Get Your Reps In: “Johnny Guitar” Is Much More Than a Golden-Age Western

Johnny Guitar (1954)

A “golden age” Hollywood Western, Johnny Guitar presents a familiar tableau: two gunfighters in love with the same woman, a land baron and his posse drooling for a hanging, and a bandit gang caught between its leader and its loose cannon.

But that’s all just on paper. Director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) scrambles the Western chessboard by pushing the proverbial stranger-come-to-town Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) to the film’s background and letting saloon owner Vienna (Joan Crawford) preside like a rodeo empress over all the film’s discontent. In multiple scenes of one-versus-20 verbal sparring with a lynch mob, Vienna holds court in her cavernous saloon, and there’s no doubt who the film’s star is, no matter what the title suggests.

Crawford rules this knotty melodrama where every character has an opponent representing their worst self, Vienna’s being the bloodthirsty Emma (Mercedes McCambridge), both of them willing to do what the men will not. These remarkably hardened women are supported by a deep cast (Ernest Borgnine, Ward Bond, John Carradine) and Ray’s stunning sense of pre-boom emptiness in a silver mining town.

Johnny Guitar screens at Cinema 21 on April 22, as part of programmer Elliot Lavine’s 5 from the 5IFTIES series.

ALSO PLAYING:

5th Avenue: The Metamorphosis of Birds (2020), April 21-23. Academy: Sorcerer (1977), School of Rock (2003), Clue (1985), Scarface (1983); April 21-27. Clinton: RoboCop 2 (1990) with live score, April 20. Serial Mom (1994), April 21 and 23. Cecil B. Demented (2000), April 21 and 23. Multiple Maniacs (1970), April 22. Polyester (1981), April 22. Hairspray (1988), April 22 and 23. Hollywood: Easy A (2010), April 21. Sunrise (1927) with live organ score, April 22. The Long Goodbye (1973), April 22. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010), April 23. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), April 25.