269. Johnny Guitar (1954)

Directed By Nicholas Ray

Synopsis

A woman has a saloon in a place where the train is going to come through. The locals don't like it and think she is associated with a bunch of outlaws, who aren't actually outlaws. She hires a guy for protection, Johnny Guitar. The locals led by a crazy lady are trying to get the saloon owner and the gang out of town, and give them 24 hours to pack up. The "outlaws" are forced to rob a bank, and the crazy lady, jealous of the saloon owner tries successfully to implicate her in the robbery. All goes pear shaped.

Review

This is definitely an interesting film, it is particularly interesting if you have seen plenty of westerns before it, and in the course of doing this list I have indeed watched my fair share. The film manages to play with the clichés of the western. The forces of law and order are in black, the "outlaws" are in light or bright colours, the women wear the literal trousers here.

More than this gender inversion it is a film about how one cannot trust the forces of law and order, who are crazy with zealot blood thirst. It is an effective indictment of the McCarthy era, there is even a little speech by Johnny on how posses are animals and think and act like animals. The status quo is dangerous and mad here, quite literally.

Then it is all shot in the brightest colours possible, it looks weird, it is full of sexual tension, the tough men are a guitar player and a kid who likes to dance. While women run the posse or the saloon, all is inverted, but so is everything in the world of 1954, if you can't trust the law to protect you can you trust cowboys to be tough and manly?

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The strong will and personalities of these two women effectively sideline the men. Sterling Hayden as the eponymous hero is something less of a hero as a result of Crawford's obsession (the fact that he plays a guitar and travels without a gun gives a clue to the downgrading of the Western hero stereotype that is implicit in the title). He is a secondary character, given to indecisiveness. He mostly functions as a passive observer: his tag line is "I am a stranger here myself", which can also describe Nicholas Ray himself (indeed, the line was used as the title of a 1975 documentary about the director).

The other male principals also take a secondary role to the women; none of the posse, not even McIvers, its purported leader, can bring himself to veto McCambridge's Emma, even when lives are at stake. The Dancin' Kid bases many important decisions (especially whether to rob the bank) on whether Vienna will continue to return his affections instead of leaving him for Johnny. Johnny and the Kid are both unusually sensitive cowboys compared to the icons of the time, including the fact that each has an artistic skill (dancing, guitar playing) which is a part of his name, and that both generally let the female characters make the decisions and are willing to abide by them.

Most obvious parallel with McCarthyism is in this scene: