Mon 5 May 2025
A Western Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: JOHNNY RENO (1966).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[8] Comments
JOHNNY RENO. Lyles/Paramount, 1966) with Dana Andrews, Jane Russell, Lon Chaney Jr., John Agar, Lyle Bettger, Tom Drake, Richard Arlen, Robert Lowery, and Dale Van Sickel. Produced by A.C. Lyles. Screenplay by Steve Fisher. Directed by R.G. Springsteen.
In the mid-1960s the Western was on its way out. Oh, there were still a number of them churned out each year, many with big budgets and impressive casts, and the cycle of “Spaghetti Westerns” had just cantered into view, giving the genre a final fillip of stylish excitement, but the genre was basically a dying candle at that point, albeit one that still flickers brightly on occasion. And it didn’t help any that a producer named A. C. Lyles was killing it with kindness.
From 1962 to ’68, Lyles produced more than a dozen Westerns — unmistakably “B” Westerns — for Paramount, filled to overflowing and beyond with faces familiar from decades past: John Agar, Lon Chaney Jr. William Bendix, Rory Calhoun, Richard Arlen, Joan Caulfield, and the like. Here the leads are played by Dana Andrews and Jane Russell and….
And I pause here to reflect on what a super-colossal movie this would have been, had it been made twenty years earlier. Certainly in 1946, any movie featuring the star of Laura and “The girl all America has been waiting to see!” would have been launched with splash and prestige. Even in the mid-50s, the star power of two such leads would have sufficed to lift any film firmly into the first-run houses.
But this, alas, was the mid-60s, and the antique charm of the 1940s was banished to the Late-Late Show by a culture charging toward Youth and Relevance. And besides, Johnny Reno isn’t very good.
A damn shame, but there you are. Lyles’ string of geriatric productions didn’t keep the B-Western alive; they buried it in mediocrity, with worn-out story lines, weak scripts and weary stuntmen. Action is sparse in these things, and the dialogue provided by Steve Fisher is a long way from his classic I Wake Up Screaming. R.G. Springsteen’s direction may be as quietly efficient as his work at Republic, but without the resources of Republic, it’s noticeably more quiet than effective. And I’d be remiss not to mention that the extras made up to look like native Americans are remarkably unconvincing.
Yet here they are, Jane Russell and Dana Andrews, trudging bravely through the insignificance of it all, trooping like true troupers. They don’t make Johnny Reno worth watching, but they never quit trying.
