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AKA Door-to-Door Maniac, is the story of Johnny Cabot (Johnny Cash), a bank robber with a homicidal streak.  Johnny is in  a robbery gone awry and has to kill three cops to get away.  He is suspicious that someone ratted him out and he goes on the lamb in New Jersey with his girlfriend.

He gets hooked up with Fred (Vic Tayback), who has a plan that he thinks can't fail. Instead of robbing the bank, Johnny will take the bank vice presidents wife Nancy Wilson hostage while Fred extorts 70 grand from her husband Ken at the bank.

Fred seems to know Johnny's girlfriend, though she denies it.  When they get back to the hotel Johnny tells her the plan, then shoots her (remember the homicidal part).

Fred has the Wilson's daily schedule down, so he and Johnny stake out the house and wait for Ken and son Bobby (Ronnie Howard) to leave. There is a whole soap opera bit for a bout 15 minutes in this part where Ken gripes about Nancy never making time for him and Bobby since she became Vice President of the Women's club.  What Nancy doesn't know is that Ken has an English mistress and he plans on leaving Nancy.

After Ken and Bobby leave, Johnny goes up to door pretending to be a door-to-door guitar instructor. He gets in the house with the old "can I have a drink of water" scam.  He thens spends the next few hours terrorizing and serenading her.

Meanwhile Fred is working Ken at the bank. At first Ken tells Fred he would doing him favor by killing his wife, but after he gets Fred the dough he has second thoughts. There's another problem for Fred. The ancient geezer security guy at the bank recognizes him , so the jig is up. Only now Johnny won't get the call not to kill Nancy.

Bobby surprises Johnny by showing up at lunch time.  Then the cops show up and Johnny takes Bobby hostage. When one of the cops is shot by Johnny he shoots back apparently killing Bobby. Johnny has a thing about killing kids and freaks out and is then killed by the other cop.

Bobby miraculously springs to life (seems he was playing dead like he saw on TV).



The best part of this movie was watching Johnny Cash playing a wacko, he does convincing job.  The other surprising bit was seein Vic Tayback with a headful of hair.

Love when you can find a rare relatively unknown film with some star in it like Johnny Cash. Especially if it's watchable.