Johnny Dangerously
Encyclopedia
Johnny Dangerously is a 1984
comedy spoof of 1930s' crime/gangster movies
. It was directed by Amy Heckerling
; its four screenwriters included Bernie Kukoff
and Jeff Harris
, both of whom previously created the hit TV series Diff'rent Strokes
. The movie stars Michael Keaton
as an honest, goodhearted man who is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills and to put his younger brother through law school. The movie also stars Joe Piscopo
, Marilu Henner
, Maureen Stapleton
, Peter Boyle
, Griffin Dunne
, Dom DeLuise
, Danny DeVito
, Dick Butkus
and Alan Hale, Jr..
, though for legal reasons, "This Is the Life" was not featured on home video releases of the film, until the DVD was released in 2002. The VHS home video version of the film featured a version of the Cole Porter song "Let's Misbehave
". The music video
for Yankovic's song incorporates scenes from the movie.
It is 1910. Young Johnny Kelly is a poor but honest newsboy in New York City
. Johnny beats up Danny Vermin in self defense and discovers his mom needs an operation they cannot afford. Since the execution of Johnny's father, Killer Kelly, his widow, Ma Kelly, has supported Johnny and his younger brother, Tommy, who is fascinated by the law.
Johnny's fight with Vermin attracted the notice of local crime boss Jocko Dundee, and Johnny, seeing no honest way to earn the money for his mom's operation, sees no choice than to do a job for Dundee, even though it probably means breaking the law, and in doing so, "breaking his mother's heart". He helps Dundee rob the nightclub belonging to Dundee's rival, Roman Moronie. When asked his name, Johnny coins the name, "Johnny Dangerously", but Moronie, a malapropist of swearwords, never "forgets a fargin face."
Years pass. With his mom's continuing medical problems, Johnny goes to work for the Dundee gang full time. He becomes a suave young man, with plenty of folding cash. The whole neighborhood (including the Pope) knows that Kelly is really Johnny Dangerously, but Johnny's secret identity is carefully concealed from his brother and mother. They think he is a law-abiding nightclub owner. Similarly, the gang knows nothing of Johnny's mother and brother. Tommy is now in law school, with a girlfriend, and somewhat of a prig
—he wants to drop out of law school so he can get a job, marry his girlfriend, and "get laid." With the assistance of a public health film ("Your Testicles and YOU"), Johnny gets him to go back to law school.
Johnny comes to Dundee's headquarters—he is still involved in a running feud with Moronie—to find he has taken on two new gang members: Danny Vermin, and his sidekick Dutch. Danny has lived up to his potential and become a total scumbag, with a taste for using opera audiences as shooting galleries with his .88 Magnum pistol. Moronie, subtle as always, sends a robot with a machine gun to try to knock off the gang. He is not successful, and Johnny retaliates by knocking down Moronie's club (which was in need of expansion anyway) with a bomb dropped from a biplane.
The two gangs war. In the meantime, Johnny falls for a young showgirl new to the big city, Lil Sheridan, who, when she meets Johnny for the first time, asks him, "Do you know your last name is an adverb
?". They go for a long walk together, ending in sexual fireworks.
The war continues. Moronie sends a plumber to plant explosives in Dundee's toilet. Dundee has a narrow escape, and he retires in Johnny's favor. Johnny negotiates a truce with Moronie.
A running gag
has Ray Walston
playing the owner of a newsstand who repeatedly gets knocked out when he is hit on the head by a pile of newspapers being flung from the back of a delivery truck. He temporarily loses one of his primary senses whenever he comes to. At various points throughout the movie, his character alternates between blindness
, deafness, and amnesia
.
Meanwhile, Tommy graduates from law school (Johnny's illicit earnings, of course, have paid for the tuition). Despite Johnny's efforts to steer him into a law firm, he goes to work for the District Attorney's office. A bit miffed that his money should be used to train a crimefighter, Johnny is nevertheless not worried—District Attorney Burr is on his payroll. The D.A. tries to sidetrack Tommy, but he becomes a major public figure. After he holds hearings looking into Moronie's activities, the rival crime boss is deported to Sweden despite his protests that he's "not from there."
Against Johnny's orders, Burr and Vermin conspire to kill Tommy. Tommy is badly injured, but survives. Divining the truth, Johnny has Burr killed—but this leaves Tommy as the new D.A.
Tommy recovers, and weds his girlfriend. Vermin discovers that Dangerously is the D.A.'s brother—and Tommy promptly overhears Vermin chortling about it. Tommy confronts Johnny, who agrees to quit the life of crime. The gang, though, is not as eager and suggests Johnny may be turning state's evidence against them. Johnny denies this, and goes to turn the evidence against himself to the Crime Commissioner—who Vermin has just killed, under circumstances that suggest Johnny is the killer. Not only that, Vermin steals Johnny's prized bubble gum case (formerly Dundee's cigarette case).
Johnny is arrested for murder, but says he is innocent and the holder of the case is the guilty party. Tommy tries the case against him. Johnny is found guilty, sentenced to the electric chair and sent to death row. But when Vermin congratulates Tommy, and Tommy notices that he has Johnny's case, he realizes Johnny is innocent. Ma Kelly sucker punches Vermin in the crotch, and the cigarette case drops out of the stricken mobster's pocket. Ma Kelly and Tommy realize that "Johnny didn't do it."
Meanwhile, his mom is using her contacts to investigate the murder. She finds the cleaning lady who is a witness to Vermin's presence. When Tommy hits Vermin with a grand jury subpoena, Vermin knows that he must kill Tommy.
Johnny arrives on Death Row, where he receives rock star treatment from the starstruck warden. He receives word of Tommy's danger, and plots an escape, prevailing on the warden to move up his execution. As he is taken to the chair, Johnny assembles what looks like a tommy gun from parts handed to him by inmates. He escapes in a laundry truck driven by Lil.
Johnny, through a wild chase, arrives at the theatre where Tommy is to be killed. He shoots and wounds Vermin, saving Tommy. The governor pardons Johnny as Vermin is arrested.
Back to 1935. The young shoplifter is round eyed. Having taken in the lesson that crime does not pay, he is given a kitten as Johnny Kelly, law abiding pet shop owner, says "Crime doesn't pay." The kid goes on his way. Johnny, dressed in a tux, heads off in a riotous limo with Lil Sheridan: "Well, it paid a little!"
1984 in film
-Events:* The Walt Disney Company founds Touchstone Pictures to release movies with subject matter deemed inappropriate for the Disney name.* Tri-Star Pictures, a joint venture of Columbia Pictures, HBO, and CBS, releases its first film....
comedy spoof of 1930s' crime/gangster movies
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...
. It was directed by Amy Heckerling
Amy Heckerling
Amy Heckerling is an American film director, one of the few female directors to have produced multiple box-office hits.-Early life:...
; its four screenwriters included Bernie Kukoff
Bernie Kukoff
Bernie Kukoff is American television director, producer and writer. He has produced and written for the television series Operation Petticoat, The Cosby Show and Thea, Detective School and Diff'rent Strokes creating the latter two series with Jeff Harris.Kukoff also co-wrote the 1984 film Johnny...
and Jeff Harris
Jeff Harris
Jeffrey Austin Harris is a former Major League Baseball relief pitcher who is currently the pitching coach for the Lake County Captains in the Cleveland Indians organization. He batted and threw right-handed....
, both of whom previously created the hit TV series Diff'rent Strokes
Diff'rent Strokes
Diff'rent Strokes is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from November 3, 1978 to May 4, 1985, and on ABC from September 27, 1985 to March 7, 1986...
. The movie stars Michael Keaton
Michael Keaton
Michael John Douglas , better known by the stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor known for his early comedic roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice . Keaton is also famous for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's...
as an honest, goodhearted man who is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills and to put his younger brother through law school. The movie also stars Joe Piscopo
Joe Piscopo
Joseph Charles John "Joe" Piscopo is an American comedian and actor best known for his work on Saturday Night Live.-Early life:...
, Marilu Henner
Marilu Henner
Mary Lucy Denise "Marilu" Henner is an American actress, producer and author. She is best known for her role as Elaine O'Connor Nardo on the sitcom Taxi from 1978 to 1983.-Early life:...
, Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...
, Peter Boyle
Peter Boyle
Peter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....
, Griffin Dunne
Griffin Dunne
-Personal life:Dunne was born Thomas Griffin Dunne in New York City, New York, the son of Ellen Beatriz Dunne and Dominick Dunne. His mother founded the victims' rights organization Justice for Homicide Victims and his father was a producer, writer, and actor...
, Dom DeLuise
Dom DeLuise
Dominick "Dom" DeLuise was an American actor, comedian, film director, television producer, chef, and author. He was the husband of actress Carol Arthur from 1965 until his death and the father of: actor, director, pianist, and writer Peter DeLuise; actor David DeLuise; and actor Michael DeLuise...
, Danny DeVito
Danny DeVito
Daniel Michael DeVito, Jr. , better known as Danny DeVito, is an American actor, comedian, director and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on the ABC and NBC television series Taxi , for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.DeVito and his wife, Rhea Perlman,...
, Dick Butkus
Dick Butkus
Richard Marvin "Dick" Butkus is a former American football player for the Chicago Bears. He was drafted in 1965 and he is also widely regarded as one of the best and most durable linebackers of all time. Butkus starred as a football player for the University of Illinois and the Chicago Bears. He...
and Alan Hale, Jr..
Music
The theme song "This Is the Life" was written for the movie by "Weird Al" Yankovic"Weird Al" Yankovic
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...
, though for legal reasons, "This Is the Life" was not featured on home video releases of the film, until the DVD was released in 2002. The VHS home video version of the film featured a version of the Cole Porter song "Let's Misbehave
Let's Misbehave
"Let's Misbehave" is a famous song written by Cole Porter in 1927, originally intended for the female lead of his first major production, Paris...
". The music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for Yankovic's song incorporates scenes from the movie.
Plot summary
The year is 1935. A pet shop owner catches a young boy shoplifting a puppy. To discourage the kid from a life of crime, the owner tells a story . . .It is 1910. Young Johnny Kelly is a poor but honest newsboy in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Johnny beats up Danny Vermin in self defense and discovers his mom needs an operation they cannot afford. Since the execution of Johnny's father, Killer Kelly, his widow, Ma Kelly, has supported Johnny and his younger brother, Tommy, who is fascinated by the law.
Johnny's fight with Vermin attracted the notice of local crime boss Jocko Dundee, and Johnny, seeing no honest way to earn the money for his mom's operation, sees no choice than to do a job for Dundee, even though it probably means breaking the law, and in doing so, "breaking his mother's heart". He helps Dundee rob the nightclub belonging to Dundee's rival, Roman Moronie. When asked his name, Johnny coins the name, "Johnny Dangerously", but Moronie, a malapropist of swearwords, never "forgets a fargin face."
Years pass. With his mom's continuing medical problems, Johnny goes to work for the Dundee gang full time. He becomes a suave young man, with plenty of folding cash. The whole neighborhood (including the Pope) knows that Kelly is really Johnny Dangerously, but Johnny's secret identity is carefully concealed from his brother and mother. They think he is a law-abiding nightclub owner. Similarly, the gang knows nothing of Johnny's mother and brother. Tommy is now in law school, with a girlfriend, and somewhat of a prig
Prig
A prig is a person who shows an inordinately zealous approach to matters of form and propriety – especially where the prig has the ability to show superior knowledge to those who do not know the protocol...
—he wants to drop out of law school so he can get a job, marry his girlfriend, and "get laid." With the assistance of a public health film ("Your Testicles and YOU"), Johnny gets him to go back to law school.
Johnny comes to Dundee's headquarters—he is still involved in a running feud with Moronie—to find he has taken on two new gang members: Danny Vermin, and his sidekick Dutch. Danny has lived up to his potential and become a total scumbag, with a taste for using opera audiences as shooting galleries with his .88 Magnum pistol. Moronie, subtle as always, sends a robot with a machine gun to try to knock off the gang. He is not successful, and Johnny retaliates by knocking down Moronie's club (which was in need of expansion anyway) with a bomb dropped from a biplane.
The two gangs war. In the meantime, Johnny falls for a young showgirl new to the big city, Lil Sheridan, who, when she meets Johnny for the first time, asks him, "Do you know your last name is an adverb
Adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
?". They go for a long walk together, ending in sexual fireworks.
The war continues. Moronie sends a plumber to plant explosives in Dundee's toilet. Dundee has a narrow escape, and he retires in Johnny's favor. Johnny negotiates a truce with Moronie.
A running gag
Running gag
A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
has Ray Walston
Ray Walston
Ray Walston was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s situation comedy My Favorite Martian. In addition, he is also remembered for his roles as Luther Billis in South Pacific , Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees , J.J...
playing the owner of a newsstand who repeatedly gets knocked out when he is hit on the head by a pile of newspapers being flung from the back of a delivery truck. He temporarily loses one of his primary senses whenever he comes to. At various points throughout the movie, his character alternates between blindness
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
, deafness, and amnesia
Amnesia
Amnesia is a condition in which one's memory is lost. The causes of amnesia have traditionally been divided into categories. Memory appears to be stored in several parts of the limbic system of the brain, and any condition that interferes with the function of this system can cause amnesia...
.
Meanwhile, Tommy graduates from law school (Johnny's illicit earnings, of course, have paid for the tuition). Despite Johnny's efforts to steer him into a law firm, he goes to work for the District Attorney's office. A bit miffed that his money should be used to train a crimefighter, Johnny is nevertheless not worried—District Attorney Burr is on his payroll. The D.A. tries to sidetrack Tommy, but he becomes a major public figure. After he holds hearings looking into Moronie's activities, the rival crime boss is deported to Sweden despite his protests that he's "not from there."
Against Johnny's orders, Burr and Vermin conspire to kill Tommy. Tommy is badly injured, but survives. Divining the truth, Johnny has Burr killed—but this leaves Tommy as the new D.A.
Tommy recovers, and weds his girlfriend. Vermin discovers that Dangerously is the D.A.'s brother—and Tommy promptly overhears Vermin chortling about it. Tommy confronts Johnny, who agrees to quit the life of crime. The gang, though, is not as eager and suggests Johnny may be turning state's evidence against them. Johnny denies this, and goes to turn the evidence against himself to the Crime Commissioner—who Vermin has just killed, under circumstances that suggest Johnny is the killer. Not only that, Vermin steals Johnny's prized bubble gum case (formerly Dundee's cigarette case).
Johnny is arrested for murder, but says he is innocent and the holder of the case is the guilty party. Tommy tries the case against him. Johnny is found guilty, sentenced to the electric chair and sent to death row. But when Vermin congratulates Tommy, and Tommy notices that he has Johnny's case, he realizes Johnny is innocent. Ma Kelly sucker punches Vermin in the crotch, and the cigarette case drops out of the stricken mobster's pocket. Ma Kelly and Tommy realize that "Johnny didn't do it."
Meanwhile, his mom is using her contacts to investigate the murder. She finds the cleaning lady who is a witness to Vermin's presence. When Tommy hits Vermin with a grand jury subpoena, Vermin knows that he must kill Tommy.
Johnny arrives on Death Row, where he receives rock star treatment from the starstruck warden. He receives word of Tommy's danger, and plots an escape, prevailing on the warden to move up his execution. As he is taken to the chair, Johnny assembles what looks like a tommy gun from parts handed to him by inmates. He escapes in a laundry truck driven by Lil.
Johnny, through a wild chase, arrives at the theatre where Tommy is to be killed. He shoots and wounds Vermin, saving Tommy. The governor pardons Johnny as Vermin is arrested.
Back to 1935. The young shoplifter is round eyed. Having taken in the lesson that crime does not pay, he is given a kitten as Johnny Kelly, law abiding pet shop owner, says "Crime doesn't pay." The kid goes on his way. Johnny, dressed in a tux, heads off in a riotous limo with Lil Sheridan: "Well, it paid a little!"
Cast
- Michael KeatonMichael KeatonMichael John Douglas , better known by the stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor known for his early comedic roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice . Keaton is also famous for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's...
as Johnny Kelly (a.k.a. Johnny Dangerously) - Joe PiscopoJoe PiscopoJoseph Charles John "Joe" Piscopo is an American comedian and actor best known for his work on Saturday Night Live.-Early life:...
as Danny Vermin - Marilu HennerMarilu HennerMary Lucy Denise "Marilu" Henner is an American actress, producer and author. She is best known for her role as Elaine O'Connor Nardo on the sitcom Taxi from 1978 to 1983.-Early life:...
as Lil Sheridan (a.k.a Lil) - Maureen StapletonMaureen StapletonMaureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...
as Ma Kelly - Peter BoylePeter BoylePeter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....
as Jocko Dundee - Richard Dimitri as Roman Troy Moronie
- Griffin DunneGriffin Dunne-Personal life:Dunne was born Thomas Griffin Dunne in New York City, New York, the son of Ellen Beatriz Dunne and Dominick Dunne. His mother founded the victims' rights organization Justice for Homicide Victims and his father was a producer, writer, and actor...
as Tommy Kelly - Dom DeLuiseDom DeLuiseDominick "Dom" DeLuise was an American actor, comedian, film director, television producer, chef, and author. He was the husband of actress Carol Arthur from 1965 until his death and the father of: actor, director, pianist, and writer Peter DeLuise; actor David DeLuise; and actor Michael DeLuise...
as The Pope - Danny DeVitoDanny DeVitoDaniel Michael DeVito, Jr. , better known as Danny DeVito, is an American actor, comedian, director and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on the ABC and NBC television series Taxi , for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.DeVito and his wife, Rhea Perlman,...
as Burr - Dick ButkusDick ButkusRichard Marvin "Dick" Butkus is a former American football player for the Chicago Bears. He was drafted in 1965 and he is also widely regarded as one of the best and most durable linebackers of all time. Butkus starred as a football player for the University of Illinois and the Chicago Bears. He...
as Arthur - Byron ThamesByron ThamesByron Thames is an American television and film actor and musician.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, he relocated shortly after his birth to New Orleans, Louisiana, he moved to Hollywood, California with his mother at age eight to pursue a career as an actor.After meeting actor/director...
as Young Johnny Dangerously - Alan Hale, Jr.Alan Hale, Jr.Alan Hale, Jr. was an American film and television actor, best known for his role as Skipper on the popular sitcom Gilligan's Island. Hale was the lookalike son of popular supporting film actor Alan Hale, Sr....
as the Desk Sergeant - Glynnis O'ConnorGlynnis O'ConnorGlynnis O'Connor is an American actress, perhaps best known for her work in the mid-1970s, including her lead actress roles in the TV version of Our Town and the films Ode to Billy Joe and Jeremy, all of which co-starred Robby Benson.O'Connor was born in New York City, the daughter of stage, film...
as Sally - Ron CareyRon Carey (actor)Ron Carey was an American film and television actor. The 5-foot 4-inch actor was best known for playing cocky Officer Carl Levitt on TV's Barney Miller, in which he was almost always surrounded by male actors who stood at least 4" taller...
as Pat - Ray WalstonRay WalstonRay Walston was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s situation comedy My Favorite Martian. In addition, he is also remembered for his roles as Luther Billis in South Pacific , Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees , J.J...
as a vendor