Johnny Holiday (1949)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Willis Goldbeck

Writers:

R.W. Alcorn (story)
Jack Andrews (screenplay)
(more)

Release Date:

5 January 1951 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

The Story of the Teen-Age Terror!

Plot:

Young street tough sent to a reform farm is torn between friends from his past and those who are trying to help him change his life. |

Plot Keywords:

Juvenile Delinquent

Cast

William Bendix	...	Sgt. Walker
Stanley Clements	...	Eddie Duggan
Hoagy Carmichael	...	Hoagy Carmichael
Allen Martin Jr.	...	Johnny Holiday
Greta Granstedt	...	Mrs. Holiday
Herbert Newcomb	...	Dr. Piper
Donald Gallaher	...	Supt. Lang
Jack Hagen	...	Jackson
George Cisar	...	Barney Duggan
Henry F. Schricker	...	Himself (as Gov. Henry F. Schricker)
Leo Cleary	...	Trimble
Leo Curley	...	Spenser
Alma Platt	...	Miss Kelly
Jean Juvelier	...	Mrs. Bellini (as Jeanne Juvelier)
Buddy Cole	...	Buddy Cole
Staff and Boys of the Indiana Boys School	...	Themselves
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robert Bice	...	Policeman (uncredited)
Robert Bray	...	Policeman (uncredited)
Robert Dudley	...	Bill Barnett, Old Shoemaker (uncredited)

Directed by
Willis Goldbeck

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
R.W. Alcorn		story
Jack Andrews		screenplay
Willis Goldbeck		screenplay
Frederick Stephani		screenplay

Produced by
R.W. Alcorn	....	producer
Frederick Stephani	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Franz Waxman

Cinematography by
Hal Mohr

Film Editing by
Richard Fritch

Set Decoration by
Murray Waite

Costume Design by
Robert Martien

Makeup Department
Nicholas Vehr	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Frank Parmenter	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
William Forsyth	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Garry A. Harris	....	sound (as Garry Harris)

Special Effects by
Mario Castegnaro	....	process photographer

Camera and Electrical Department
Eddie Fitzgerald	....	camera operator (as Ed Fitzgerald)

Production Companies

• Alcorn Productions

Distributors

• United Artists (1949) (USA) (theatrical)
• Astor Pictures Corporation (1955) (USA) (theatrical) (re-titled) (re-release)

Also Known As:

Boys' Prison (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-8 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Indiana Boys' School, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Company:

Alcorn Productions

Back Home In Indiana

I first saw this film back in Public School 193 in Brooklyn now known as the Gil Hodges Elementary School. The Fifth and Sixth Grade Assemblies were given a movie treat towards the end of the school year. I remember seeing Johnny Holiday one year and the Ray Milland film It Happens Every Spring the other.

The film starred that well known New Yorker William Bendix with mostly a bunch of unknown actors and some inmates at the Indiana Boys Reformatory. Bendix is in charge of the school farm and he does take an interest in one of the young kids trying to get him back on the straight and narrow.

The title role of the film is played by young Allen Martin, Jr. who falls in with the wrong crowd, particularly Stanley Clements and gets sent to the Reformatory. Later on Clements gets caught on another beef and also becomes an inmate.

There's no reaching this kid until Martin develops an attachment to a mare named Lady who is in foal. Later on after the colt is born, the mare dies and Martin blames Bendix. At that point he becomes willing to listen to Clements.

One of the things I remember best about this film is an intergenerational argument Bendix and Martin had over what to name the colt. Bendix is an old horse cavalryman from World War I and the Mexican intervention and he likes his old commander Black Jack Pershing and wants to name it Black Jack. But Martin who grew up during World War II wants to name it after the most popular Americam of his time, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Guess who won the argument.

As the film was shot on location in Indiana, the then governor, Henry F. Schricker made an appearance in the film. And that other noted Hoosier Hoagy Carmichael plays himself at a concert arranged for the boys.

When I saw this film in 1958 or 1959, William Bendix was finishing his long run on radio and television as Chester A. Riley on The Life of Riley, a show I dearly wish that TV Land Channel would pick up. That television show made him a star and put him quite a bit above his peers as a character actor. In Brooklyn he was quite the household name.

Unlike MGM's famous Boys Town, this place definitely does not believe that there is no such thing as a bad boy. Stanley Clements is one very bad boy.

Bendix and Martin make an appealing pair and Johnny Holiday is still a nice film that I can't understand isn't shown on places like the Family Channel.