Despite the film's original storyline, director Robert Florey, who was well past his prime when this low-budget programmer was made, does injustice to a very original Damon Runyon's plot idea. An innocent but plucky young girl naively believes that a criminal fugitive (Pat O'Brien) who's hiding out in a deserted building in her neighborhood, is really Santa Claus.
With one of the cooler sounding film titles going, I was surprised when the title character turned out not to be a gangster, but a down and out mutt belonging to a little girl. Johnny One-Eye gets his name from Martin Martin (Pat O'Brien), victim to a former partner's bullet, and holed up in a run down alley where young Elsie White (Gayle Reed) discovers his presence.
When I looked up Damon Runyon on Wikipedia before writing this comment, I could find no reference to this story or this film. This has to be the most obscure Damon Runyon story ever put on film.
***SPOILERS*** Based on an obscure Damon Runyon short-story the movie "Johnny One-Eye" is about an on the lamb wanted killer who was turned in to the D.A by his partner in order to save his own neck by coping a plea in a murder rap.
I like film noir--you know, told old gangster films from the 40s and 50s. This Damon Runyan story has almost all the earmarks of a good film noir movie...
