Johnny Nobody Reviews

Mulcahy (Bendix), an alcoholic Irish writer, defies God to strike him dead, and Johnny (Ray), claiming to be guided by a heavenly force, shoots him. He is arrested and dubbed "Johnny Nobody" by the townspeople when he claims to have no memory of anything prior to the incident. Father Carey (Patrick), the local priest, becomes involved when Johnny's lawyer asks him to support the claim that his action was really an act of God. The priest pursues his own investigation and learns that Johnny and his wife (Mitchell) conspired to kill the writer for stealing material from Johnny's unpublished book. He is prevented from offering this evidence in court, however, and Johnny wins acquittal, but God hands down the final verdict. Though the premise is provocative, the mystery and suspense elements of JOHNNY NOBODY don't work as well as they might have. The second directorial effort for Nigel Patrick, this was released in Britain in 1961, but didn't arrive in the US until 1965, nearly a year after William Bendix's death.