Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

Has anybody read this book? I read it two years ago, and it's one that stays with you, I don't think anybody after reading it would ever be able to forget that one...it's so...disturbing, and it really makes you wonder *spoiler* why anybody would be sadistic enough to leave Joe alive after what happened to him.

It's been a long time since but it does stay with you. Powerfully anti-war.

Along with I think, though I haven't read the whole book yet, All Quiet on the Western Front. Now, the thing about Trumbo is I have a hard time putting the guy who wrote Johnny Got His Gun, and the guy who wrote the movie Roman Holiday, as being the same guy because they are just two about faces from each other. And he's not credited with Roman Holiday, he had to write it under a different name since he was blacklisted, but to me that's just so weird here you have such a disturbing, serious war story and here you have a light hearted comedy about a princess and a reporter, done by the same guy. You couldn't typecast him apparently.

He also wrote the screenplay for Spartacus. Kirk Douglas insisted that he get credit under his own name and this helped end the black list. It's probably known better for the repeated line, "I'm Spartacus!" but I always liked the dig that Tumbo got in the scene between Laurence Olivier (Crassus, "a patrician with an obsessive love of the city of Rome and its old tradition of patrician rule.") and Charles Laughton (Gracchus, "a dedicated Roman senator who is Crassus's only real opposition.")

Marcus Licinius Crassus: In every city and province, lists of the disloyal have been compiled. Tomorrow they will learn the cost of their terrible folly... their treason.
Gracchus: And where does my name appear on the list of disloyal enemies of the state?
Marcus Licinius Crassus: First.


Fuck You, Joe McCarthy!

It's been a little over a year since I've read this book, but it is definitely disturbing and very real. My eyes teared up at several parts of the book. It was quite ahead of it's time. I think at that time people wanted to look at war only as heroism and glory, and here comes this book that shows the real side of war and the human suffering.

Amazing book. I own it, and this thread reminds me to read it again.

LOL. I just noticed Mandy's post total. 666.

LOL, observant one, are you.

alan smithee wrote:LOL. I just noticed Mandy's post total. 666.

lol, I didn't even notice that, back when it was 666! But thank you for your scientific observation, Mr. Smithee, lol.

It's just that I'm on the look out for signs of the apocalypse

RedBedroom wrote:LOL, observant one, are you.

Mrs. Yoda?

I didn't read the book but one night on the AMC channel I watched it. So sad and depressing and chilling. What a living death. If that were me, I definitely would want the pillow over my face!

Yeah I just can't figure that out, why they didn't kill him, it would've been so much more humane than that. Of course you can't say that on the movie's board on IMDb because then 'you LIKE people being murdered!' Morons, the whole lot of them!