Women in Westerns Month continues with this campy and subversive Joan Crawford masterpiece
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
The Pick: Johnny Guitar (1954)
During the last edition of Two Cents, I commented about how Sharon Stone stuck out like a sore thumb in The Quick and the Dead due to the modern edge she could not shake for a story set in the old West. I forgave her since, after all, as a producer on that movie, she was not only the one responsible for the film being greenlit but also for getting Sam Raimi on board and helping to make the movie one of the best to come out of the 90s Western resurgence.
Watching Johnny Guitar not long after the film celebrated its 70th anniversary, I cannot help but see Stone and this film’s star, Joan Crawford, as long-lost sisters of sorts. Like Stone, Crawford was responsible for the film getting made, having purchased the film rights to the novel some years back and for putting Nicholas Ray in the director’s chair after another project of theirs fell through. Crawford had less trouble shedding her contemporary persona than Stone did, which was fortunate as the production of Johnny Guitar had bigger problems to contend with in bringing to the screen this tale of a saloon owner named Vienna (Crawford) who finds herself in a bitter rivalry with local townswoman Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) at the same time that former love Johnny (Sterling Hayden) comes back into town.
Your enjoyment of Johnny Guitar is going to come down to one thing and that is how you feel about Joan Crawford. At its core, this is a Joan Crawford melodrama wearing a Western costume – Mildred Pierce wearing a holster, but that’s what makes the movie so fascinating. Though the title character is Johnny Guitar, it’s Crawford’s Vienna who is stepping into Gary Cooper’s boots and leading the story, with Sterling Hayden’s Johnny serving as the more lovesick half of the couple. In fact, the major concern for all the principal characters isn’t the new railroad coming through town or the stagecoach getting held up, it’s that they are all perpetually horny for Vienna.
The gender optics and underlying sexuality of the main characters is what flies in the face of more traditional Westerns. There’s plenty of homoeroticism to go around in certain films of the genre, but rarely have characters felt this blatantly queer coded, particularly when it comes to the film’s villainess, the obsessive Emma played by Mercedes McCambridge. Though the script alludes to her romantic feelings for The Dancing Kid (Scott Brady), who is himself in love with Vienna, Emma’s infatuation always seems to go back to Vienna. The demonic joy on her face as she burns Vienna’s saloon to the ground is terrifying.
Of the production aspects, the costumes are what stand out most. The men and Emma are always dressed in more neutral tones, browns and oranges, save for a green vest Emma wears in her first appearance; all color is saved for Vienna and it makes her pop like a firework with every outfit she wears. Even when her main costume is slightly darker, there’s always a bright neckerchief to make her stand out. The costuming of Vienna is also exceptionally smart: she’s introduced in a shirt and pants, easily inhabiting the traditional male role of saloon owner than she’s assumed. After she’s let Johnny back into her life, her outfits incorporate first a skirt and then a full dress, as if to show her slowly slipping back into a more feminine role. After she’s almost hanged, it’s right back to a shirt and pants and proving she doesn’t need a man to save her- and indeed she doesn’t.
Johnny Guitar is an excellent example not just of a female Western, but just a Western. It celebrates the traditional cliches, while also reckoning with them and turning them on their head in consistently entertaining ways. Plus, there’s a shot of Joan Crawford in a white dress playing the piano against a red rock background, and that shot alone is enough to make you say, “This is a damn good movie.”
As a huge Western fan, Johnny Guitar had been a massive blind spot for me until this series. Watching it for the first time, I quickly understood why its persisted for decades and remains so popular. Joan Crawford’s performance is nothing short of mesmerizing; she commands the screen with an intensity that anchors the entire film. Despite what the title might suggest, this is no typical Western. It’s a genre-defying film where the women are the true driving force of the plot, overshadowing the men with their complexity, determination, and a fierce mix of passion and hatred for each other. The film’s exploration of loyalty, betrayal, and power is heightened by its striking visual style. The technicolor brilliance—akin to the lush palette of The Wizard of Oz —creates a vivid backdrop that enhances every emotion and twist in the plot.
What also struck me about Johnny Guitar is how it serves as a powerful allegory for the McCarthy-era witch hunts. The relentless pursuit of Vienna by her enemies mirrors the paranoia and persecution that defined that period in American history. This layer of social commentary adds a profound depth to the film, elevating it beyond the realm of a traditional Western. Johnny Guitar is more than just a great movie; it’s a masterpiece of the Western genre and a timeless piece of cinema that resonates on multiple levels. It’s easily one of the greatest Westerns ever made, and discovering it for the first time was nothing short of revelatory for my personal Western canon.
Before discussing the movie, we may as well get all the behind-the-scenes lore out of the way. It’s no secret to fans of this film, that Johnny Guitar was fraught with production issues. To put it plainly, this was not a happy set. There were Crawford’s famous demands, Ray’s uncertainty about his handling of the material, and the animosity among the three leads. The relationship between Vienna and Emma closely mirrored the real-life one of Crawford and McCambridge, who was struggling with alcoholism at the time. Things got so bad that Crawford went so far as to scatter all of the latter’s costumes along the Arizona highway. Meanwhile, it’s a testament to the talents of Crawford and Hayden that their romance plays out as credibly as it does since the pair’s relationship off-screen was somewhat frosty, partly due to the actor’s marital troubles at the time and a growing disdain towards film acting.
Yet none of this prevented Johnny Guitar from being the gorgeous technicolor adventure ride that everyone involved helped it to become. Perhaps it was because of his nervous energy, but Ray gives his film such vitality that nearly every scene, even non-action ones, jumps off the screen. The movie can be called campy, for sure. How could it not be? But there’s an undertone throughout it that reminds the audience: “This is for real.” It’s a hard realization to ignore, especially in the tense standoff scene which ends with Vienna and Emma promising that they’re going to kill each other. There’s so much amazement and delight in the way Johnny Guitar brazenly went against storytelling in 50s Hollywood and dared to change up the rules of a genre in such a shocking and compelling way.
Johnny Guitar is bold in its symbolism, subversive with its approach to genre tropes, striking in its visuals, and entertaining as can be. It’s everything you could want in a Western. The film is lucky to have someone like Vienna (a quintessential Crawford character) as its heroine, the complete antithesis of the kind of woman you’d find in a film of this genre. Vienna is someone who is both fearless tenacious, and romantic, proving more and more riveting with every line of dialogue she utters. “I searched for you in every man I met,” she tells Johnny at one point. Her cunning and resolve lead to many of the film’s iconic moments, chief among them the scene of Vienna at the piano where she’s officially turned the tables on Emma and her gang. By far the movie’s best scene.
A hit with audiences upon release, it would be decades before Johnny Guitar found the critical acclaim and esteem it always deserved. Critics Steven Schneider and Roger Ebert have cited it, director Martin Scorsese counts the film as one of his favorites, and in 2008, Johnny Guitar was entered into the National Film Registry. Despite also being the helmer of In a Lonely Place and Rebel Without a Cause, Johnny Guitar might be Ray’s true masterpiece. So rarely has a film showing a woman fighting for position, power, and for herself, played out in such a memorable and extraordinary way.
A solid classical studio Western with a twist, Johnny Guitar is enjoyable if maybe not an all-timer. The twist? Well, it’s the very premise of our programming this month: this is a “lady Western” starring not just Joan Crawford as the actual lead (despite the title), Vienna, but also a rage-filled Mercedes McCambridge as Emma. The script is quite effective in the first act as tension and conflict are apparent from the jump. As our characters verbally spar their way through the introduction we learn more and more about who our leads are as they argue bitterly, concealing exposition marvelously in crackling dialog.
Vienna is the hard as nails saloon owner who is determined to stake her claim and make her fortune when the railroad comes through their town and turns her saloon into highly valued land. But Mercedes McCambridge’s Emma is powerfully compelling as the hate-filled townswoman who is ready to lynch anyone who would threaten her own wealth or sense of ownership over the town. Emma seethes with hatred towards Vienna as an outsider, a competitor for male attention, and she whips up hatred among the townsfolk in order to see her vengeance realized. She’s a remarkably salient villain even watching the film today, recognizing some of the fear-mongering and scarcity mentality that infects so many Americans right now.
The titular Johnny Guitar is played by Sterling Hayden (who I immediately associate with his role in The Godfather) and ultimately plays second fiddle to Crawford, which is a nice touch. He’s a musician, a man of mystery, a gunfighter… you know, the exact kind of guy who is usually the lead character. Johnny Guitar does stand out from the pack in focusing on a rough and tumble independent, entrepreneurial woman, but Johnny’s pretty cool too. I think the film starts out a little stronger than it ends up and it didn’t entirely engage me throughout, but I would recommend it for fans of classic Westerns for a very special lead tough-gal performance from Crawford.
Every week in August, we’ll be looking Western films with a feminine edge. Women don’t get to take center stage in tons of Westerns, but they are at the front of some truly great films in the genre. Join us this month by contacting any of the team or emailing [email protected]!
