Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
Dalton Trumbo

David Haviland

There are moments in Johnny Got His Gun which reminded me of the old movie parodies in The Simpsons with Troy MacLure and little Timmy. In one scene a young boy watches his father cleaning his prized fishing pole:

'Daddy, what is Democracy?' he asks, wide-eyed.
'I don't know, son. It seems to have something to do with young men having to go out and kill each other.'
'But Daddy, what if I don't want to go?'
'Son, any man would be proud to give up his child's life for democracy.'

The film tells the story of Joe, a first world war soldier who wakes up in hospital to find a landmine has cost him all his limbs and most of his senses. Totally cut off from the world, he drifts in and out of dreams and memories. Through this device the film conveys Joe's youthful idealism, and the senseless reality and waste of war.

That the film is so close to parody is partly a mark of its sincerity. It's an adaptation of director Dalton Trumbo's own anti-war novel, written in the 1930s, which reached a new audience with the Vietnam protests of the sixties. However its po-faced approach doesn't transfer well to film, and it compares poorly with more humorous satires like Catch 22 and M*A*S*H.

The problem is that this isn't a remotely filmic story. The hero is only likeable in that we feel sorry for what's happened to him, but there's no dramatic potential in a man who can't move or communicate. The anti-war message is simplistic and heavy-handed, and some of the fantasy scenes are laughable, particularly those with Donald Sutherland as a kind of hip, easy-going God.

Dalton Trumbo's own story is much more interesting. He was one of the Hollywood Ten blacklisted by the House Unamerican Activities Committee for refusing to testify at the height of the McCarthy witch-hunts. After a spell in prison he moved to Mexico, where he wrote under pseudonyms and won two Oscars for Roman Holiday and Spartacus. Johnny Got His Gun was the only film he directed, but he'll be better remembered for his excellent screenplays and principled example.