Gallatin
Cammann; the couple divorced less than a year later. She was married to
Academy Award winning actor Gig Young from 1956 to 1963 and then she was
married to director-producer William Asher from 1963 until their divorce in
1973. They had three children: William, Robert and Rebecca. The latter two
pregnancies were incorporated into Bewitched as Samantha's pregnancies.
During the eighth year of the show, Montgomery fell in love with director
Richard Michaels. Their resulting affair led to the end of both of their
marriages, as well as the end of the series. They moved in together when
shooting ended in 1972; the relationship lasted two and a half years. On
January 28, 1993, she married actor Robert Foxworth, after living with him
for nearly twenty years. They remained married until her death in 1995.

According to author Herbie J Pilato, Montgomery had an affair with
Alexander Godunov while she was living with Foxworth but was not yet
married to him. Godunov was found dead on May 18, 1995, the day Montgomery
died, but it is believed that he died several days before Montgomery died.

*****

OK, well, first, “ewwww”

Sounds like Montgomery had trouble keeping it in her pants. What’s the
feminine version of that? Keeping it out of her pants?

And wasn’t Gig Young gay?

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

In article
<1877125000.681360500.077887.anim8rfsk-cox.net@news.easynews.com>,
anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

> In 1954, Montgomery married New York City socialite Frederick Gallatin
> Cammann; the couple divorced less than a year later. She was married to
> Academy Award winning actor Gig Young from 1956 to 1963 and then she was
> married to director-producer William Asher from 1963 until their divorce in
> 1973. They had three children: William, Robert and Rebecca. The latter two
> pregnancies were incorporated into Bewitched as Samantha's pregnancies.
> During the eighth year of the show, Montgomery fell in love with director
> Richard Michaels. Their resulting affair led to the end of both of their
> marriages, as well as the end of the series. They moved in together when
> shooting ended in 1972; the relationship lasted two and a half years. On
> January 28, 1993, she married actor Robert Foxworth, after living with him
> for nearly twenty years. They remained married until her death in 1995.
>
> According to author Herbie J Pilato, Montgomery had an affair with
> Alexander Godunov while she was living with Foxworth but was not yet
> married to him. Godunov was found dead on May 18, 1995, the day Montgomery
> died, but it is believed that he died several days before Montgomery died.
>
> *****
>
> OK, well, first, ³ewwww²
>
> Sounds like Montgomery had trouble keeping it in her pants. What¹s the
> feminine version of that? Keeping it out of her pants?
>
> And wasn¹t Gig Young gay?

Not AFAIK, but Gig was the world champion of alcoholics. He wound up
killing himself and his wife when (it says here) she made fun of him
being impotent.

I would sometimes see Robert Foxworth walking around midtown Manhattan
and, sometimes, chatting with friends on Central Park South. I never
saw Liz.

A Friend wrote:
>anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

>>In 1954, Montgomery married New York City socialite Frederick Gallatin
>>Cammann; the couple divorced less than a year later. She was married to
>>Academy Award winning actor Gig Young from 1956 to 1963 and then she was
>>married to director-producer William Asher from 1963 until their divorce in
>>1973. They had three children: William, Robert and Rebecca. The latter two
>>pregnancies were incorporated into Bewitched as Samantha's pregnancies.
>>During the eighth year of the show, Montgomery fell in love with director
>>Richard Michaels. Their resulting affair led to the end of both of their
>>marriages, as well as the end of the series. They moved in together when
>>shooting ended in 1972; the relationship lasted two and a half years. On
>>January 28, 1993, she married actor Robert Foxworth, after living with him
>>for nearly twenty years. They remained married until her death in 1995.

>>According to author Herbie J Pilato, Montgomery had an affair with
>>Alexander Godunov while she was living with Foxworth but was not yet
>>married to him. Godunov was found dead on May 18, 1995, the day Montgomery
>>died, but it is believed that he died several days before Montgomery died.

>>*****

>>OK, well, first, ewwww

>>Sounds like Montgomery had trouble keeping it in her pants. What�s the
>>feminine version of that? Keeping it out of her pants?

>>And wasn�t Gig Young gay?

>Not AFAIK, but Gig was the world champion of alcoholics. He wound up
>killing himself and his wife when (it says here) she made fun of him
>being impotent.

Wait. What?

I never heard the story of Gig Young murdering his wife then committing
suicide, but here's a short article.

https://news.amomama.com/281622-elizabeth-montgomerys-ex-gig-young-alleg.html

The article says that police found a diary. Nothing says that there was
evidence of anything said during a fight that led to the murder.

I'm going to call that off-the-wall ridiculous. If there's is no
evidence of what the two of them said to each other, then it's a
malicious rumor that shouldn't be repeated.

I read a couple of other articles and haven't found any that say there
was a witness to such a fight between the couple.

>I would sometimes see Robert Foxworth walking around midtown Manhattan
>and, sometimes, chatting with friends on Central Park South. I never
>saw Liz.

A Friend <nope@noway.com> wrote:
> In article
> <1877125000.681360500.077887.anim8rfsk-cox.net@news.easynews.com>,
> anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> In 1954, Montgomery married New York City socialite Frederick Gallatin
>> Cammann; the couple divorced less than a year later. She was married to
>> Academy Award winning actor Gig Young from 1956 to 1963 and then she was
>> married to director-producer William Asher from 1963 until their divorce in
>> 1973. They had three children: William, Robert and Rebecca. The latter two
>> pregnancies were incorporated into Bewitched as Samantha's pregnancies.
>> During the eighth year of the show, Montgomery fell in love with director
>> Richard Michaels. Their resulting affair led to the end of both of their
>> marriages, as well as the end of the series. They moved in together when
>> shooting ended in 1972; the relationship lasted two and a half years. On
>> January 28, 1993, she married actor Robert Foxworth, after living with him
>> for nearly twenty years. They remained married until her death in 1995.
>>
>> According to author Herbie J Pilato, Montgomery had an affair with
>> Alexander Godunov while she was living with Foxworth but was not yet
>> married to him. Godunov was found dead on May 18, 1995, the day Montgomery
>> died, but it is believed that he died several days before Montgomery died.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> OK, well, first, ³ewwww²
>>
>> Sounds like Montgomery had trouble keeping it in her pants. What¹s the
>> feminine version of that? Keeping it out of her pants?
>>
>> And wasn¹t Gig Young gay?
>
>
> Not AFAIK, but Gig was the world champion of alcoholics. He wound up
> killing himself and his wife when (it says here) she made fun of him
> being impotent.
>
> I would sometimes see Robert Foxworth walking around midtown Manhattan
> and, sometimes, chatting with friends on Central Park South. I never
> saw Liz.
>

I don’t think Liz was with him at comic con although he did have about a
half dozen people entourage. And was dressed in a white linen pant suit
with a Panama hat. He looked like Jack Lord on the weekend.

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> A Friend wrote:
>> anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:
>
>>> In 1954, Montgomery married New York City socialite Frederick Gallatin
>>> Cammann; the couple divorced less than a year later. She was married to
>>> Academy Award winning actor Gig Young from 1956 to 1963 and then she was
>>> married to director-producer William Asher from 1963 until their divorce in
>>> 1973. They had three children: William, Robert and Rebecca. The latter two
>>> pregnancies were incorporated into Bewitched as Samantha's pregnancies.
>>> During the eighth year of the show, Montgomery fell in love with director
>>> Richard Michaels. Their resulting affair led to the end of both of their
>>> marriages, as well as the end of the series. They moved in together when
>>> shooting ended in 1972; the relationship lasted two and a half years. On
>>> January 28, 1993, she married actor Robert Foxworth, after living with him
>>> for nearly twenty years. They remained married until her death in 1995.
>
>>> According to author Herbie J Pilato, Montgomery had an affair with
>>> Alexander Godunov while she was living with Foxworth but was not yet
>>> married to him. Godunov was found dead on May 18, 1995, the day Montgomery
>>> died, but it is believed that he died several days before Montgomery died.
>
>>> *****
>
>>> OK, well, first, ewwww
>
>>> Sounds like Montgomery had trouble keeping it in her pants. What¹s the
>>> feminine version of that? Keeping it out of her pants?
>
>>> And wasn¹t Gig Young gay?
>
>> Not AFAIK, but Gig was the world champion of alcoholics. He wound up
>> killing himself and his wife when (it says here) she made fun of him
>> being impotent.
>
> Wait. What?
>
> I never heard the story of Gig Young murdering his wife then committing
> suicide, but here's a short article.
>
> https://news.amomama.com/281622-elizabeth-montgomerys-ex-gig-young-alleg.html
>
> The article says that police found a diary. Nothing says that there was
> evidence of anything said during a fight that led to the murder.
>
> I'm going to call that off-the-wall ridiculous. If there's is no
> evidence of what the two of them said to each other, then it's a
> malicious rumor that shouldn't be repeated.
>
> I read a couple of other articles and haven't found any that say there
> was a witness to such a fight between the couple.
>
>> I would sometimes see Robert Foxworth walking around midtown Manhattan
>> and, sometimes, chatting with friends on Central Park South. I never
>> saw Liz.
>

Their bodies weren’t found for several hours which makes it seem unlikely
there was a witness there.

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

In article
<689716225.681414218.222321.anim8rfsk-cox.net@news.easynews.com>,
anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

> A Friend <nope@noway.com> wrote:
> > In article
> > <1877125000.681360500.077887.anim8rfsk-cox.net@news.easynews.com>,
> > anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:
> >
> >> In 1954, Montgomery married New York City socialite Frederick Gallatin
> >> Cammann; the couple divorced less than a year later. She was married to
> >> Academy Award winning actor Gig Young from 1956 to 1963 and then she was
> >> married to director-producer William Asher from 1963 until their divorce in
> >> 1973. They had three children: William, Robert and Rebecca. The latter two
> >> pregnancies were incorporated into Bewitched as Samantha's pregnancies.
> >> During the eighth year of the show, Montgomery fell in love with director
> >> Richard Michaels. Their resulting affair led to the end of both of their
> >> marriages, as well as the end of the series. They moved in together when
> >> shooting ended in 1972; the relationship lasted two and a half years. On
> >> January 28, 1993, she married actor Robert Foxworth, after living with him
> >> for nearly twenty years. They remained married until her death in 1995.
> >>
> >> According to author Herbie J Pilato, Montgomery had an affair with
> >> Alexander Godunov while she was living with Foxworth but was not yet
> >> married to him. Godunov was found dead on May 18, 1995, the day Montgomery
> >> died, but it is believed that he died several days before Montgomery died.
> >>
> >> *****
> >>
> >> OK, well, first, 3ewwww2
> >>
> >> Sounds like Montgomery had trouble keeping it in her pants. What1s the
> >> feminine version of that? Keeping it out of her pants?
> >>
> >> And wasn1t Gig Young gay?
> >
> >
> > Not AFAIK, but Gig was the world champion of alcoholics. He wound up
> > killing himself and his wife when (it says here) she made fun of him
> > being impotent.
> >
> > I would sometimes see Robert Foxworth walking around midtown Manhattan
> > and, sometimes, chatting with friends on Central Park South. I never
> > saw Liz.
> >
>
> I don¹t think Liz was with him at comic con although he did have about a
> half dozen people entourage. And was dressed in a white linen pant suit
> with a Panama hat. He looked like Jack Lord on the weekend.

LOL

A Friend <nope@noway.com> wrote:
> In article
> <689716225.681414218.222321.anim8rfsk-cox.net@news.easynews.com>,
> anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> A Friend <nope@noway.com> wrote:
>>> In article
>>> <1877125000.681360500.077887.anim8rfsk-cox.net@news.easynews.com>,
>>> anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In 1954, Montgomery married New York City socialite Frederick Gallatin
>>>> Cammann; the couple divorced less than a year later. She was married to
>>>> Academy Award winning actor Gig Young from 1956 to 1963 and then she was
>>>> married to director-producer William Asher from 1963 until their divorce in
>>>> 1973. They had three children: William, Robert and Rebecca. The latter two
>>>> pregnancies were incorporated into Bewitched as Samantha's pregnancies.
>>>> During the eighth year of the show, Montgomery fell in love with director
>>>> Richard Michaels. Their resulting affair led to the end of both of their
>>>> marriages, as well as the end of the series. They moved in together when
>>>> shooting ended in 1972; the relationship lasted two and a half years. On
>>>> January 28, 1993, she married actor Robert Foxworth, after living with him
>>>> for nearly twenty years. They remained married until her death in 1995.
>>>>
>>>> According to author Herbie J Pilato, Montgomery had an affair with
>>>> Alexander Godunov while she was living with Foxworth but was not yet
>>>> married to him. Godunov was found dead on May 18, 1995, the day Montgomery
>>>> died, but it is believed that he died several days before Montgomery died.
>>>>
>>>> *****
>>>>
>>>> OK, well, first, 3ewwww2
>>>>
>>>> Sounds like Montgomery had trouble keeping it in her pants. What1s the
>>>> feminine version of that? Keeping it out of her pants?
>>>>
>>>> And wasn1t Gig Young gay?
>>>
>>>
>>> Not AFAIK, but Gig was the world champion of alcoholics. He wound up
>>> killing himself and his wife when (it says here) she made fun of him
>>> being impotent.
>>>
>>> I would sometimes see Robert Foxworth walking around midtown Manhattan
>>> and, sometimes, chatting with friends on Central Park South. I never
>>> saw Liz.
>>>
>>
>> I don¹t think Liz was with him at comic con although he did have about a
>> half dozen people entourage. And was dressed in a white linen pant suit
>> with a Panama hat. He looked like Jack Lord on the weekend.
>
>
> LOL
>

And then a case of total weirdness I just watched a Hawaii Five-0 on H and
I where the crook escaped by getting on a cruise ship and they didn’t have
a description of him except that he was in a white linen pants suit with
the Panama hat. So far all they found is the hat.

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.