In a time when women are as vocal as ever about the hypocrisy of being shamed for their sexuality by both men and other women and when women become the villains and not the victims of abuse or even rape in relationships, a movie like “Johnny Guitar” in a genre historically associated with men, the Western, is surprisingly and strangely relevant.
Nicholas Ray’s film is a classic Old Hollywood Western, but at times it may as well be “The Scarlet Letter.” Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner in a small town that for some reason wants nothing to do with her. The railroad is on its way and Vienna has scooped up the rights to the train depot, so the value of her land is about to skyrocket. But on a particularly quiet and stormy night when a mysterious man named Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) has arrived to serve Vienna, a posse of men and the town marshall show up to harass Vienna and demand she leave town in 24 hours. The posse’s leader Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge) suspects Vienna’s involvement with a local gang led by The Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady), and she viciously wants all of them hung, believing them to be responsible for the death of her brother in a recent stagecoach robbery.
The story turns out to be intricately layered. Love triangles abound, no character is remotely trusting of the others, and some like Emma harbor deep seeded hatred of Vienna and the local gang. Emma is in fact so vindictive and spiteful of Vienna that she gets sadistic pleasure out of burning down Vienna’s saloon and calling for her hanging. She’s a coldly brilliant villain in the hands of McCambridge, and her performance is so good that she makes puddles into these hardened male gunslingers.
But Emma’s spite of Vienna runs so deep that she’s been labeled a tramp for no good reason, assumed to be involved with these bad men and harboring worse intentions. Emma also secretly loves the Dancin’ Kid, despite his own unreturned fancy for Vienna, and this only amplifies the sexual tension. In an early scene, Vienna speaks of this dilemma in a way that might still seem relatable to all women of today. “A man can lie, steal… and even kill. But as long as he hangs on to his pride, he’s still a man. All a woman has to do is slip – once. And she’s a “tramp!” Must be a great comfort to you to be a man.”
That kind of nuanced feminist plea feels mighty rare in a genre like this, and it carries all the way through to the showdown at the end between Vienna and Emma. Having two women face off in the spots where John Wayne and Clint Eastwood have stood so many times before may just be unprecedented.
But Ray’s film is a treat even if you put the politics aside. The first hour takes place almost entirely in Vienna’s saloon without an interruption in time. It’s plain theatrical in the way its staged, and the whole thing is talking and tension over actual action, with Ernest Borgnine and Hayden throwing punches in the background while Crawford and Brady continue on talking in front. We’re unsure of this town’s entire history with Vienna, but there’s a sense that any of them can snap at any moment and start shooting. Even Vienna is packing. They speak with wry, self-awareness and an inherent mistrust, and the whole film just crackles with energy.
It’s “Johnny Guitar’s” middle section in which the film becomes truly great. After a bank robbery committed by the Kid’s gang, Emma and company come hunting for them at Vienna’s. The camera bursts through the swinging doors and cranes on a gorgeous, sweeping wide shot of Vienna sitting alone at a piano. She stands and faces off against Emma and her posse in enormous and powerful low angles, and it’s only a matter of time before the film literally ignites. Everything gets so dark and twisted so quickly when two innocents are killed and Emma’s sadistic smile is there to mop it all up.
For the film’s time in 1954, Vienna’s vindication was seen not a feminist treatise but a scathing attack on McCarthy era Red Scare politics. It was made in the heat of the political climate and was co-written by the later blacklisted Ben Maddow. Roger Ebert’s Great Movie piece points out the film’s psychosexual melodrama and alludes to the potentially bisexual hints between Emma and Vienna, the former of who is supposedly in love with The Dancin’ Kid but never explicitly so. Ebert even points to their mannish costumes and bold framing on balconies and riding shotgun in their posses. Jonathan Rosenbaum called it one of the 100 Alternative American classics after AFI’s list was released, and he says in an article on “A Dozen Eccentric Westerns” that the film is so stylized and the dialogue so “cadenced” that it feels like a hip inspiration for the French New Wave. And all of it is amplified by the real world soap opera occurring between Crawford and McCambridge, in which the two were at each others’ throats throughout the shoot.
“Johnny Guitar’s” palpable tension and sense of danger make it a classic. The story is rich and ridiculous and the style is colorful and fantastical. Yet it’s the surprising sexual, gender and political overtones, no matter what time period you place the film in, that make it timeless.