How The West Was Won-Johnny Too Bad’s “Johnny Guitar” (1954)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne

Johnny Guitar, starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Scott Brady and whoever else they could round up who played any cowboy roles before 1954, 1954

I am not, never was, a fan of Westerns in any of its transmissions to the screen from iconic Tom Mix mash to High Noon to The Wild Bunch the latter which began to chip away at the angelic white cowboy legend that sustained my late grandfather on many a Saturday morning on television and many a Saturday afternoon movie matinee according to my grandmother. And that seems to me to be exactly the point.  My grandparents born respectively in 1946 and 1948 were probably the remnants, the holy goof remnants according to fellow baby-boomer and thus contemporary Sam Lowell, who allegedly would have given his eye teeth for this assignment since he shared that same commitment to the Western white cowboy legends as my late grandfather did. In any case the assignment fell to me and that was that. (That “white cowboy” reference hot off the heels of reading a review of a new Smithsonian/Folkways compilation by one of the Carolina Chocolate Drops paying homage to the not inconsiderable role of the black cowboy in taming the West, so white in the days when the black contribution was conveniently written out of the picture in everything from dime store novels to “oaters.”)       

But I am still befuddled as to why I grabbed the assignment, this review of the classic iconic Johnny Too Bad Western, Johnny Guitar other than some office politics thing to keep it from Sam and keep him in line. Or as officially came to me in a reply memo when I asked why somebody who could care less about cowboys, and a genre which had zero influence on me growing up was given such an assignment that it would “broaden my horizons.” I accepted that answer until I saw the film and found out the real answer which is that this film breaks the mold, breaks the white male hero cowboy angel ride mold and pays a certain oblique homage to the pioneer women who one way or the other influenced the taming of the West once the gunplay subsided a little. A little startling for a 1954 film if you ask me.    

Vienna, the role played by Joan Crawford who I only know a little, the name mostly, because Jack Kerouac whose book Big Sur I did my master’s thesis on did a short piece for some magazine about Joan Crawford working on some film in San Francisco and had her as some fogged up dame who jammed up the works and gave the very obliging director seven kinds of hell. I don’t know if she was considered some kind of femme earlier in her career but she looked like she had been through the mill by 1954. Which is good because the role of Vienna calls for a woman who has been through the mill, has seen and done it all from saloon bar girl to some Madame La Rue (that courtesy of Seth Garth from the table of Allan Jackson) whorehouse denizen to what knows what else but as the scenes open she is running, she, her, Vienna is running a nice little casino and jip join outside of some dusty town in the real, meaning not the Left Coast, if still mostly untamed West. She might have worn out a few beds in her time and maybe was running her own unseen whorehouse but she was on the high side now. Even better she was laying plans for the railroad to build a depot near her place and extend a line and a new born town bringing plenty of gringos and sad sack immigrants who washed out in the East and think they will find the mother lode before the frontier ends and their dreams go up in opium smoke like Mrs. Miller in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. All you have to say in railroad in 19^th century America, East or West and that meant money, money for those savvy and hungry enough to grab it and pay a little graft for the right to make a fortune. And our Vienna was ready to grab whatever fell to her with all hands.

Of course an independent woman out West running a saloon and gambling den and whatever else she was running was sure to raise the hackles of the good and prosperous town folk who money was made through banking and cattle so the tension would fly through the night especially when some vengeful woman Emma, played by Mercedes McCambridge, has it in for her for reasons from repressed sexuality to class snobbishness and prudery. (I like the sexual repression theory one townie ran by us revolving around one Dancing Kid whom she love/hated and would shoot right through the head in the end but that was much later. Of course, as well, a woman, hell, anybody running a gin mill and clip joint will also have partisans, partisans like the just mentioned Dancing Kid and his gang of cutthroats who will gladly relieve stagecoaches and banks of their precious possessions. (This nickname stuff and we will see with Johnny Guitar in a minute reminded Seth Garth when I told him about the film to get a little advice on a “hook” of when he and the North Adamsville corner boys he grew up with went to California in the Summer of Love in 1967 and all took up monikers to what he called “reinvent” themselves maybe like these earlier travelers and denizens of the low spots.) The Dancing Kid not only a partisan of Vienna’s dreams but with knowledge of her in the Biblical sense which will cause no end of problems and not just with bitch Emma.

Now the scene in set so enter one Johnny Guitar, played by ruggedly handsome Sterling Hayden who Seth said did a great job bleeding himself to death as the heavy lifter in the classic film noir The Asphalt Jungle which he reviewed, with nothing but a guitar on his back (caseless by the way) and tombstones in his eyes. Those tombstones via the cardinal error of trekking West without manly guns and plenty of them like some fool Eastern city slicker. He is in Vienna’s joint to sing troubadour style for his supper and entertain the hooligans while they lose their dough. But that Johnny Guitar front is just baloney because behind that moniker and those easy-going whiskey sot ways is the gun simple killer one Johnny Logan, a name once revealed that even got the Dancing Kid’s attention. Vienna and Johnny were lovers some time and place back and while Vienna played the ice queen and tough hombre bit for a while she only has eyes for Johnny when the deal went down. By the way let’s get this straight now this Johnny Guitar troubadour stuff is strictly lame since he neither sings one damn song nor does he do more than strum that guitar and not very well at that. So unless Johnny is better in bed than he looks he would be hard put to make dimes for donuts today on the mean streets of the city or in the subways.  

  

That interestingly enough though is all side door Johnny stuff. The real war is on, the war between the two vixens Vienna and Emma with Vienna two to one in my book to win this duel to the death with the guys looking on here taking direction from womenfolk. Yes you heard that right all of these cowboys cum civilized town folk are lining up to take sides this this big step off. (Seth Garth also mentioned that in this film virtually every actor who had donned a cowboy hat more than once in films was part of the back-up cast including Scott Brady and Ward Bond.) The Dancing Kid set the whole shooting match up when he and the boyos robbed Ms. Emma’s bank and that gave her the last straw she needed to send Vienna to the gallows by associating her with the Dancer’s action maybe even the brains behind the heist.

The chase was on, big time, because it might be a cliché but it works here-watch out for a woman scorned as twisted sister Emma aint no feminist and wants Vienna’s pretty little neck around some fresh hemp. And she almost has her way but Johnny boy who was on the outs with Vienna for a while came by to save Ms. Vienna’s bacon. Save it and leave the situation fluid enough for the gals to have a final draw-down to see who was queen of the hill. Needless to say I won my bet. Johnny did too taking the ice queen to better surroundings. But please, please, please no more of these   fake Westerns which still leave me cold.