Johnny Guitar

Nicholas Ray’s women centered western, on the surface, is an average story of revenge and unrequited love.  But when you start to dig a little deeper you have a film that makes incredible leaps and bounds in exploring gender stereotypes, power and right vs. wrong.

The story centers on Joan Crawford’s Vienna.  She owns a gambling house and bar and is patiently waiting for the railroad to come through town so she can capitalize on her property.   Her establishment is also the regular hang out for a gang led by the Dancin’ Kid.  He and Vienna have some history and he clearly is still in love with her.  Things starts to go wrong when Emma Small’s brother is killed during a robbery and she blames ‘the Kid”, causing problems galore.  The one element that changes things up is the arrival of a new guitar player to Vienna’s place, named Johnny Guitar - who may or may not be who he says he is.

The clip above comes pretty late in the film when many things have gone wrong for our fair Vienna and the amazing thing about it is that all the tension comes from the two women. Being that the film is a western - a typically male dominated genre - this is kind of awesome.   The other thing that stands out is how the government in the movie (the sheriff etc..) is so easily persuaded that the gang is guilty even though there is no real proof - to me it kind of foreshadows racial profiling and a lot of the problems are current justice system is facing.

Putting all that aside though, Johnny Guitar is actually quite touching and even heartbreaking..  The passage of dialogue below always breaks my heart a little:

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: [without feeling] All those years I’ve waited.
Johnny: Tell me you’d a-died if I hadn’t come back.
Vienna: [without feeling] I woulda died if you hadn’t come back.
Johnny: Tell me you still love me like I love you.
Vienna: [without feeling] I still love you like you love me.
Johnny: [bitterly] Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Sigh..

Watch this film to see how it pushed the envelope and then takepart with the National Organization for Women, to promote equality for women!

Johnny Guitar was not nominated for and did not win an Academy Award®