Johnny Nobody

A vengeful God may have used a man to murder a ranting atheist in Nigel Patrick’s unusual but fascinating Johnny Nobody, a different kind of whodunit in which the “who” doesn’t know who he is. Aldo Ray plays the stranger suffering from amnesia whom the local press have dubbed Johnny Nobody after he shoots and kills zealous atheist Ronald Mulcahy (William Bendix) in front of a mob outside the church because a voice told him to “Destroy this man.” Director Patrick also stars as Father Carey, the parish priest who investigates Johnny’s background, which leads him to a remote Irish peninsula, an abandoned racetrack, a peasant family, and the home of a mysterious woman (Yvonne Mitchell) who frames him for assault. The Irish countryside seems an unlikely backdrop for film noir, but Patrick makes the remoteness even more menacing than Dublin once Carey is arrested and escapes to the hills, where he searches for clues both natural and divine. Fans of Aldo Ray, who had just made another European noir, The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (1960), should note that his screen time here is minimal.