Johnny Guitar (1954)

I have seen Sterling Hayden in a lot of film that I have been picking up lately, and I must say that I think that he is one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood history. Anyway, there is nothing like mob mentality, and this film proves it. Good acting, good script, Ernest Borgnine (Nicholas Ray gets bonus points for casting him), and some pretty good direction make this a worthwile western for any fan of the genre. Only a couple a places with some shoddy editing make this film kinda weak in my eyes.

Fmovies: Vienna (Joan Crawford) is a woman with an unknown past, who built a saloon in an area outside town, waiting for the railroad, which would pass nearby her bar. She has a great enemy, the evil Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), who wants to expel Vienna from that place. The reason for the dispute is the love for Dancin' Kid (Scott Brady), a handsome man. The simple guitar player Johnny 'Guitar' Logan (Sterling Hayden) arrives in the bar, invited by Vienna, to work with her. The locals are not aware that Johnny was the former lover of Vienna and a famous gunman. When Dancin' Kid and his partners rob the local bank, Emma finds a motive to accuse and chase Vienna.

This movie is an excellent and very feminist western. The story is different from most of other movies of this genre and based on the rivalry of the two lead actresses. I do not recall any other western movie having such powerful roles for women. The DVD released by the Brazilian distributor Versátil is wonderful, being totally restored and re-mastered, highlighting the marvelous colors of the costumes of Joan Crawford. Mercedes McCambridge has an outstanding performance in the role of a very mean and powerful woman. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): 'Johnny Guitar'

"Johnny Guitar" is a perverse and fascinating Western where sexual drive plays an important part in the story... It is known that Emma's madness/hysteria is a result of sexual repression... She detests Vienna, who has her choice of men, when the only man she can stir up herself is ugly Bart... And what is especially enraging for Emma is that while she is desperate for the Kid's love, Vienna, who now has Johnny back, turns the Kid away and still he doesn't stop being loyal to her... Even before Johnny returned to her life, Vienna had reached control over her sexual desires; but Emma hasn't such will power...

Johnny Guitar rides into a small town in the wilds of Arizona... He has been hired to work as guitarist by an aggressive lady of fortune, owner of a saloon-casino... Five years earlier they had been lovers, but he walked out on her, too restless to settle down...

There is a stage robbery, and a banker is killed... Emma Small (Mercedes McCambirdge), the dead man's sister, comes to Vienna's accompanied by the town marshal (Frank Farguson), and the wealthy rancher John McIvers (War Bond), and a bunch of vigilantes...

Emma and McIvers are determined to keep the area an open range for cattle... Emma also despises Vienna because the man she loves, the Dancin'Kid (Scott Brady), is attracted to her... She would rather see the Dancin'Kid dead than with Vienna, and tries to convince her companions that Vienna, the Kid, and the Kid's partners— stingy Bart (Ernest Borgnine), sickly Corey (Royal Dano), and young Turkey (Ben Cooper)—are responsible for her brother's death and should be hanged... Neither the marshal nor her ally McIvers will go along with her without real evidence, but McIvers orders Vienna and the Kid's gang to clear out the town...

That night, Vienna and Johnny admit they still love each lover... They agree to start again, but neither is certain the other can be relied upon... Vienna doesn't like Johnny's violent nature and Johnny is jealous that Vienna has had many lovers...

The following day, the Kid and his three companions decide to rob Emma's bank - figuring that as long as they are being forced to flee the area it might as well be for a genuine crime and not a stage robbery which they had no part in... The bank robbery takes place just as Vienna was withdrawing her money...

Joan Crawford wears black and packs six-guns... She makes all the decisions, initiates the action, and takes the majority of heroic stands—Privileges traditionally denied women in Westerns... Vienna dreams of a railroad and a new town... She wants to remain neutral, and sit and wait for the railroad to come and make her rich... She is at her best when she refuses to allow Emma and the vigilantes to arrest her for the murder of Emma's brother... She sees herself still in love with Johnny... She searches his face in every man she mets... Now she finds it hard keeping the peace between the two men who love her...

As Johnny Guitar, Sterling Hayden is a loner with a past... His character struggles to control hostile impulses... In fact, he begins with true explosion that occurs when he rides across the screen... Soon he finds himself compelled to strap on his gun again to protect his love...

Dressed in a black funeral dress, Mercedes McCambirdge is a highly frustrated Emma who constantly reminds the cattle people that Vienna is a foreigner, having lived in the region only five years... Appealing to their bigotr

Johnny Guitar fmovies. I was 15 the very first time I watched this wonderful movie, and from that moment it became a kind of cult classic, a cinema icon, for me. I had to wait over ten years to be able to enjoy it again, and by this time it had reached the category of legend on my personal film paradise. The great score by Victor Young, which I never could forget, is probably the most romantic and sentimental music ever composed for the screen, with the Johnny Guitar theme, with the voice of Peggy Lee, bringing us the fascination of the legend they called Johnny Guitar. Also the fantastic colourful images, with those reddish tones of fire and passion, and the backgrounds, the landmarks, the characters and the sutile and perfect dialogues, make this film a total masterpiece or modern cinema. A western without savages, cavalry, rodeos, and the usual John Ford stuff. A different western, ahead of its time, and very misunderstood by the public then, but, fortunately, reborn from the limbo and forgiveness, rediscovered by new generations, and still alive, fresh as in its first day, and always inmortal. Joan Crawford was never so great, and the exchange of poisoned words with McCambridge at the saloon "You haven't got the nerve" , and "If I don't kill you first" on reply to "I'll kill you" by Emma, makes me to smile, as both characters show they wear the trousers rather than the men do. In short, there never was a film like Johnny Guitar, and there never will. Now, on its 50th aniversary, it is time to enjoy it once more, and to wish that we could have been at Vienna's, being part of that group of characters with no equal in cinema iconography.

Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) walks into a saloon run by Vienna (Joan Crawford), who is his past love whom he hasn't seen for five years. He's looking for a job as guitar player. Many things has changed since they saw each other for the last time, Vienna turned from a plain saloon singer to its owner, and Johnny Guitar, also known as John Logan, one of the fastest to draw the gun in the West, passed through many tribulations too, but one thing immediately becomes clear as they meet again (`I've waited for you, Johnny') that the major suffering they had to pass through was the solitude, the pain of separation from each other.

But five years is a long time and `How many man have you forgotten? – As many as you remember.' There's a man she hasn't forgotten yet called Dancing Kid and there's also a woman who haven't forgiven Vienna for not forgetting him, his most dangerous rival in life and in love Emma (Mercedes McCambridge), ready to stop before nothing to have her revenge on Vienna and get Dancing Kid's heart back from her possession.

But `Spin the wheel, Eddie!' and here is Emma together with town's Marshal accusing Dancing Kid and his partners of recently committed robbery. The accusation that soon makes them go against the law and flee together with Johnny and Vienna. `Keep the wheel spinning, Eddie!' There they are on the run towards the end culminating in a duel between the two women and in so many loves and so many deaths. `Stop spinning the wheel, Eddie!'

Fabulous acting by fabulous actors, wonderful script with unforgettably intelligent and witty dialogs, magnificent direction and intensity of passions surpassing the impact of deaths of `cowboys dying with the grace of ballet dancers' (François Truffaut in his review on the film). What more can I say? Simply one of the greatest Westerns ever made that deserves to be seen and seen again. 10/10

This deservedly legendary western has to be seen to be believed. Directed by Nicholas Ray in blazing color, courtesy of Harry Stradling, Jr., it's western featuring the rivalry between two women, Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge, as they quarrel over two men, Sterling Hayden and Scott Brady, and shake things up in the Old West, Hollywood style, 1954. The film is for all practical purposes experimental. Ray is indulging himself in color, composition and space, nudging the viewer toward laughter at every twist and turn of its convoluted plot. As a purely visual exercise the film is a rousing success. Although Victor Young's music is nice, and the late Peggy Lee does a good job with the title tune, this one's better with the sound off. It is a movie to see, to experience, and very hard to discuss. Lord knows, I've tried. If you can make sense out of it, I'll buy you dinner. My best guess is that Ray was taking all the aspects of film that are traditionally ancillary and incidental, and putting them ahead of everything else. What I like most about Johnny Guitar is the way Joan Crawford's saloon is designed, the undergound cave, the waterfall, the cabin on top of the hill, the moments of intimacy and emotion as they occur in these places, and how the viewer is encouraged to suspend his disbelief of what the story is about and give into his emotions, as the characters give into theirs', and let the devil take the hindmost. Ray succeeded marvelously here, as there's nothing else quite like this one; and the movies in general as far as I'm concerned are still lagging behind it, by several decades.