I had kind of a "meh" reaction to this noirish drama from 1942. Robert Taylor and Lana Turner are roguish and fetching, respectively, but Mervyn LeRoy, despite his prolific list of credits, was a pretty hopelessly boring director, and nothing about this film stands out. It's fine, but there's not much about it to motivate a modern-day audience to revisit it.It would probably be a mere blip in cinema history if not for the fact that it won Van Heflin a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Taylor's alcoholic and lachrymose best friend. He is pretty good, but not good enough to make the film around him worth watching.There are about a million other movies I would recommend before settling down to this one.Grade: C

This is a pretty good gangster film from MGM, but it certainly doesn't qualify as classic film noir and fans of that genre will be disappointed. There are some noir elements (crime drama, set in big city, a merry band of criminals) but the critical elements are missing. Taylor (who does a good job trying to make viewers forget about "Camille" and "Magnificent Obsession") doesn't fit the profile of the man lured by his own greed or bad judgment into the underworld, nor is he lured and betrayed by a femme fatale. On a more superficial level, there are no rainy scenes nor does the camera work have those shadows and unusual angles we come to associate with film noir Put aside the idea that you're watching film nor and it's an enjoyable film, though a bit too long for my tastes.

Parolee John Eager (Robert Taylor) has everybody fooled that he's gone straight and is trying to make an honest living as a taxi driver. In reality, Eager hasn't given up his criminal life at all. He's still a racketeer and he's working to open up a new dog track but is finding opposition from a vigilant district attorney (Edward Arnold). Eager starts dating pretty society girl Lisbeth (Lana Turner). When he finds out she's the stepdaughter of the D.A., he tries to use his relationship with Lisbeth as leverage against her stepfather.Glossy crime drama from MGM with some film noir touches. Love the dialogue and the cast is terrific. This is one of my favorite Robert Taylor performances. Far more enjoyable to me than all of those sappy romantic melodramas from the '30s. Edward Arnold, of course, can do no wrong. Lana Turner looks gorgeous (no surprise) and does fine in a role that requires little from her but to be a naive lovestruck young woman. Van Heflin plays Taylor's cynical alcoholic friend who has many of the movie's best lines. He's the scene stealer in this, by the way, and deservedly won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. As with any old movie where there's a close male friendship, many reviewers read into it things that may or may not have been intended. Watch it and decide for yourself. The rest of the cast is full of great actors. Just take a gander at the cast list for this and you'll see how much talent was involved here. It's really a quality movie with a solid script, good characters, and a powerful ending.

Johnny Eager is a model parolee by day and a ruthless gangster by night, doing whatever it takes to get his dog racing track up and running... including seducing his prosecutor's daughter. At first this felt like a competent but mediocre picture, but eventually comes into its own, making for an above average experience on the whole. Robert Taylor is good in the title role, charming and snappy. Lana Turner has a smaller role than you would imagine and for the first half kinda seems like a non-entity, but has a couple of great scenes towards the end. Overshadowing them both is Van Heflin as Eager's literate lush of a right-hand man, a marvelous performance. Although it takes a while for the film to develop interesting angles, Johnny's various deceptions are entertaining, and later on his character shows faint glimmers of humanity. Techincally the film is solid but lacking in impressive shots. Worth sticking through the lackluster beginning to get to the good stuff.