The Story of a Fool

JOHNNY COOL-1963-This interesting dark gangster story begins in Sicily in 1945 with a little kid named Giordano blowing up a Nazi to save his mom who's killed anyway. He joins up with some rebels and grows up to be Dom Giordano (Henry Silva) who has to go on the run from the army during a wedding. He's saved by a deported American mobster Johnny Calini (Mark Lawrence) who trains him “to be American” then sends him to NYC where he becomes the new Johnny Calini and beats up a guy in a bar and spurns the come-ons of Elizabeth Montgomery who's raped by two corrupt cops after having dinner with Johnny. He kills both of them then runs afoul of crime boss Vince (Telly Savalas). Like a one man army Johnny goes for revenge killing various mobsters (he blows up one guy in his pool). His one man vendetta almost succeeds but Liz turns him over to the mob and they kill him. “So ends the story of a fool”. 

Several well known actors appear in pivotal one scene roles: Sammy Davis Jr. (who also sings the theme) is a dice shooter called Educated, Jim Backus (sounding like Mr. Magoo) is a corrupt land developer who's killed, Joey Bishop is an annoying car salesman, John McGiver is a Las Vegas crime boss and Mort Sahl is his bodyguard. Wanda Hendrix, Elisha Cook, Douglas Dumbrille, Joseph Calliea, Robert Armstrong and Brad Dexter also appear. Director William Asher worked on other theatrical films (including some “Beach” movies for AIP) and lots of TV shows (including over a hundred episodes of “Bewitched”, starring his future wife Montgomery, who he married shorty after this production).  

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