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" When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk "
— Eli Wallach, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

MRQE Top Critic

Lady and the Tramp

50 years after its original release, this story of canine lives still oozes charm. —Andrea Birgers (DVD review...)

Lady and the Tramp turn 50

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This grim soldier’s tale has some bad acting and some overextended melodrama, but eventually it hits its stride and becomes a gripping drama. Based on his own novel, this film was written and directed by Colorado’s Dalton Trumbo, one of the filmmakers blacklisted in the McCarthy era.

We are introduced to a group of WWI doctors discussing their “decerebrated” patient. (The novel was written between the two world wars.) A quadriplegic without eyes, ears, nose, or mouth, he is assumed to be brain-dead. This patient, our hero, is actually alive and thinking, though unable to communicate. He spends his time pondering two things: his life before the war, and his present gruesome condition. Johnny Got His Gun may sound like a preachy and heavy-handed anti-war film, but the story’s focus on the man — and not on Man in general — keeps the film grounded.