Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

evanston_dad I had kind of a "meh" reaction to this noirish drama from 1942. Robert Taylor and Lana Turner are roguish and fetching, respectively, but Mervyn LeRoy, despite his prolific list of credits, was a pretty hopelessly boring director, and nothing about this film stands out. It's fine, but there's not much about it to motivate a modern-day audience to revisit it.It would probably be a mere blip in cinema history if not for the fact that it won Van Heflin a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Taylor's alcoholic and lachrymose best friend. He is pretty good, but not good enough to make the film around him worth watching.There are about a million other movies I would recommend before settling down to this one.Grade: C

mark.waltz A fabulous cast, a brilliant screenplay, and a truly dynamic pairing really create TNT here, Taylor and Turner as beautiful a couple as could possibly be on screen during the golden age of cinema. Even in spite of their age difference, Robert and Lana spark,e and this is a single pairing that even outdid Lana's four films with that dear Mr. Gable. Robert Taylor is a parolee, and she is the daughter of one of the prosecutors (Edward Arnold) who sent him up the river. Taylor is obviously not done with the shady life, and Arnold is out to expose the corruption involving Taylor and a dog track he is preparing to open while living the seemingly honest life of a cab driver.Van Heflin deservedly won the Oscar as the drunken philosopher who is the heart and soul of the film, dying inside due to his consumption, but still filled with the truth of life in spite of that addiction. You get the impression that this idealistic drunkard imbibes because he is disgusted with a world that is beyond his comprehension. In fact, the drunker he is, the more in tuned with his wisdom he is, showing how deceptive alcohol can be when it makes you open your eyes metaphysically while closing them physically.There's a great supporting cast with characters who sparkle with cynicism and hardness. Taylor's young niece is all young lady on the surface, suddenly exploding in rough talk out of nowhere. The character of Turner's fellow sociology student partner is also amusing as she constantly keeps inserting her foot into her mouth. Former Warner Brothers "B" star Glenda Farrell has a cameo as an old acquaintance of Taylor's whose desire for help from him has an ironic connection with the finale. Patricia Dane, as Taylor's obvious mistress hysterically mispronounces "Herod Agrippa" and does not remotely display a "heart of gold" underneath film characters like this usually later reveal.Edward Arnold also is winning as Turner's father who finds himself the victim of blackmail thanks to a vicious game Taylor uses her in, showing a disgust with both Taylor and himself as he goes against his own moral code to protect his daughter. Ultimately, the film surrounds the heat between Taylor and Turner which explodes in a scene where Turner falsely believes herself to have impulsively committed murder. This is a speedy film that is a preliminary to the growing genre of film noir, not as dark as those to follow within two years,but utilizing the same types of camera shots and tough dialog that was on the verge of taking over the screen. The fact that pretty people are not leaving a really pretty situation makes this noir enough for me, and one that remains a classic to this day.

Robert J. Maxwell Robert Taylor is Johnny Eager, one of several Johnnies with strange last names to come out of Hollywood during the 1940s -- Johnny Apollo, Johnny O'Clock, Johnny Belinda, Johnny Logical Positivist, Johnny Be Good, and what not. Of course Taylor has small room for complaint when it comes to names. He was born Spangler Arlington Borough in Nebraska. In this film he's on parole, see, and pretends to be nothing more than your honest cab driver but he really runs some kind of underhanded business involving dog racing. He uses everybody around him, a real nasty guy. The only trustworthy friend he has is the alcoholic Van Heflin. Then Taylor meets and falls for a real classy dame, Lana Turner, born Julia Mildred Turner in Wallace, Idaho, navel of the universe.She's the daughter of the morally upright and thoroughly obnoxious DA, Edward Arnold, who has sent Taylor up the river once and wants nothing more than to find an excuse to do it again. Arnold's character's name is O'Hara but, though he looks a little Irish, he looks a lot more like a German burgher, which is not surprising. He was born Gunther Schneider in New York. Okay. End of names. I don't know what got into me but I feel a lot better now.Taylor really has the hots for Lana Turner and it doesn't come as a shock. She has the beauty and sensuality of a perfectly mature pinot blanc grape, all ready to pop when squeezed. But she's a little stand-offish with Taylor, though obviously attracted to him, so Taylor arranges a phony scene in which she seems to murder someone and he saves her from her mock crime. This puts her in a dependent position and it also gives him a bit of leverage with her father so that illegal activities can be carried on apace. Two birds with one gun. It takes Van Heflin the entire movie to convince Taylor that he's a moral pustule, and in the end Taylor gives it all up for the sake of Lana Turner and his own self esteem.Taylor and Turner were both MGM products and the studio certainly proved its loyalty. Neither could act very well and both had short peaks in their popularity arc, but both kept soldiering on in MGM's movies, aging but still useful in that they didn't get in the way of the scenery. Taylor was a reasonably nice guy, personally if not politically, but as he grew older his features became coarser and he was handed roles that were increasingly villainous and sometimes downright sadistic, as in "Westward the Women," in which he seems to relish punishing his female charges with a bull whip. Turner's career faded less dramatically.The two characters in this film are obviously from different socioeconomic strata. Van Heflin quotes Richard III to him. And aptly too: "I can smile, and while I smile, can cut your heart out with an ax." Turner quotes Cyrano de Bergerac of whom Taylor says, "That don't go with me. I don't care how ugly a guy is if he don't go all the way." Everybody quotes Shakespeare and Rostand and all those other high-falutin' Greeks and Taylor, a total numbskull, keeps coming up with ripostes like, "Ahh, you're going' daffy." The most interesting character, although not the most original, is Van Heflin's Jeff. What's he doing here anyway? He keeps hanging around Robert Taylor, guzzling whiskey and making moon eyes at his boss. Of course the function of the character is to provide Taylor with a gently reproving superego. "Gee, Johnny, what'd you have to clip her in the mug for?" But the audience already knows that Taylor is possessed by terpitude, a snake. An equally compelling motive for his being here is that he's got a crush on Taylor -- and maybe vice versa.Not a bad flick. Mervyn LeRoy, of "Little Caesar", was a decent director. It's just not very original, not nearly as tough as it sounds or as unpredictable or penetrating as was probably hoped.

wes-connors Robert Taylor (as Johnny Eager) is a racketeer on parole; he is posing an honest taxi driver, but actually runs a successful criminal organization. His companion is Van Heflin (as Jeff Hartnett), an unrequited love-struck alcoholic. Adversarial district attorney Edward Arnold (as John Benson Farrell) has a tempting step-daughter, luscious Lana Turner (as Liz Bard), who complicates life considerably. Mr. Taylor is charismatic as gangster "Johnny Eager" and Ms. Turner is lovely as "Liz"… Van Heflin (as Jeff Hartnett) is the actor and performer to watch in this film. Every time he is on camera, Heflin is riveting - whether in the background, staring into space; or, when seen in close-up, crying his eyes out. Moreover, he never overplays his hand, or goes "over the top"; instead, he makes the absolute most out of a delicious role. In an otherwise routine production, Heflin delivers an unfolding, landmark supporting performance.Nothing is quite as good as Heflin's performance in "Johnny Eager", but Taylor's drunken crashing of the "poker party" makes the second half much more entertaining than the first half of the gangster story. Lana Turner watchers should know her clothing choices get sexier during the film's running time. Still, keep an eye on Heflin's "Jeff" - by the end of the film, he is unquestionably Taylor's "leading man". ******* Johnny Eager (12/9/41) Mervyn LeRoy ~ Robert Taylor, Van Heflin, Lana Turner