Johnny Got His Gun
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| Author | Dalton Trumbo |
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| Language | English |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1939 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 9780806512815 |
Johnny Got His Gun is an anti-war novel written in 1939 by American novelist and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Though no significant research has been done on the possibility, it is likely Trumbo was highly influenced by Soviet literature, in particular Konstantin Fedin's work Cities and Years (1924), which features a scene over several pages that is nearly identical to the entirety of Johnny.
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[edit] Plot
A World War I-era American soldier in a hospital realizes that he was hit by an artillery shell and lost his arms, legs, his ears and most of his face. The remaining torso and head is being kept alive by machines. Using his head to tap out morse code, he asks someone to be allowed to leave the hospital. His wish is not granted.
[edit] Radio and film versions
In 1940, radio producer and writer Arch Oboler adapted Johnny Got His Gun and produced it as one of his Arch Oboler's Plays series on the NBC Radio Network, with James Cagney in the lead. This casting became highly ironic two years later, when Cagney starred in the motion picture Yankee Doodle Dandy as George M. Cohan; it was the first line of Cohan's pro-war song Over There that Dalton Trumbo had paraphrased for the title of the novel in the first place.
In 1971 Trumbo, who was renowned as a prolific screenwriter, directed and wrote the screenplay for the movie of the same title, based on his book. It is his only work as a film director. Luis Buñuel mentions in his autobiography that he was at one point eager to direct the film and had submitted a screenplay, but Trumbo eventually opted to write and direct it himself.
The heavy metal band Metallica have sung a song based in this novel called One, a favorite with many fans and their first to feature video. Metallica bought the rights to Johnny Got His Gun so that they could use screenshots of the film in the music video of One, mixed with these shots are pictures of the band playing the song.
The punk band The Casualties also borrowed the main character Joe Bohnam as the star of their song "Unknown Soldier" which appears on the album On The Front Line.
[edit] Title
The title comes from the phrase "Johnny get your gun", a rallying call that was commonly used to encourage young American men to enlist in the military in the late 19th century and early 20th century. That phrase was popularized in the George M. Cohan song Over There, which was widely recorded in the first year of American involvement in World War I; the versions by Al Jolson, Enrico Caruso and Nora Bayes are believed to have sold the most copies on phonograph records at the time. The story is a work of historical fiction.
[edit] References in popular culture
The music video for Metallica's 1988 song "One" included many clips and dialogue from the movie of Johnny Got His Gun. Instead of enduring a long and arduous negotiation for rights to the film, Metallica decided to buy the movie outright, in order to use it in their video.
