Johnny Eager is a gangster melodrama starring Robert Taylor as the eponymous Eager and Lana Turner as his femme fatale, Lisbeth Bard. Van Heflin plays Jeff Hartnett, Johnny’s alcoholic and intellectual side kick. And to round out the major players Edward Arnold is John Farrell, a prosecutor and Lisbeth’s step-father.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
When we first meet Johnny, he is cab driver arriving at his parole officer’s office to report on his reformed life. Johnny was sent to prison for a laundry list of crimes associated with his status as a crime boss. There he meets Lisbeth as a student studying criminology or sociology or some such nonsense. After Johnny leaves the office, he heads to a dog track where supposedly his boss works. But what we discover is that the cab is just a front and Johnny is still a crime boss. He’s working to get his dog track licensed and up and running so that he can start bringing in millions in legal betting.
By a strange set of circumstances Lisbeth ends up seeing through his disguise and starts a romance with her new criminal boyfriend. While the romance is blossoming, we also get to see Johnny’s business style. He portrays a likeable persona to his gang members and even the general public but when anyone crosses him, even old friends, he exhibits complete ruthlessness. And it’s during these moments that Jeff acts as a mocking but honest mirror for Johnny to know his own evil.
As the central device of the story, Johnny decides to use Lisbeth’s love for him to force John Farrell to allow his dog track to open. Johnny sets up a phony attack on himself by one of his thugs and during the fight Lisbeth tries to save Johnny from being knifed by picking up a gun and shooting the thug. Johnny convinces her that she has killed the man. Actually, the gun was loaded with blanks. Lisbeth is devastated to think she has killed a man and stops eating and sleeping. Johnny takes advantage of the situation to blackmail Farrell into licensing the dog track.
But when Johnny realizes that he has destroyed Lisbeth’s life he decides to do the right thing. He proves to Lisbeth that the man she thinks she’s killed is alive and further he pushes Lisbeth into the arms of her old boyfriend who has been trying to save her from Johnny.
And of course, all the machinations he performs to prove that the thug is still alive ends up sparking a gun battle between Johnny and his evil associates. The movie ends with Johnny killing his enemies but also being shot up by them and then finished off by a policeman coming on the scene.
This not a great movie. This is not even a great gangster movie. But it is entertaining. And that is almost entirely based on Robert Taylor’s performance. He provides an engaging personality as the likeable devil. We know that Johnny is evil but he is smart, charming and most of the evil he does is directed at other denizens of the underworld. In a way, the worst part of the movie is his final conversion to a caring human being. In its day the critics enjoyed Van Heflin’s character for his witty irony. I thought he was annoying. I’ll recommend this movie to fans of 1940’s gangster movies who don’t mind a heavy handed “crime doesn’t pay” message at the end.