Johnny Nobody

William Bendix gives another brilliant performance as a blasphemer. Aldo Ray performs in a strange and unique role. The conclusion of the film may not come close to Dietrich-Laughton in "Witness for the Prosecution", but one could see a comparison with the original "Bad Seed"

The two films Nigel Patrick directed were a rum pair. For the second and final instalment he assembled a highly motley cast (fortunately including himself) at Ardmore Studios in Dublin to make this fanciful chase thriller combined with a courtroom drama in which theology is heatedly debated.

As the film progresses Patrick undergoes an extraordinary transformation from Father Brown to Richard Hannay shot on Irish locations attractively rendered in widescreen by future Bond cameraman Ted Moore. Ron Goodwin rather overeggs the score but the conclusion - which divides many critics - this viewer found satisfactory enough.

My biggest regret remains that William Bendix never got to share the screen with Bernie Winters.

JOHNNY NOBODY is a strange little movie that doesn't really gel all that well, although it proves to be quite entertaining at times. It begins with a bizarre set-piece in which an atheist rants and raves in an Irish pub, understandably upsetting the punters, before a random stranger executes him. The focus then shifts to priest Nigel Patrick (who also directs) as he investigates the killer's motives for his crime. The latter half adopts a kind of preposterous 'wronged man' template with some good suspense scenes that are the best part of the film, but then we get a ridiculous climax that must have been laughed off the screen by audiences of the era.

There's a terrific idea at the heart of this Irish-set thriller, particularly if you're a Catholic. A drunken Irish-American atheist stands outside a Roman Catholic Church in a small Irish village and defies God to strike him dead when out of nowhere a stranger appears and does just that in front of the local priest and the whole village. Since the killer doesn't appear to have a past or an identity, he becomes known as "Johnny Nobody", hence the film's title.

So far so good; unfortunately we get the denouement about two-thirds of the way through and it's not a very good one. From here on things get progressively more far-fetched, like a cross between a poor man's "The 39 Steps" and "Witness for the Prosecution".

Actor Nigel Patrick both directs and plays the sceptical priest, Aldo Ray is the killer and a really rather good William Bendix, the victim. Others in the cast include a miscast Yvonne Mitchell, Cyril Cusack and Niall Macginnis as well as the usual stock company of Irish players. On its level it's entertaining matinee fare but it could have been so much better.

The addition of Talking Pictures in recent years for UK and Ireland has given a platform to show many forgotten films including B features, a concept probably alien to anyone under 70, due to the format coming to an end at the 1950s.

This 1961 film is a throw back to this era. While Talking Pictures continues to unearth some gems, this sadly isn't one of them. It uses a typical UK and Irish production model of the time, to bring in an American face and plant them into the plot however odd that may seem, given the setting. Probably easier to get the film funded if through the addition of a US performer, it gives the producers the opportunity to have the finished product break into the more lucrative US market.

Here we get not one but two. While William Bendix and Aldo Ray weren't actual A listers they were reasonably well known due to audiences. Neither get much screen time and one comes away thinking they filmed their scenes over a few days while they were holidaying in Ireland.

Filmed at Ardmore in Wicklow with some filming in Dublin, and in what appears to be a local village, it at times looks like an attempt to play on the charm of John Ford's The Quiet Man, although at a minute level of that film's funding and production values. Priests, pub, comedy, Irish setting, hapless police, and the inevitable chase.

There are some of the usual Irish faces of the time, each offering up a cameo. Cyril Cusack, Niall MacGinnis, Noel Purcell, Eddie Byrne. Joe Lynch does a turn as a friendly traveler and even gets to warble through a ballad as he comes to the aid of our hapless hero, a local priest played by Nigel Patrick, who also directed.

A totally unbelievable plot and added to Patrick, there are other English actors, Yvonne Mitchell and Bernie Winters, who seem very out of place. You'd think their roles would have been better performed by other local actors, but like Bendix and Ray, perhaps a sop to British audiences. Winters, along with his brother, were a comedy act duo of the time. This is one of his handful of film appearances, and again, it's just a cameo.

As other have highlighted, the ending should be up for an award. One gets the feeling they just ran out of money and they had to wrap it up.