Johnny Guitar

On the outskirts of a wind-swept Arizona cattle town, an aggressive and strong-willed saloonkeeper named Vienna maintains a volatile relationship with the local cattlemen and townsfolk. Not only does she support the railroad being laid nearby (the cattlemen oppose it), but she permits "The Dancin' Kid" (her former amour) and his confederates to frequent her saloon.

The locals, led by John McIvers and egged on by Emma Small, a onetime rival of Vienna, are determined to force Vienna out of town, and the hold-up of the stage (they suspect, erroneously, by "The Dancin' Kid") offers a perfect pretext.

Vienna faces them down, helped by the mysterious and just arrived Johnny Guitar. McIvers gives Vienna, Johnny Guitar, and "The Dancin Kid" and his sidekicks 24 hours to leave. Johnny turns out to be Vienna's ex-lover and a reformed gunslinger whose real name is Johnny Logan. A smouldering love/hate relationship develops.

The Dancin' Kid and his gang rob the town bank to fund their escape to California, but the pass is blocked by a railroad crew dynamiting a way in, and they flee back to their secret hideout behind a waterfall. Emma Small convinces the townsfolk that Vienna is as guilty as the rest, and the posse rides to her saloon.

Vienna appears to be getting the best of another verbal confrontation when one of the wounded bank robbers, Turkey, is discovered under a table. Emma persuades the men to hang Vienna and Turkey, and burns the saloon down. At the last second Vienna is saved by Johnny Guitar. Vienna and Johnny escape the posse and find refuge in The Dancin' Kid's secret hideaway.

The posse tracks them down, and the last two of Kid's men are killed by infighting. A halt is called to the bloodbath by the posse's leader, McIvers. Emma challenges Vienna to a showdown and shoots Vienna in the shoulder; The Dancin' Kid calls to Emma but is killed by a bullet to the head by an angered Emma. Vienna then shoots Emma in the head. The posse allows Johnny and Vienna to leave the hideout in peace, watching them go.

• Joan Crawford as Vienna
• Sterling Hayden as Johnny Guitar (Johnny Logan)
• Mercedes McCambridge as Emma Small
• Scott Brady as The Dancin' Kid
• Ward Bond as John McIvers
• Ben Cooper as Turkey Ralston
• Ernest Borgnine as Bart Lonergan
• John Carradine as Old Tom
• Royal Dano as Corey
• Frank Ferguson as Marshal Williams
• Paul Fix as Eddie
• Rhys Williams as Mr. Andrews
• Ian MacDonald as Pete
• Robert Osterloh as Sam

Crawford and Nick Ray were scheduled to make a film called Lisbon at Paramount, but the script proved unacceptable. Crawford held the film rights to the book, which author Roy Chanslor had dedicated to her, brought the script to Republic and had them hire Ray to direct it.[5][6][7][8]

Crawford wanted either Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck for the role of Emma Small, but they were too expensive.[9] Claire Trevor was next in mind for the role but was unable to accept because she was tied up with another film.[10] Finally, Nicholas Ray brought in McCambridge.

Most people claimed Crawford was easy to work with, always professional, generous, patient and kind.[11][12] Issues between the two women cropped up early on, but Ray was not alarmed – at first. He found it "heaven sent" that they disliked each other and felt it added greatly to the dramatic conflict.[7] The reasons for the feud appear to date back to a time when Crawford had once dated McCambridge's husband, Fletcher Markle. According to some of the other co-stars, McCambridge needled Crawford about it.[11] McCambridge also appears to have disliked that Crawford and Ray were in the midst of an affair. Crawford, on the other hand, disliked what she perceived to be "special attention" that Ray was giving to McCambridge.[7]

Making things worse was that McCambridge was battling alcoholism during this period,[13] something she admitted later contributed to the problems between her and Crawford.[14]

After filming, McCambridge and Hayden publicly declared their dislike of Crawford, with McCambridge labeling Crawford, "a mean, tipsy, powerful, rotten-egg lady".[15] Hayden said in an interview, "There is not enough money in Hollywood to lure me into making another picture with Joan Crawford. And I like money." [16]

Crawford for her part said of McCambridge, "I have four children – I do not need a fifth." [7]

Later, Ray claimed that Crawford, during a rage, drunkenly threw McCambridge's costumes into the street.[17] Crawford later laughingly admitted she had thrown McCambridge's own clothing into the street.[7] Ray also said of that time, "Joan was drinking a lot and she liked to fight," but that she was also "very attractive, with a basic decency." [18]

Despite a number of initial negative reviews,[19] in the United States and Canada Johnny Guitar grossed more than $2.5 million as of January 1955 ($21,396,003.72 in 2012 dollars, adjusted for inflation) [20] and was No. 27 on Variety's list of top money makers of 1954.[21]

Variety commented, "It proves [Crawford] should leave saddles and Levis to someone else and stick to city lights for a background. [The film] is only a fair piece of entertainment. [The scriptwriter] becomes so involved with character nuances and neuroses, all wrapped up in dialogue, that [the picture] never has a chance to rear up in the saddle... The people in the story never achieve much depth, this character shallowness being at odds with the pretentious attempt at analysis to which the script and direction devotes so much time."[22]

Bosley Crowther singled out Crawford's physical bearing for criticism in his New York Times review, stating "no more femininity comes from her than from the rugged [Van] Heflin in 'Shane.' For the lady, as usual, is as sexless as the lions on the public library steps and as sharp and romantically forbidding as a package of unwrapped razor blades."[23]

The film later became regarded [24] as one of Ray's best films, topped by the famous title song. The film has a 93% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average score of 8.5/10 based on the reviews of 45 critics, with the general consensus being "Johnny Guitar confidently strides through genre conventions, emerging with a brilliant statement that transcends its period setting -- and left an indelible mark."[25]

The film was beloved by French filmmaker François Truffaut, who described it as the "Beauty and the Beast of Westerns, a Western dream".[26] Truffaut was especially impressed by the film's extravagance: the bold colors, the poetry of the dialogue in certain scenes, and the theatricality which results in cowboys vanishing and dying "with the grace of ballerinas".

In his 1988 release Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar pays homage to the film. His lead character Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura), a voice artist, passes out while dubbing Vienna's voice in a scene where Johnny (voiced earlier by Pepa's ex-lover Iván) and Vienna banter about their conflicted past. Almodóvar's film also ends with a chase and an obsessed woman shooting at his lead character.

In 1998, the Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum listed Johnny Guitar as one of the 100 best American films.[27]

In 2012, Japanese film director Shinji Aoyama listed Johnny Guitar as one of the Greatest Films of All Time. He said, "Johnny Guitar is the only movie that I'd like to remake someday, although I know that it's impossible. It's probably closest to the worst nightmare I can have. I know for sure that my desire to remake this movie comes from my warped thought that I want to remake my own nightmare."[28]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
  • Emma Small – Nominated Villain[29]
• 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10:
  • Nominated Western Film[30]

Many critics, including Roger Ebert,[31] have pointed out that the film is a hidden commentary on the McCarthy witch-hunts.[32] The film is more than just a Western – Truffaut, who admired the film, called it "a phony Western".[33]

In an interview in the Criterion Collection release of The Killing, Sterling Hayden said that he did not care for Johnny Guitar. "They put string, like you get at the grocery store, over my guitar in case I accidentally hit them," he said, acknowledging that "I can't play guitar, and can't sing a good-goddamn, either." "I was at war on that film, during the daytime, with Joan Crawford," he recalled, "and at night with my second wife." Despite his reservations about the film, Hayden acknowledged its popularity.

According to Martin Scorsese, contemporary American audiences "didn't know what to make of it, so they either ignored it or laughed at it." European audiences, on the other hand, free of conventional biases, saw Johnny Guitar for what it was: "an intense, unconventional, stylized picture, full of ambiguities and subtexts that rendered it extremely modern."[34]

The film has been released in DVD and Blu-ray formats.[35][36]

Johnny Guitar was adapted into a stage musical, which debuted Off-Broadway in 2004, with a book by American television producer Nicholas van Hoogstraten, lyrics by Joel Higgins, and music by Martin Silvestri and Joel Higgins.[16]

• The film is seen briefly in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown as the characters portrayed by Carmen Maura and Fernando Guillén are dubbers for the film into Spanish.
• While on the run, the murderous couple in La Sirène du Mississippi, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Catherine Deneuve, go to a showing of Johnny Guitar in Lyon and discuss the film in the street afterwards.
• In Bonanza, episode 12.1, "The Night Virginia City Died", Vienna's bar is burned down for the umpteenth time. The footage is spectacular, and appears to have been used in many films and TV shows.
• In the 1971 western spoof Support Your Local Gunfighter, Cooper parodies his own role as a young gunslinger in over his head.[16]
• In the Sunn O))) album, White1, the song "My Wall" frequently mentions Johnny Guitar in its lyrics.
• The movie is mentioned by the main hero of Jean-Luc Godard's 10th feature film, Pierrot Le Fou and in La Chinoise by Henri, who gets expelled from the revolutionary cell for defending the movie.
• Shots from the movie are used in Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle.
• The title song is heard on radios throughout the Mojave wasteland in the videogame Fallout: New Vegas.

• Johnny Guitar essay by Michael Schlesinger on the National Film Registry website
• Johnny Guitar Musical official website
• Brian W. Fairbanks in angelfire
• Johnny Guitar on IMDb
• Johnny Guitar at the TCM Movie Database
• Johnny Guitar at AllMovie
• Johnny Guitar at the American Film Institute Catalog