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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Swinging Around London With Pete and Sam

SALT AND PEPPER-1968-Swinging London nightclub owners Charles Salt (Sammy Davis Jr.) and Christopher Pepper (Peter Lawford) become involved in espionage when 2 British secret agents are killed in their club. Sammy does a very '60's psychedelic number called "I Like The Way You Dance" with Go Go dancers while playing a guitar. Michael Bates is the stupid Inspector Crabbe who believes the team is to blame. The duo (who seem to be smoking in every scene) say lots of hip humorous lines (with some racial humor and jokes concerning the words "fag" and "boy") and get shot at while driving around in Salt's weird car that has some Aston Martin like gadgets. They go to a barber shop and somehow wind up on nuclear submarine and discover a plot to overthrow the English government.

Also with Iilona Rodgers, Graham Stark, Calvin Lockhart and Jeremy Lloyd. This seems to be influenced by the Matt Helm series, I SPY (which Salt makes a reference to), THE MAN FROM UNCLE and even GET SMART. Director Richard Donner went on to bigger things but around this time he was making "Danger Island" segments for THE BANANA SPLITS TV show.

It's a strange mixture of comedy, action, violence and drama written by Michael Pertwee, brother of Dr. Who's Jon Pertwee. Lawford had a role in Otto Preminger's bomb SKIDOO the same year. Both he and Davis were executive producers. It ends with the words: It's Over. But they actually made a sequel in 1970 called ONE MORE TIME (directed by Jerry Lewis!).

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