Netflix It! Johnny Guitar: Movie Review (2009)

Directed by Nicholas Ray, written by Philip Yordan, 105 minutes, unrated.

Nicholas Ray’s great camp movie, “Johnny Guitar," stars Joan Crawford as Vienna, a swanky saloon-casino owner in the Old West who knows the value of cutting cards, employing men to spin her roulette wheel, and who at one point is called “a railroad tramp not fit to live among decent people.”

Sounds harsh, but Vienna can take it.

Crawford plays Vienna as nobody’s fool. Back straight, hair pulled into a vice grip of brown curls, lips as red as a stop sign, gun at the ready, she’s a force, this one. As one of her employees remarks, “Never seen a woman who was more a man. She thinks like one, acts like one, and sometimes makes me feel like I’m not one.” And yet Vienna has a softer, more feminine side, such as when she closes the bar, puts on an elaborate white gown, and plays the piano with festive pluck.

Philip Yordan wrote the script (under the influence?) and what he conceived is a story that involves how a mean, ferocious woman named Emma (Mercedes McCambridge, unforgettable) is determined to see Vienna hang because she believes that Vienna was involved in her brother’s murder.

When Vienna’s long-ago lover, Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden), rides back into her life, the movie heaves and sighs as the Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady) and his gang (including Ernest Borgnine) also storm the saloon and start to cause trouble. Were they also involved in the death of Emma’s brother? Since Emma is certain of it--and because she wields absolute control over the men in this movie--soon the kid gloves are off, guns are drawn, and accusations are hurled.

About those accusations--the dialogue in this movie is beyond comprehension. Consider, for example, this exchange between a gun-wielding Vienna, the law men who have come to get her, and Emma, who wants her dead.

Vienna: “Get out! Get out all of you!”

Emma, in a low voice: “That’s big talk for a little gun. You can’t shoot all of us.”

Vienna, bemused: “Two of you will do.”

Emma, challenging: “You don’t have the nerve.”

Vienna: “Try me.”

The men around them: “Put down that gun, Vienna. Put down the gun.”

Vienna: “Down there I sell whiskey and cards. All you can buy up these stairs is a bullet in the head.” She swaggers. She smirks. “Now…which do you want?”

As the men scramble away, Emma approaches like a pint-sized version of the Black Death in a green elf’s uniform: “I’m going to kill you.”

Vienna, towering over her: “I know--if I don’t kill you first.”

Here’s what’s certain--the movie will kill audiences, but in the best way. Just watching the sparring between Crawford and McCambridge is enough to send you over the moon. As for the movie, it’s an absurdist’s dream--in one scene in which guns are drawn and tensions are high, the strapping Hayden enters the bar with a delicate tea cup in his hand. You watch the scene thinking, “Oh, no he didn’t.” But he did. And that’s just the start of it in what’s easily a must film for your Netflix queue.

Grade: A