Film Review
If it is judged solely by the criteria of what makes a great classic
western
Johnny Guitar can
hardly escape being written off as one of the genre's weaker offerings,
a risible accumulation of well-worn clichés stuffed into a
narrative that scarcely takes itself seriously for a second. But,
in a similar vein to those gloriously kitsch melodramas that Douglas
Sirk was making in Hollywod around this time, and which are now
regarded in a far more positive light, what matters about this film is
not what is on the colour-saturated surface, but what lies underneath,
and what lies underneath is a pretty sour critique of contemporary
American society and human nature in general.
Johnny Guitar is arguably
Hollywood's most blatant riposte against McCarthyism. One
memorable scene, in which an outlaw is forced to testify (falsely)
against an innocent person (the main character, Vienna) would have
struck a powerful chord in mid-1950s America, as it directly references
the scurrilous mock trials perpetrated by the House Un-American
Activities Committee. The HUAC was particularly hostile to anyone
working in Hollywood who had alleged sympathies with the Communist
Party, and directors, screenwriters, producers and actors were driven
to testify against one another as part of Senator McCarthy's rabid
anti-Communist witch hunt. The film's script is credited to
Philip Yordan, but in fact it was written by one of the victims of the
HUAC, the blacklisted screenwriter Ben Maddow.
Fifty years on, with the McCarthy era all but a distant memory, the
film still has a resonance, although now its political themes have a
wider purchase. In essence,
Johnny
Guitar is a morality play which pits narrow-minded conservatives
against forward-thinking liberals, the latter represented by the
dominatrix heroine and her faithful allies. Those in the former
camp, a bunch of weak-willed reactionaries led by a woman pursuing her
own personal vendetta, despise outsiders and resemble today's
anti-immigration bigots, easily manipulated by a charismatic
leader. If nothing else, the film warns us how easily a
supposedly civilised society can be overtaken by hysteria directed
against The Other, who becomes the scapegoat for all that is wrong with
this society and the symbol of all that we fear and loath.
The French film critic François Truffaut likened the film to a
western variation on the classic fairytale
Beauty and the Beast (with Sterling
Hayden presumably being the Beauty), but this perhaps undermines what
is the central dynamic of the film, which is not the relationship
between Johnny Guitar and the saloon owner Vienna, but rather that
between Vienna and her rival Emma Small. We are told that the two
women are rivals in love, with Vienna purportedly having once stolen
Emma's beau. This can hardly account for the extreme nature of
the hatred the two women have for one another and we are reminded of
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
(1962), which shows a similarly poisonously sadistic relationship
between two women who are bound together by a grudging mutual
dependency. The fact that Joan Crawford, at her melodramatic
best, plays one of the battling females in both films (and the more
sympathetic one at that) makes the connection unavoidable, but the real
clincher is that Crawford had originally wanted her long-term rival
Bette Davis to play the part of Emma, and (as is now widely known)
Crawford once had something of a crush on Miss Davis.
As she struts about in leathers and Levis, looking like something out
of a lesbian porn movie, Crawford seems to revel in her sexual
ambiguity and is easily the most masculine thing in the film. The
male characters, including the titular Johnny, are hardly more than
part of the set dressing, and for the most part our attention is
monopolised by Crawford and her equally feisty sparring partner,
Mercedes McCambridge. If there was ever any subtlety in the
characterisation, this was totally erased long before the cameras were
set rolling. Crawford is once again the hard-done by victim of
circumstances, determined not to give in to misfortune and looking like
a cross-between Boudica and Joan of Arc. McCambridge is
just an evil Fascistic witch - basically Joseph McCarthy in a wig and
black dress. There is never any doubt as to who is going to
triumph in this particular cat fight to the death, but it's fun
watching the two vixens fight it out, destroying most of the set and
all of the film's narrative credibility along the way.
Nicholas Ray was a versatile filmmaker who directed many great films,
including the James Dean vehicle
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
and Bogart masterpiece
In a Lonely Place (1950).
But he never made quite another film like
Johnny Guitar, a tacky, low-budget
western that, beneath its kitsch exterior, delivers the most
blisteringly acerbic portrayal of mid-1950s America. Colourful to
the point of garish, and so camp that it almost makes your eyes water,
Johnny Guitar was never going to be
taken seriously as a western, which is presumably why most of the
critics gave it a decisive thumbs down when it was first
released. Today, it is held in much higher esteem, not only one
of Ray's best films but also one of the most incisive and politically
courageous films to come out of a Hollywood studio in the 1950s.
And it is wildly entertaining.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
A lone guitar player named Johnny Guitar arrives at a saloon located on
the outskirts of a dusty Arizona cattle town. The saloon belongs
to a headstrong woman, Vienna, who was once a lover of his. In
the five years since they separated, they continue to love one another,
but their love is now tempered with bitterness. Vienna has sold
everything a woman has to sell to enable her to buy a plot of land that
she gambles will make her wealthy when the railroad company starts
laying tracks nearby. A former gunslinger, Johnny is eager to
make a new start, but such hopes appear thwarted when he finds himself
caught up in a feud between Vienna and the inhabitants of the nearby
town, who are determined to expel her and another ex-partner, The
Dancin' Kid. Vienna's main threat is a rich cattle baron, Emma
Small, who has never forgiven her for stealing The Dancin' Kid from
her. Emma gets her chance to have her rival arrested when Vienna
becomes unwittingly implicated in a bank robbery. As the noose
tightens around her neck, Vienna refuses to give in, and thanks to
Johnny Guitar her resilience is finally rewarded, but only after one
final confrontation with her mortal adversary...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.