Johnny Guitare

Just outside of town is a small saloon where the owner, Vienna, plans to develop a new town once the railroad comes through. However her associations with criminals (namely the Dancin' Kid and his gang) bring the disapproving Emma Small and the authorities to the saloon. Aided by the arrival of a man from her past, Vienna stands against them, but only succeeds in putting off the inevitable confrontation in a situation made worse by love and deception.

I came to this film simply because it was the username of another person on the imdb boards and I was intrigued as to what it was about. The film starts as a western but it simply doesn't conform to that genre, instead it is a weirdly matriarchal piece where the traditional roles are almost roundly reversed and the whole film has an otherworldly feel to it. The plot summary doesn't really do justice to a story that essentially comes down to being a battle between Emma and Vienna as well as throwing up all manner of issues regarding the relationships between the characters. The western clichés become secondary to these relationships and the director seems to prefer these to any lynching or shoot out.

The full colour of the film gives it a gaudy, otherworldly appeal that is very enjoyable. Fires range in terrible, hellish reds, while shadows divide scenes of emotional complexity. Heck, it even goes down to the basic level of having the innocent Vienna dressed in perfect white before doing a blood red shirt to become a fugitive. Not all of this works of course, and several times I wished it would settle down into a film that I could recognise rather than being so different from what I am used to, but it was more interesting as a result (aside from being less accessible).

The cast are roundly good but the fireworks belong to the two lead actresses. Despite being the title character, Hayden is rather underplayed but I think that was the point - he is not the typical Western man's man. Crawford is very good as Vienna but she is out-hammed and out-vamped by McCambridge who is excellent. In any other film her performance would be woefully OTT but against the background of a saloon burning with a hellish fire, her facial expression work very well and her whole performance fits well too.

Overall this film is no classic western - mainly because it is not a western but rather a complex story in western clothes. The gaudy colours and cleverly framed shots only serve to enhance a plot that is difficult to fully appreciate but is engaging none the less.

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-

I'm not a big fan of Westerns. I just find a sameness to them that I can't get over. I had read that this was interesting. It was. First of all, the two protagonists are women. Joan Crawford, hanging on to her saloon, waiting for the arrival of the railroad, and Mercedes McCambridge, looking absolutely possessed, getting every man in town to follow her to the point of hanging people. Then there's Sterling Hayden, Jack Ripper from Dr. Strangelove, a puzzling character of great complexity, the gunfighter who can't stay out of the business. Add a few character actors and a relentless effort to ignite a fire and keep progress away, and you've got a really engaging film. It's obvious this was made with a higher budget, good camera work and some excellent settings. I'm sure someone has addressed all the symbols in the movie. Green dresses (envy), white dresses (purity), red dresses (time to kick butt). There are lots of scenes framed for effect as well. I recommend this film.

Director Nicholas Ray and credited writer Philip Yordan, not to mention a few other writers drafted in to prevent a disenchanted Joan Crawford from walking off the set, have succeeded in transforming what Ray himself called a 'valueless novel' into what can only be described as an unique filmic experience.

It remains a load of nonsense of course but is elevated by Harry Stradling's cinematography, Ray's compositional sense and a strong cast. The contrast between the natural exteriors and the mannered art direction of the interiors is also very effective.

It has since been categorised by various academics as a 'feminist' film. Looking at the mannish, gun-toting Vienna of Joan Crawford and the sexually repressed, vengeance-seeking Emma of Mercedes McCambridge, I consider that label to be totally inapt. Both artistes are marvellous in their roles however and the most has been made of Miss Crawford's wonderfully expressive eyes but it is the demented performance by the immensely talented Miss McCambridge that provides the film's core.

That core should really have been provided by the relationship between Vienna and the title character but this is alas something of a damp squib. Although Sterling Hayden's presence is undeniable he again has the look of a reluctant performer who'd prefer to be elsewhere.

Strong support from Ward Bond whilst Ernest Borgnine impresses once more as a Neanderthal nitwit. Veteran John Carradine does his best with the underwritten role of Old Tom and the role of Dancin' Kid represents Scott Brady's finest hour, although that would not be difficult.

Although it has become a must for Ray cultists the film had a mixed reception as it was not the full-blown Western that film goers expected in the Hollywood of the 1950's. It was very much appreciated by the French who probably did not class it as a Western at all and it received the seal of approval from the New Ripple brigade.

Westerns have often been called 'horse operas' and they don't come much more operatic than this one. Mr. Ray hit the nail on the head when later referring to his film as 'baroque, very baroque.'

Johnny Guitar is a gender drama with obsessive personalities flirting with dementia: the character played by Mercedes McCambridge is unmistakably the main baddie, but Joan Crawford's character is not completely pleasant, grimacing as she does through much of the movie. Vienna's own sexually linked psychological fixation influences her in correspondingly curious digressions; she dresses thoroughly in white in a climactic scene where she must confront McCambridge, who dresses in black for most of the film. The men dramatically defer to the powerful determination and identities of these two women. Sterling Hayden as the eponymous hero is something less of a hero on account of Crawford's compulsion. The fact that he plays a guitar and travels without a gun gives a hint to the devalorizing of the Western hero boilerplate inferred by the title. He's a subordinate character, given to hesitation. He's mainly a bystander: His catchphrase is "I'm a stranger here myself," which can also characterize Nicholas Ray here himself.

The other male principals also take a subordinate role to the women; none of the posse, not even McIvers, its suggested chief, can bring himself to refuse McCambridge's Emma, even when lives depend on it. The Dancin' Kid makes several crucial choices, including the robbing of a bank, based on whether or not Vienna will go on reciprocating his sentiments rather than leaving him for Johnny. Johnny and the Kid are both atypically tender cowboys in contrast with the icons of the time, together with the basis that each has a creative craft that's part of his name, and that both in most cases allow the female characters to make the choices and are inclined to comply with them.

Scorsese has talked about the great theme-smugglers of the studio era who snuck subversive elements past the scrutiny of the censors. This is definitely true and admirable, but sometimes I'm baffled at what must've been functional retardation on the part of Hayes' puritan committee. This 1954 Freudian Western is one of the record out-of-the-blue phenomenons of the studio system, a film so insubordinate it's a miracle it ever got made. But despite its genre, this is a gentle, thin-skinned film, Ray's tenderest avowal of his outsider theme.

As with Ray's In a Lonely Place, On Dangerous Ground and Bitter Victory, characters come across truths that they don't want to admit to themselves or others, and sometimes this information is obvious to those around them first. He uses innuendo as a way to deal with plot developments that can't be externalized, or those that haven't come to pass yet. The characters are rounded out through teasing, accusation, high emotion.

Ray, known for his dramatic use of architecture, was keen on the meanings of the horizontal line, which serves a western particularly well. The first and second halves of the film have different visual styles. But both sections feature extensive panning. The second half features brilliant landscape photography, as Ray's camera pans over snow-covered mountain roads and trails. These sections are unusual in that they don't feature wilderness areas. Instead, these scenes always have human habitations in them: roads, farmhouses, paths, and other human constructions. They can be described as rural, or as tourist areas: the sort of remote but inhabited location one might go to on vacation. Such locales rarely pop up in movies. Westerns, which feature vast landscapes, tend to have wilderness areas without modern buildings. And contemporary films rarely go to such poverty stricken tourist spots, preferring resort and wilderness areas with more glamour.

However, no matter what intellectual appreciation movie buffs and film scholars and critics have for it, it's impossible to deny its utterly ham-fisted acting and soapy plot strands, all approaching out-and-out kitsch. I've seen a good deal of westerns with more understated, salt-of-the-earth acting that brought me closer to the grit inherent to its environment. This is the diametric opposite of being one of them. Did any of them have whiplash after a certain amount of takes? Why such intense about-faces and comic-book demeanor? Was Douglas Sirk on set? After awhile, I gave up on the performances. Their imaginations don't seem engaged. They pretend self-consciously. They're stiff, tightly wound. They never let go. And though Crawford is never uninteresting or by any means bad in any film in which I see her, I feel she should've been told as much as necessary that acting is not a competition, that everything must be done for the good of the film or everybody else is put at risk. But she's not the only one who showboats here; everybody does. Despite a cast of performers that tend to intrigue me, the two females, Hayden, Ernest Borgnine, I could only rely on Ray's building of tension through montage and his marshaling of the plot to keep me engaged. Nevertheless, Johnny Guitar is a certain kind of film that has upheld its rank by repositioning itself every decade since its release.