The titular character of Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hyaden) is
not the protagonist. He is a supporting figure in this Western, a genre
notorious for being masculine and macho. But then Johnny Guitar relegates all
of its male characters to the sidelines. The figures who take charge and drive
the action, who dominate and manipulate are all women; men are, at best, their
all too willing pawns. The protagonist is Vienna (Joan Crawford), a saloon
owner who is easily the most commanding and strong presence in the film. She
squares off against Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) the leader of a town mob who
thinks Vienna is behind a recent train heist. Vienna calls in Johnny, a former
lover, to use his gun-slinging to protect her, but he has turned pacifist and
plays a guitar. He speaks like a beatnik in cowboy gear. Emma is so vehement in
her hounding of Vienna because Vienna holds the attention of the Dancin’ Kid
(Scott Brady), who actually led the heist, and who Emma jealously pines for.
Vienna and Emma play the men around them like fiddles. Both the Kid and Johnny
want Vienna to love them but they let her define the terms of their
relationship. The greatest sparks of fiery passion take place between Vienna
and Emma. Under the surface the film suggests some surprisingly kinky sexual
things. Ask yourself where the real romance of the story is. Emma’s mob mirrors
the witch-hunt of the House Un-American Activities (the film was ghost written
by the blacklisted writer Ben Maddow); Emma ferociously demands people be
implicated no matter the evidence. Johnny Guitar sells itself as delicious camp
(it’s almost self-consciously, low-budgetly artificial and obsessed with a
lascivious but buried psycho-sexual drama), but Nicholas Ray is sneaking
ridiculously subversive messages throughout this bizarre, wonderful film.
Grade: A-
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