Johnny Got His Gun

Johnny Got His Thing is a 1971 American drama set during and after the First World War. A young soldier, Joe Bonham, is caught in an artillery blast on the last day of the fighting and wakes in a hospital bed, his body destroyed by the explosion. Unable to see, hear or speak, he remains fully conscious and aware of what has happened to him, and is cared for by medical staff who regard his survival largely as a case for study. As he lies there, he revisits in memory and dream the life that brought him to that bed: his family, his work in a bakery, and his decision to enlist.

Dalton Trumbo directed the film and wrote the screenplay, working from his own novel; Luis Buñuel is also credited on the script. This was Trumbo's only film as director, arriving after a long career as a screenwriter, and he was already in his mid-sixties when it was made. Timothy Bottoms plays Joe, with Kathy Fields, Marsha Hunt, Jason Robards and Donald Sutherland among the large credited cast. Shot on a budget of about one million dollars, the film has held up well with audiences, carrying a 7.8 rating on IMDb from roughly 20,000 votes and a 7.5 on TMDB from a much smaller pool, while the critics' score sits lower at 6.6 from 21 reviews.