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• WoW!

  • Sas
  • 7/19/09

  What a haunting, memorable film. Besides being an anti-war film, it is a study on alienation and problems with disabled people or those with dementia who can't get their voices heard. Beautifully done. Thank you for showing it.

• An Unsettling Feeling

  • Stacey
  • 7/17/09

  I was flabbergasted when I saw this film on tv last. I saw it at the theater when I was 11 years old. Needless to say I was much too young to see it much less understand it at the time. The advertisement in the paper made it sound like it was a love story, and my friend's mother allowed us to go. I'll have to say this movie haunted me all these years, but I couldn't recall the name of it until I looked it up on this website just now. Thanks TCM for letting me see this film from an adult's perspective. As an 11 year old, I was very much aware of the daily reports of Vietnam on the news, but I was too young to understand the war protest statement this movie was making-the helplessness of this young man whose youth was taken from him. It's a dark psychological film. I was sorry I saw it in 1971. It was quite disturbing to me then, but I'm glad now I saw it last night-more mature and a bit more educated now. I didn't know it was so notable as to have been a book and viewed at the Cannes Film Festival. All these years I thought I had seen something that had come from nowhere and then disappeared into oblivion. Thanks for giving this film a name for me. I don't know enough about filmaking to rate it, but if you like artsy films, this might be your cup of tea. I thought the acting was fair at best, as well as the lead performer's narration.

• Oh, Were it not True

  • Rick
  • 7/9/09

  Cheryl T summed it up pretty well. I first became aware of the book in high school before the movie was made. I graduated in 1967. I used it for a dramatic reading in my theater class. I don't remember how I came upon the book but after my reading many class mates wanted to borrow it. In the film young Mr. Bottoms was excellent in the role. A television director friend of mine (I was one too) said that he appeared stiff and too jaded in the scenes with his girl. I reminded him of how awkward all us young men were with our first love. He then agreed. The numbers at the end of the film are very telling and disturbing. It didn't stop with the war to end all wars. I think, when Trumble wrote the original work knew this would be the case. Though many might disagree with me I put Dalton Trumble head and shoulders with Orwell. Winston and Julia were better off than Joe but their lives were disturbingly similar. I mean in the entire picture sort of thing. Should we not be glad both of these great men existed? Ayn Rand in The Anthem also made a great contribution. Huxley too. I guess we do stand on the shoulders of giants. Johnny Got his Gun is a fine film that is worth seeing several times. It made no one rich but says so much. Were it not for this film I would be a different person. A lesser person. R

• A fasinating but deeply disturbing movie

  • Cheryl B
  • 7/5/09

  First of all I must say this movie is so darkly brilliant as a statement of human suffering goes beyond what ones imagination can even wrap itself around. Perhaps it is just my own sensativity, but this movie had so moved me, it left a scar on my heart unlike any movie has ever done before. Digesting this story was to me as if the very gates of hell were opened, and I bore witness to Joe Bonham's (Timothy Bottoms)journey straight into it. A horrible journey that can never be made satisfied or even remotely find even a glimpse of peaceful solice. With all that said, I will not miss the chance to see this brilliant adaptation of Dalton Trumbo's story again, and will tell all my friends to be sure to see it as well. I so highly recommend this movie as a real eye opener of human suffering due to war. Be sure to notice Diane Varsi,(a nurse) her part is amazing as giving the only happiness that Joe will briefly know.

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