The Candidate / Johnny Gunman (1964/1957)

Studio: Vinegar Syndrome

Theatrical Release: October 7, 1964/December 1957 (USA)

DVD Release: November 12, 2013

Rating: Unrated

Directed by Robert Angus and Art Ford

Review by Tim Bodzioney

Exploitation specialty company Vinegar Syndrome recently released a double bill of lost movies: The Candidate from 1964 and Johnny Gunman from 1957.  The Candidate is the main feature and has a much more recognizable cast, but I found Johnny Gunman to be the more interesting and ambitious.

The Candidate tells the story of Congressional staffer/campaign manager Buddy Barker.  The framework is a Senate ethics investigation, which allows the story to be told by various points of view.  Buddy is the son of a Brooklyn ward boss lacking the power to land his son in West Point.  Instead he becomes a Senate page and works his way up the power ladder with his ruthless, amoral behavior, using both women and men to achieve his goals.

This sounds like pretty juicy stuff and does contain many sordid elements including prostitution, abortion, rape (by a doctor performing an abortion!), influence peddling, pornography, and impotence.  How could a movie containing all of this be so boring?  My hopes were raised early by the clever and inventive credits only to be dashed soon after.

Mamie Van Doren and June Wilkinson are the two female leads.  Van Doren plays Samantha Ashley who, like Buddy, works her way up from the bottom but retains her moral sense.  September 1958 Playboy Playmate June Wilkinson plays Ann Wallace, an ex-prostitute who becomes the lover of straight-laced, Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate Frank Carlton.

Eric Mason plays Buddy Barker.  His accent seems inauthentic, but perhaps that was the intent with this malignant Gatsby?  Everything about Buddy is so insincere – why not even his accent?  I’m sure the casting of Ted Knight as Frank Carlton makes the movie of interest to fans of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Showbiz journeyman Robert Angus directed The Candidate, his only other directorial credit being 1967’s Brown Eye, Evil Eye.  Angus has several television producing and editing credits to his name.  According to the opening credits, the movie was adapted from a novel by Frank Moceri, about whom no information appears to be available.

Maurice Duke produced The Candidate.  This is the man who gave us the unforgettable Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, The Atomic Kid starring Mickey Rooney, as well as Sabu And The Magic Ring.  If only The Candidate had those three stars!

The real problem with the movie is focus – it’s odd that the center of a movie called The Candidate is not a politician.  Odder still is that for a movie that is supposed to be about a rogue political operator who is under investigation the focus is on two female supporting characters.  And then there’s the tone – the cover states that it’s a satire.  The only genuinely comic performance comes from Robin Raymond as Attorney Rogers.  She seems to be having fun and is wonderful.  And there is a gag (I think it’s intentional) with comic character actor Phil Arnold as the star of a stag reel who inspires a heart attack.  It’s not everyday you see someone you know from Three Stooges shorts appearing as the lead in a porn film or Ted Knight doing a sex scene with a former Playboy Playmate.

Another problem is that the movie never goes as far as it should. I’m not sure where this movie played or who it was marketed to.   It seems that on one level it was taking advantage of a relaxing production code with its adult themes.  But it’s awfully chaste if it was being sold to the raincoat crowd – remarkably for a movie starring two women who both appeared in Playboy, there is no nudity.

But the oddest thing maybe is that it was shot by the great cinematographer Stanley Cortez, whose credits include The Magnificent Ambersons, Flesh And Fantasy, Since You Went Away, and The Night Of The Hunter.   The 60’s must have been tough for Cortez; his credits from this era include The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini, The Navy Vs. The Night Monsters and most sadly, They Saved Hitler’s Brain.   The Candidate looks great; in fact it looks similar to Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss, the two movies Cortez shot for Samuel Fuller around the same time as The Candidate (even at the same studio).  Cortez’s skillful lighting and compositions almost disguise this movie’s low pedigree.

The Cosnat Corporation, a record company run by one-time bandleader Jerry Blaine, released The Candidate.  This was Cosnat’s only film release.  Interestingly Blaine was implicated earlier in the Alan Freed radio payola scandal.  That sounds like it would have made a much more interesting movie than The Candidate.

Johnny Gunman is the second feature on the DVD.  It tells the story of Coffee, a small town girl who moved to New York to become a writer.  With no success she decides to go back home on the night that mobster Lou Caddie is convicted.  Caddie’s conviction sets up a potential turf war between his two top thugs, Allie and Johnny Gunman.  Killing time before her bus leaves in the morning, Coffee ends up in a café where she encounters three different men: one a successful playwright, the other an elderly toy manufacturer, and Johnny Gunman.  She agrees to spend a couple of hours with each man.

Johnny Gunman is reminiscent of several 1950’s low-budget, independent movies such as John Parker’s Dementia and Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss.  But the movie it most resembles is Joseph Losey’s The Big Night.  All of these movies share a dreamlike (or nightmarish) quality.  And all of these movies rely heavily on location shooting, which was still a rarity at the time – almost like looking at newsreel footage of both New York and Los Angeles.  However, 1957’s Johnny Gunman most resembles 1951’s The Big Night in that both young protagonists undergo maturation through their single-night odysseys.

Coffee finds herself in Leona’s café while roaming around a Greenwich Village festival (I'm guessing it’s really Little Italy’s Feast of San Gennaro).  Leona’s is run by early performance artist Leona Anderson, best known for 1950’s novelty songs, Rats in My Room and Fish.  Anderson was a favorite of early television pioneers Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen and would occasionally pop up on their shows.  Anderson is also of interest to films buff, as she was the sister of early cowboy star, Bronco Billy Anderson, founder of Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, and appeared in a number of his productions.

Coffee agrees to go out with Johnny for a night on the town.  Johnny is played by Martin E. Brooks who later would have a substantial television career with recurring roles in shows such as General Hospital and The Six Million Dollar Man.  Johnny takes Coffee along when he goes to meet with Allie (prolific character actor, Johnny Seven – gotta love that name!). His power hungry wife Mimi, played by another ex-Playmate, the wonderful Carrie Raddisson in the movie’s liveliest performance, goads on Allie.  It soon becomes apparent that the two men, rivals since childhood, must have a showdown.

Also of note is Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood regular Woody Parfrey as the playwright who attempts to rape Coffee.  The inexpressive Ann Donaldson plays Coffee.  Her performance might be a problem if her character weren’t so callow, but because of this it doesn’t really damage the movie.

What does damage the movie is the script by first-time director, Art Ford.  Ford was a popular New York City Jazz disc jockey/television personality.  Often characters tell action as opposed to it being shown on screen.  When Coffee decides to devote her life to chronicling the effects of gangster culture on adolescents, it doesn’t come from action within the story, but from newspaper headlines!  This is poor storytelling.  Ford’s direction is functional.  What really shines however is Walter Holcombe’s cinematography.  We are treated to a rarely seen 1950’s nocturnal Manhattan, filled with neon, subway rides, and theater marquees.

Vinegar Syndrome states that both movies have been restored in 2k from 35mm elements.  Both look wonderful with The Candidate in its proper 185:1 aspect ratio.  Johnny Gunman is presented in an open matte 133:1 ratio.  Several online sources claim that the movie was shot some years earlier and that this is the correct ratio.  But shots of several movie theater marquees indicate that the movie was shot in the summer of 1956 (the Lana Turner CinemaScope epic The Prodigal is prominently shown on Times Square), and that a wider ratio would be more appropriate.

The Candidate is deservedly obscure.  But if you are looking for a mid 1950’s urban time capsule, you could do a lot worse than Johnny Gunman.

The Candidate

[Rating:2 stars]

Johnny Gunman

[Rating: 3.5 stars]