Lucky Johnny: Born in America (1975)

A toddler winds up abandoned in the desert when his father and his mother’s new lover kill one another in a desert showdown. Then his mother dies of exhaustion. He’s saved from a rattlesnake and adopted by a gravedigger named John Applebee; he names the boy Johnny.

Well, the toddler grows into a young man, and Applebee puts him to work digging graves, too. The older man collects receipts for most of the dead he buries, figuring to cash them in one day and build a grand cemetery. And when money’s running short, he sends Johnny into town to stir up trouble and create a couple corpses by gunning down someone in self defense.

Johnny eventually tires of the life, especially after seeing a lovely woman (Venetia Vianello as Kelly) through his binoculars. What he doesn’t know is that Kelly and her lover Poggin are small-time outlaws — who could just hit it big thanks to an Army gold shipment that’s traveling through the desert.

Poggin winds up chasing the gold. Johnny winds up chasing the woman. The woman and a black soldier named Lucius are simply looking for a better fortune in life than the one dealt them so far.

Review:

The film starts out looking like a Z-grade Western, but actually gets better as the movie goes on, with a gritty feel and a few surprises along the way. Not the least of which is a mountain of corpses John Applebee and Johnny stumble across during their travels.

Filmed in Mexico, the production certainly has a Spaghetti feel thinks to lots of closeups and lots of blood-letting. Longtime character actor James Westerfield is the lone veteran in the cast. He plays the partly crazy man who raises Johnny. It would mark his final film.

Directed by:
Jose Bolanos

Cast:
Glen Lee … Johnny
James Westerfield … John Applebee
Venetia Vianello … Kelly
Virgil Frye … Poggin
Evaristo Marquez … Lucius
Soony Vandeusen … Sonny
Barbara Angely … Sara
Jorge Russek … District Commissioner

aka:
Serpente a Sonagli
Arde, baby, arde
Dead Aim
Lucky Johnny, Born in America

Composer: Erma Levin

Runtime: 87 min.

Memorable lines:

Johnny: “Give us that corpse you got there.
Commissioner: “Can’t have him.”
Johnny: “Why?”
Driver: “Because we need him to hang this n—-r with, that’s why?”
Johnny Applebee: “You don’t need a corpse to hang a black man.”

Appleby: “Pity we couldn’t get the commissioner to sign a receipt for his
own dead body.”

Poggin: “So you still hate me, huh?”
Kelly: “I don’t hate you. I just forget you.”

Trivia:

The final film for James Westerfield, who had a television and film acting career dating back to 1940 that included roles in “On the Waterfront,” “The Shaggy Dog,” and “The Son of Flubber.” He played Judge Parker in John Wayne’s “True Grit.” This film was actually released after his death in 1971 at age 58 of a heart attack.

One of five flms directed by Jose Balanos, who was married to the female star,
Venetia Vianello. He’s best known as Marilyn Monroe’s escort at the 1962 Golden Globe Awards. At one point, he claimed the two planned to marry.