Johnny Guitar

You're nothing but a railroad tramp who's not fit to live amongst decent people.

Johnny Guitar is out of Republic Pictures and is directed by Nicholas Ray. It's written by Phillip Yordan, who adapts from a novel written by Roy Chanslor, and it stars Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Ward Bond, Ernest Borgnine & Scott Brady. Victor Young scores the music, with the theme tune sung by Peggy Lee, and Harry Stradling Senior photographs in Trucolor.

On the outskirts of an Arizona cattle town is a saloon run by the strong willed Vienna (Crawford). It's not a busy place, and the users of it tend to be more of the rough kind, notably The Dancing Kid (Brady) and his gang. At the request of Vienna, her former lover Johnny Guitar (Hayden) arrives for his employment as the musical entertainment. But he walks into a war, a war between Vienna and the townsfolk led by the vicious and vindictive Emma Small (McCambridge).

Johnny Guitar has been called many things. From the deep thinkers who like to call it a feminist statement, an anti McCarthyism allegory and a piece smouldering with sexual repressions and yearnings - to the detractors calling it rubbish, campy and acted so badly that it actually smells of bacon cooking in the kitchen. What is immediately evident about it is that once viewed it's unlikely to be forgotten - which ever side of the fence you sit.

It was a troubled production that saw both Hayden & McCambridge declare a dislike for Crawford, with Crawford reciprocating the dislike for McCambridge by insisting that her character of Vienna be given more meat from which to further dominate the film. Fans of the film will forever be grateful for Crawford's jealousy, for she got her way, this was after all a vehicle for her, if she had walked, as was threatened, it would have died a death. The shift in emphasis, with the subversion of gender roles, is what makes Johnny Guitar the most intriguing and unusual film that it is.

Upon release...

A cult 50’s Western that’s colorful, melodramatic, surreal and mesmerizing

The railroad is coming soon to a town in northern Arizona where a tough saloon owner (Joan Crawford) faces off with a power-mad cattle baron (Mercedes McCambridge) over the Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady) and more. Into this mix Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) rides into town, a former love of the saloon proprietor. Who will be left standing when the ashes settle?

“Johnny Guitar” (1954) is melodramatic to the point of being surreal, not to mention implausible, but it's colorful, passionate, original and spellbinding. It's a Tarantino Western 40 years before Tarantino movies existed. The director, Nicholas Ray, also did “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) so imagine that kind of overwrought 50’s melodrama translated to a Western, albeit in glorious color.

Despite the title, Crawford’s Vienna is the undoubted protagonist counterbalanced by McCambridge’s fiendishly neurotic antagonist, who might bring to mind the Wicked Witch of the West.

Interesting quirky bits are thrown in that enhance the picture, like the A-framed saloon built into the side of a cliff; Vienna’s piano recital in a bridal dress; and Old Tom (John Carradine) reading a book while on guard duty. Then there’s the mystery of why no one in the area would be aware of the secret passageway behind the waterfall that leads to the “hideout” curiously located on top of a rock mount plain for all to see.

I shouldn’t fail to mention Ernest Borgnine as a gang member of questionable character.

The film runs 1 hour, 50 minutes, and was shot in the Sedona region of north-central Arizona, including Oak Creek Canyon, with studio stuff done at Republic Studios in North Hollywood.

GRADE: A-

“Vienna” (Joan Crawford) runs her bar on the outskirts of town earning the disdain of just about everyone else. When the stagecoach is robbed, a baying mob turn up accusing her of involvement. They haven’t a shred of evidence, but egged on by “Emma” (Mercedes McCambridge) whose brother had been killed, the sheriff (Frank Ferguson) and local kingpin “McIvers” (Ward Bond) are determined to take her in. Luckily, she has just hired “Johnny” (Sterling Hayden) to come and pluck some strings for the punters’ entertainment and so his, unarmed, intervention lessens the tension a little and then the local gunslinging “Dancin’ Kid” (Scott Brady) arrives with his gang and the would be posse leaves empty-handed but with “Emma” swearing that she will have her revenge. “Vienna” had the “Kid” have some past, so when she takes a shine to the bravado of her new guitarist that causes a bit of chagrin not just from the “Kid” but from his right-hand henchman “Bart” (Ernest Borgnine) who seems the easily offended sort. There’s a semblance of a truce holding next day until the bank is robbed and this time the townsfolk know who it was, and that “Vienna” just happened to be making a withdrawal of her own at the same time! Two and two is swiftly put together and soon a large conflagration, some crawling through old silver mines and even a secret hideaway are in the mix as the action hots up and, of course, we discover that “Johnny” isn’t quite the pacifist he’d pretended to be at the start. Barbara Stanwyck was my favourite when it came to strong, characterful, women in this genre but here, Joan Crawford gives her a run for her money. Her sassy attitude, tempered with an alluring personality, works quite well as she defiantly struts her stuff whilst keeping the more thuggish elements of her town eating out of her hands. By comparison, Brady, Hayden and the usually dependable Bond all pale into an insignificance as the plot develops into a grudge match between two women with an axe to grind...