Johnny Got His Gun Resources

A website dedicated to ALL THINGS WORLD WAR I (we're not kidding), including a really useful index of battles and a doctor's paper from 1917 on the treatment of shell shock. Hooray for primary sources, are we right? They did get the domain name, after all.

Man, do we feel old. Anyway, if you already know a bit about World War I and want to learn some cool new info or get some untraditional perspectives, head on over to this website. It's run by Oxford, so you know it's extra legit.

Take a virtual tour of a trench. You know you want to.

The original film adaptation of the novel, directed by Dalton Trumbo himself and starring Donald Sutherland as a very '70s Christ. Metallica used footage from this film in their music video for "One," so it must be pretty hardcore.

A beautiful stage adaptation of the novel, and in case that weren't enough, it stars Ben McKenzie (Ryan from The O.C.!) as the one and only Joe.

Unfortunately, the entire thing isn't available for free, but this is an interesting piece that thinks about Johnny Got His Gun in terms of Dalton Trumbo's career and his fight with the Hollywood censors... which was a battle of epic proportions.

A great interview with Trumbo from 1970, in which he discusses his inspiration for Johnny Got His Gun, the in-production movie adaptation, being blacklisted and jailed as a Communist, writing for Hollywood, and the situation in Vietnam and the United States. He has an opinion on everything, that Dalton.

Literally everything you need to know. That was not a misuse of the word "literally."

Dalton Trumbo testifies at the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947... and holy crap, is that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall at 0:24? Yeah, Trumbo was that big of a deal.

The song from which Johnny Got His Gun derives its title. Here's the original recording from 1917, sung by Billy Murray. (No, not Bill Murray.)

Another popular version from the song, also from 1917. This one's sung by Nora Bayes.

Another World War I ditty, just so you have an idea of the lame music people had to listen to back then. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what the lyrics have to do with war, because they don't have anything to do with war. People just thought the song was catchy.

No, we're not talking about over-decorating. One of the buzzwords for World War I was "trench." During offensives, soldiers left the protection (such as it was) of the trenches and ventured into No Man's Land (another buzzword), which was the name given to the opposing trenches, where—guess what?—they made totally easy targets. The phrase "over the top" was part of everyday trench discourse, and it appears in Johnny Got His Gun when Joe is describing the battle that wounded him (12.15).

Now imagine it when it rained.

Just try not to picture this as you're reading.