brucetwo-2 I'd give this film maybe 4 stars for plot, but probably 8 stars for its original and experimental cinematography and production. It is a 1960s experimental film, but with a big-studio budget and real actors. I saw this on a college film series many years ago, and like most viewers had mixed feelings about it--not the greatest film ever made, but certainly a lot of original stuff. This is more a film of bits and scenes than a whole story. If you want to see a more coherent movie about a young woman in the big city--try "TWENTY"--good, realistic and fun and sexy too.One memorable scene from Joanna--Ms. Waite is discovered in bed with an older man when his wife unexpectedly turns up, suitcases and all, in the bedroom--caught! She deals with this by saying "Been away?" and then rushes out of the apartment in what seems to be her bedclothes. This is followed by an overwrought montage of her wandering through some lush urban park in slow motion. We do not see the psychological progression of her romance with her black lover. Just moments of them dancing together in a hallway, and then her crying after visiting him in prison.Some IMDb reviewers have panned Donald Sutherland's performance here, but I thought he was good, and original.. His whole subplot was great!--The trip to North Africa, the closeup of the setting sun--first time I'd ever seen that effect. Sutherland's death scene is done very originally. The camera pulls back about 500 feet from his bedstead when he dies--very exaggerated and surreal. Makes a point, but again kind of overwrought.The exuberance and experimental nature of this film make it a real product of the 1960s. It should be lumped together with the Beatles' MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR and later the Who's TOMMY. Not to mention the first 20 years of MTV in the 1980s and beyond. --Films inspired by art school classes and Italian movies by Fellini and Antonioni.No this is not a perfect work of art or of movie entertainment, but hurray for it's willingness to try new stuff! Two bits of info about the star--Genvieve Waite--she told people that she was the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe--even though she was clearly born before MM even died. Also--after this film, she was married for a few years to John Phillips of the rock band "Mamas and Papas." She underwent a grueling period of heroin addiction with him, and this is recounted at length in his autobiography "PAPA JOHN."

Vaughn A. Carney This film could almost be viewed as the "let's-get-real" answer to "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", a film that probably still could not get made in the U.S. As a snapshot of "swinging London" in the sixties, "Joanna" has it all. But Donald Sutherland absolutely steals this movie as Lord Peter Sanderson; his strange, wonderful, secular soliloquy on a Moroccan beach at sunset still provokes both goose pimples and tears. South African actress Genevieve Waite, who plays the wide-eyed heroine, was declared persona non grata in her native country after making this film, solely because of her love scenes with Calvin Lockhart (she later emigrated to the U.S. and married John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas). All in all, a strange, wonderful, campy, mystic trip to the sixties.

jimmiddleton68 This film for me is rather a distant memory. I think at the time, I rather enjoyed the movie but really what sticks out in my mind is the beautiful rendition of the song Joanna recorded by Tony Bennett. I would like to view the film now, just to weigh in on it from a decidedly expanded life experience.

richarre I get that Joanna is a sort of Candide, an innocent heroine whose adventures are probably meant to give the director an opportunity to comment on aspects of the culture. That she has (or should have) this larger function is the only thing that could justify the big song and dance at the end, which is supposed to show that Joanna's transit through the other characters' lives has turned them around, made them see beauty and sweetness and gentleness and other faux hippie-dippy nonsense that would have made Voltaire scream. Joanna might be interesting if she were a puzzle, but she is a blank, she can barely be said to have any behavior at all. She is a beautiful rag doll, and your only response when she is mistreated is to hope that getting taken for granted or slapped around (and her bleating sorrow that follows) won't mar her features. In a general way, of course, you hate to see a movie doing some of the things to a character that are done to Joanna unless there is some point to be made, and the best point that could be made in this kind of Candide story when, for instance, Joanna's boyfriend philosophizes that women want to be treated rough and then he does just that -- as I'm saying, the best point that could be made from this is that this is the way the world is, here are some of the terrible cracks exposed in the world Joanna lives in. But no, the movie goes along with the troglodyte attitude and Joanna responds the way her boyfriend intends she should. All this might still be fun in an archeological kind of way, i.e., look what passed for social philosophy in the Sixties, if there were any energy in the directing, the writing, the music or, barring all that, in more than one or two of the main performances. Joanna's a dead fish. Donald Sutherland is even worse, but for such a great actor to put in such a poor performance says a lot about the writing and directing (was there a dialect coach anywhere?), but especially the writing. Sutherland's part is easily the worst written of a badly written movie. How could it not be? He is meant to exemplify the psychedelic metaphysics of beauty and oneness that the movie makes pastel stabs at pushing, and he has to spout all this hooey about it and he is supposed to find its embodiment in that shapely potato, Joanna, and then he is supposed to die, which is the best thing he does. Do I need to summarize? When I and my co-workers start talking movies and nominating the worst movies ever made (we do spend more time on good movies than bad) Joanna is high on my list.