D’ou viens tu Johnny (1963)

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017) was the father of French Rock and Roll and a teenager idol with record-breaking crowds and mass hysteria. Like Elvis Presley, Hallyday's fame as a rock and roll heartthrob landed him parts in several films as the 'good bad boy'. D'où viens-tu, Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noel Howard, 1964) was his film debut. Johnny performs three solo songs and one duet with Sylvie Vartan.


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 546 Vis. 1. Photo: Johnny Hallyday in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 547 Vis. 2. Photo: Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 548 Vis. 3. Photo: Johnny Hallyday in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 550 Vis. 4. Photo: Johnny Hallyday in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 551 Vis. 5. Photo: Johnny Hallyday and Evelyne Dandry in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).

The good bad boy

In D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963), Johnny Hallyday is Johnny Rivière, a young musician in Paris. Johnny enjoys life and is always in need of money. The young Parisian with a passion for rock ‘n’ roll and his musicians use the basement of a bar as a rehearsal room, in exchange for the small services he provides for the owner, Mr Franck. He does not know that Franck is working for the mafia. When he discovers that the men deal with drugs, Johnny throws them in the Seine. He flees to the Camargue, a region in southern France, where his uncle lives. Now, Johnny's pursued by two mafia killers but doesn't know it. In the wonderful landscape of the Camargue, he finds his uncle and his childhood love, but also an enemy, Django, and more trouble awaits him.

D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963) started Johnny Hallyday's relationship with the cinema. Johnny's girlfriend is played by his soon-to-be wife Sylvie Vartan whose performance is so dismal it's much fun to watch her. DB DuMonteil at IMDb: 'By no means a good film, by a long shot, Johnny's debut retains some freshness, whereas the rest of his cinematographic career - even when he was directed by more ambitious people like Costa-Gavras or Robert Hossein -can easily be dismissed.'

With D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (1963), director Noël Howard tried to imitate the Elvis Presley features. The whole film's premise is to hear Johnny Hallyday sing and see him ride through the Camargue. By following Johnny from Paris to the Camargue, the film undergoes a visual metamorphosis, moving from black and white to colour. Cinematographer Walter Wottitz really created a Western atmosphere by emphasizing the beauty of the landscape in the Camargue. The Camargue in the south of France with its horses, its 'gardians' (French cowboys) and its wilderness fits the bill of a French Western quite well.

The cinematography and the songs are the highlights of the film. Since both Johnny and Sylvie Vartan were popular singers at the time, they got to interpret some songs. The four songs of the soundtrack are originals, composed by fellow yéyé singer Jean-Jacques Debout. They are quite pleasant, particularly the infectious 'Pour moi la vie va commencer' and the romantic ballad 'Rien n'a changé'. D'où viens-tu Johnny? was one of the biggest hits of 1963 at the French box office, coming 10th with 2,785,185 admissions.

Hallyday impersonated a character that was at the same time the role model of the disenchanted young and one respecting the morals of the older generation. This contradiction is the nature of the 'good bad boy'. He was good when facing the authorities, but bad before his fans, who searched for a counterpoint to their more conservative parents. In his essay, 'D'où viens-tu Johnny?, Le survivant mythique', essayist Olivier Mongin characterised Johnny Hallyday as a person full of contradictions. Hallyday loved appearing on the stage and on film despite his shy nature. According to Mongin, Johnny employed the persona of the 'good bad boy' as a facade to hide his real, sensitive character, marked by many pains.


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 552 Vis. 6. Photo: Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 541 Vis. 7. Photo: Johnny Hallyday and Evelyne Dandry in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 542 Vis. 8. Photo: Johnny Hallyday and Evelyne Dandry in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 543 Vis. 9. Photo: Johnny Hallyday and Pierre Barouh and Henri Vilbert in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).


French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 544 Vis. 10. Photo: Johnny Hallyday and Pierre Barouh and Henri Vilbert in D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).

Sources: DB DuMonteil (IMDb), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.