The movie could still be about Dickie. But I particularly find Tony's father a much more interesting character, and could have been explored further as they had Jon Bernthal at the role. The actors who played Junior and Johnny Boy in the series' flashbacks were excellent, I expected scenes similar to those in the movie. And he was another character I expected to be demystified as well. Because for many Johnny Boy was a legend, even a saint. I thought we would learn more about him.
Even though he had limited screen time in the show, Johnny Boy Soprano loomed heavily over many of the characters throughout it.
The way that Johnny was written in the Sopranos and the way that Joseph Siravo portrayed him was basically perfect. To me he was Tony with the volume turned up to 11. You can easily see where Tony inherited many of his defining personality traits: his charisma, impulsiveness, ruthlessness, superficial charm and arrogance. By the same token Tony inherited his intelligence and cunning from his mother.
In Many Saints, the way Johnny is written and Jon Bernthal’s performance to me do not convey any of these traits. In the movie, Johnny comes off as somewhat of a bland thug, with Dickie instead being the one who seemingly influences who Tony becomes as an adult, both personality-wise and as a gangster.
This would be all well and good if the Sopranos writers and Siravo didn’t do such a brilliant job with Johnny and his brief screen time in the series. It’s like they sacrificed who Johnny was in the show for the sake of Dickie’s character in the movie. Of the many slaps in the face to Sopranos fans in Many Saints, Johnny in particular stood out to me.
I’d like to see others’ thoughts on this.
In Fun House, Tony is looking through a fixed set of binoculars and watching himself play cards with Paulie in an airline hangar.
The camera shows them in the hangar and then cuts back to show Tony watching himself in the hangar. It does this three separate times - but on the third time (you have to look closely) it's an image of Johnny Boy Soprano, not Pulie. That is when we see Tony shoot his opponent (the image he has of his Dad) in the gut.
"FUCKING ALBACORE AROUND MY NECK"
"I'D RATHER SMOTHER THEM WITH A PILLOW, THAN TAKE THEM TO NEVADA"
He looks just like someone named johnny boy beautiful casting lmao
What kind of nickname is “Johnny Boy”? Is it an Italian thing or a Jersey thing? Hey thats Johnny Boy Soprano!!!
According to @membersonlysoprano and @garry_pastore on Instagram
I assume Saints of Newark is already done filming right? This guy was an ace in that role
Early into season 1 Tony is discussing his childhood to Dr. Melfi. We are shown a few flashback scenes of when Johnny boy was taking a young Janice to the fun house amusement park every Sunday. We see Johnny boy taking her two weeks in a row, each time he's in Junior's baby blue Cadillac, rather than his own notorious black Cadillac.
He does this in order to keep his plate numbers clean from federal notes. He throws Junior under the bus by taking his brothers blue Cadillac so that Junior's plates will be tracked rather than his own. So in the case of any potential future trouble involving the dealings at the fun house, Junior would be suspect instead of Johnny.
This ultimately fails we find out but still the spirit of it is that he was trying to use a vulnerable Junior Soprano to save his own freedom, just as Tony does in the Season 1 power struggle.
It was probably the only time the old man got laid.
Would you guys be down to watch it, or would you give it a hard pass?
Did anyone else enjoy the scenes with Joseph Siravo as Johnny boy as much as I did? Maybe it’s similar to the dream sequences in that the scenes from the 50’s and 60’s were shot with a much brighter and vivid colour, the characters and Johnny himself are almost like cartoon stereotypes, when Tony is reminiscing to surrealistic pillow 👌
How did he get out within a few hours for a parole violation? Unless they handled it differently in the 60's, a parole violation results in a blue warrant/motion to revoke (MTR). You're usually remanded without bond until you can see a judge.
Perhaps that wasn't the reason he was arrested or maybe Tony misremembered (but Tony did remember Livia blocking the family from moving to Reno).
According to my husband and his spreadsheet there is only one answer
I hadn’t read Tony’s Vicarious Patricide until recently, and now I’m interested in what kind of guy Johnny Boy really was. We know he wasn’t a choir boy, but Tony’s memories of him (that he shares) are superficial, so until Many Saints comes out, we have to dig deeper to learn more about him.
If we look at Janice and her relationships, she seems to go for two different types. Sure she goes after softies like Bobby Baccala and that kid that could go all night, but she was just using them because that’s what Sopranos do to people. The other kind of guy she likes is the Richie-Ralphie type. Tony warmed up to Bobby, but he always had problems with Richie and Ralphie, which hints at the possibility that they reminded him of Johnny Boy too.
So what do Richie and Ralphie have in common that might tell us more about Johnny Boy? They’re clearly two of the coldest, most psychotic members of the DiMeo/Soprano family. They both have zero problem beating up women. Neither had good relationships with their sons; Richie was disappointed in his son, and Ralphie’s son was scared to death of him. They both have some pretty fucked up sexual proclivities. Maybe Janice killing Richie and throwing Ralphie down the stairs was her version of the Vicarious Patricide.
I’ll stop short of suggesting Johnny Boy may have abused Janice, cause that’s fuckin slander if you ask me, but then again, anything’s possible. Anyone wanna weigh in here?
On parole, arrested for hanging out with known criminals, home in a couple hours, tries moving the family to Nevada. Very suspicious, no?
We do see him younger, when Tony was a kid-teenager. But if lived to see Tony as how he was in the show, who do you think would have done a great job at playing him?
Here's my understanding. Tony's view of his dad led to flashbacks which portrayed Johnny as this sociopathic Dean Martin esque entertaining figure as one user put it. But MSON had a different guy who was the charismatic one in this movie. Dickie. So Johnny was meant to be portrayed as an unlikeable guy with none of Siravo's portrayal's charismatic qualities which were more shown in Dickie than Johnny. I saw a lot of people saying "well Jon's portrayal was like a generic italian thug". Well, yes that was the point. Chase reworked this character to be a more generic stereotypical goon. While dickie was the charismatic evil influence on Tony.
The Johnny here is probably more close to what Melfi deduces, a hotheaded, evil asshole who was still a leader, aka like Tony but without the charm. Which was exactly Chase's intention probably, and Jon portrayed him well from what little screen time of him we saw.
I like Sopranos flashback Johnny so much better than MSON Johnny, anyone with me? Discuss…
- she put it on the street with Setemia and Kiki but they never collected.
- she gave it to cousin Brian Camaratta to invest but Tony wouldn't sign the living trust
- lost it playing in the executive card game (these guys play deeeeeep)
- buried it next to Juniors take from the Vauxhall thing but forgot to wrap it right.
- gave it to Barbara.
How can his continued existence affect the show?
I'm on my second watch of the sopranos and I remember hating Johnny Sack on my first watch but now I'm on season 6 and (SPOILERS→) he's got the cancer and I don't even remember why I hated him. I find him such a tragic character who just wanted to do right and I feel like on this second watch, I've missed what made him an antagonist or maybe he wasn't an antagonist at all and it was all in my head at first. what do you guys think?
I began to think about what the power dynamic would have been and how it would have evolved if Johnny Boy was in the picture. With Jackie already dying from cancer, would Johhny been the next in line? Would him an Junior go to war? Would Tony become underboss? I am curious to hear your theories and thoughts on how things could have played out based on what we know about the characters now.
I get the MSON movie lacks a punch like everybody expects but I figured it was meant to be just the start of any upcoming movies or series. I can't stop thinking about the next movies/series. Pretty much MSON leaves you excited for more and it did a great job.
In the series, Tony mentions several time his respect for his elders, referring to them as "the generation who fought in WW2". Is it ever mentioned directly whether Junior or Johnny Boy served in the military during the war?
Edit: the quote I was thinking of was "those people went through WW2".
We all know Johnny Sack was using Paulie to gain an ear and influence over the Soprano crew. That's how he found out about the joke in the first place, Zellman and HUD, etc. When the sit down happened over whether or not to whack Ralph, Tony says he's willing to placate John if his source corroborates what John is saying. This is where John sells his wife down the river. He cared just enough about Ginny to make a stink over an alleged joke but was smart enough not to sell out Paulie. He was a real slippery fuck.
wasn't Johnny soprano supposed to be out of prison after him getting busted with janice or did he spend some time because i remember in the flashback in the tv show he returned home the same day he was captured
I mean, they are fundamentally so different, especially Livia, who is a maneater borderline personality type. Plus Johnny could have been with any other woman. I wonder what it is about Livia that made him ultimately choose her and a miserable marriage.
never realized this until a couple weeks ago. it was a revelation.
I can't help but feel there is a ton of projection going on. He reminds me of every boy playing Nintendo and collecting Pokémon cards in the 90s and 00s. Every boy failing to connect with a hard father and a helicopter mother and a hopeless directionless world. Even the lack of appreciation for the brilliant way you see exactly how this character was made. It sounds so unintelligent to actually emotionally hate a character like that. Especially a character who if they were real, you probably would have biked to their house and played video games with them and awkwardly stood there with them when their father yelled about something. I think fans seriously don't understand who they'd like to be around in real life, or who they would actually be like. If Tony met you in real life he'd humiliate you or take something from you without a second thought. You wouldn't like him. You'd probably get along with A.J. though.
Ps i haven’t rly listened in a while i just like the special guests .. so if i missed the reasons why - sorry
Many Saints will be about how Johnny, Junior, Dickie, and maybe Richie achieve their Mob Sainthood. I think they will start out like Christopher when he was a made man. Be on the bottom of the totem pole. The movie will show how these guys got their button. We may also see a young Paulie get treated like an associate. That is why the movie is called Many Saints. Its about these made men getting their respect
