“Johnny Guitar” (1954) – starring Joan Crawford – is like nothing I’ve ever seen – a movie you have to experience for yourself. It defies the traditional genres of the Western – and its low budget – to create high art in addition to high camp. It is an intoxicating and passionate film – equal parts daring and formalistic – warped and enthralling. It was all done intentionally by director Nicholas Ray with a steadfast expressive visualization. His movies – “Rebel Without A Cause,” “In A Lonely Place,” and “Johnny Guitar” being a prime example – are permeated with an idiosyncratic and non-conformist attitude that presaged the countercultural movement of the 60’s.
At the beginning of the film, there’s a robbery of a stagecoach that results in the death of Emma Smalls’ brother. Stubborn saloon owner Vienna (Joan Crawford) defends the Dancin’ Kid and his gang against the accusations of the crazed Emma – who is the baron of the town. Vienna and Emma are archenemies – and the latter blames Vienna as well for the death of her brother – and rallies a lynch mob to go after Vienna without evidence or reason. I’d forgotten to mention that Emma is obsessed with the Dancin’ Kid who is in love with Vienna – and that Johnny Guitar – a past lover of Vienna – rides into town. Yes – it is all very operatic.
And so is Joan Crawford’s entrance. She’s perched on a balcony – wearing masculine clothes. “I never met a woman who was more man,” someone says about her. Notice the lines and angles of the roof you can see behind her. It’s almost like a spider web. Director Nicholas Ray studied with famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright – and the relationship between characters and space is demonstrable. Vienna’s saloon is grand- (have you ever seen a bust of Beethoven in a western?) – in stark contrast to the barren landscape outdoors. Vienna has a past – carved her success on her own – and she’s not ashamed of how she achieved it.
We’re not accustomed to seeing women being the driving force in a western. In this case the two rivals are two women pitted against each other. Emma’s obsessed with destroying Vienna – and her passion verges on repressed sexuality. The scene where Emma gets the town to agree to hang Vienna without a proper trial powerfully alludes to the McCarthy witch hunts. Everyone is wearing black while Vienna wears a white ballgown. Color is used expressionistically throughout. You’ve never seen such colors in the wild west.
The movie is mad. There’s a dreamlike quality to it – and characters refer to being in a dream themselves. There is a big chandelier, a spinning roulette table, a waterfall and a roaring fire. There are also be oversized painted backdrops and stunning night scenes lit in dramatic ways. Joan Crawford is formidable in this – her huge expressive eyes, arched eyebrows and squared red lips recalls a Picasso. You will not soon forget this genre-bending classic.
Filmmakers ranging from Jean-Luc Godard to Jim Jarmusch and Scorsese have all fallen under the spell of this movie. There’s one scene that is hypnotic and enigmatic. Johnny Guitar and Vienna speak about their love to one another. Pedro Almodovar uses it at the beginning of “Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown” as the scene his actors are dubbing into Spanish. The dialogue is phenomenal. Joan Crawford’s delivery of it is stunning.
Johnny: ”How many men have you forgotten?
Vienna: “As many women as you’ve remembered.”
Johnny: “Don’t go away.”
Vienna: “I haven’t moved.”
Johnny: “Tell me something nice.”
Vienna: “Sure. What do you want to hear?”
Johnny: “Lie to me. Tell me all these years you’ve waited …tell me”
Vienna: “All these years I’ve waited.”
Johnny: “Tell me you’d have died if I hadn’t come back.”
Vienna: “I would have died if you hadn’t come back.”
Johnny: “Tell me you still love me like I love you.”
Vienna: “I still love you like you love me.”
Johnny: “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
I insist you check out “Johnny Guitar.”
Love,
Roger
Available on Hulu, Sling TV and to rent on Amazon Prime, iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Written by Philip Yordan
Starring: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Ben Cooper, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady
110 minutes
About Director Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray was a mid-century Hollywood director from Galesville, Wisconsin, who began his career as an employee of the Federal Theater Project, an initiative founded by the Works Progress Administration. In his early years as a director, Ray became known for his contributions to film noir, a postwar genre that emphasized criminal violence, social underworlds, and sexual deviance. His first film was They Live By Night (1946), a film noir that asked audiences to sympathize with two young criminals on the run, a theme that would recur over the course of Ray’s filmmaking career. Over the next five years Ray made four more noir films—Knock On Any Door (1949), A Woman’s Secret (1949), In A Lonely Place (1950), and Born to be Bad (1950).
Many critics consider Ray’s “major” period as a filmmaker to be the mid-1950s, during which he made what are probably the three most praised films of his career: Johnny Guitar (1954), Rebel Without A Cause (1955), and Bigger Than Life (1956). Johnny Guitar showcased one of Ray’s signature qualities as a director: his ability to work within and playfully subvert the conventions of pre-established genres.
Rebel Without A Cause remains the film for which Ray is best known. It is at once an apotheosis of his directorial style, the most profitable film of his career, and a timeless artifact of American cinema and culture. The film Ray made the following year, Bigger Than Life, tells the story of a normal suburban father who becomes addicted to cortisone. Like Rebel Without A Cause, Bigger Than Life couches itself in the conventional forms of domestic drama, filled with subversive and taboo content. In the late 1950s, Ray gradually succumbed to alcoholism, which made it increasingly difficult for him to find work in the industry after 1960. He died of lung cancer on June 16th, 1979.(gradesaver.com)
McCarthyism
Johnny Guitar might arguably be Hollywood’s most blatant riposte against McCarthyism. One scene, in which an outlaw is forced to testify (falsely) against an innocent person (the main character, Vienna) would have struck a powerful chord in mid-1950s America, as it directly references the scurrilous mock trials perpetrated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. The HUAC was particularly hostile to anyone working in Hollywood who had alleged sympathies with the Communist Party, and directors, screenwriters, producers and actors were driven to testify against one another as part of Senator McCarthy’s rabid anti-Communist witch hunt. The film’s script is credited to Philip Yordan, but in fact may have been written by one of the victims of the HUAC, the blacklisted screenwriter Ben Maddow.(frenchfilms.org)
Color
Ray visually breaks down genre and film codes as well, specifically with his surreal color palette. Production company Republic Pictures employed Trucolor with Johnny Guitar, a two-strip process (red and green) created by their own division of Consolidated Film Industries. Color is vital in Johnny Guitar; many (including one of the film’s most verbose champions, Martin Scorsese) have made much ado about the film’s color assignments, and with good reason. The “law” is outfitted in villainous black, while the outlaws wear red and white (and an extraordinarily striking white at that, the wedding-like gown worn by Vienna during her arrest). In direct opposition to the traditional Western, so perfectly captured by directors such as John Ford, Vienna – and Nick Ray’s West – is in no way realistic, but a dream-ridden landscape that refuses clear-cut categorization.(notching.com)
Fierce Rivals
Like their on-screen characters, Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge were fierce rivals on the set as well. Crawford, whose professional jealousy of younger actresses was well known, initiated the feud after she angrily observed the director, cast, and crew applauding Mercedes’ scene where she addresses the posse. Ray later admitted, “I should have known some hell was going to break loose.” Later that night, an inebriated Joan Crawford was seen by the director stumbling along the highway. In her wake was a long trail of objects that he recognized as costumes and clothing belonging to McCambridge; Crawford had obviously raided the younger actress’ dressing room in a drunken rage. The very next day Crawford demanded major changes to the screenplay – favoring her – and had them approved since she was the star of the film. The major revision was an issue over gender. Instead of Johnny Guitar and the Dancin’ Kid as the central focus, Vienna and Emma would take center stage in the more traditionally masculine roles.(tcm.com)