Johnny Guitar | |
---|---|
Directed by | Nicholas Ray |
Screenplay by | Philip Yordan Ben Maddow [1] [2] |
Based on | Johnny Guitar by Roy Chanslor |
Produced by | Herbert J. Yates |
Starring | Joan Crawford Sterling Hayden Mercedes McCambridge Scott Brady Ernest Borgnine |
Cinematography | Harry Stradling |
Edited by | Richard L. Van Enger |
Music by | Peggy Lee Victor Young |
Color process | Trucolor |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Republic Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 110 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $2.5 million (United States and Canadian rentals) [3] |
Johnny Guitar is a 1954 American Western film directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Ernest Borgnine and Scott Brady. It was produced and distributed by Republic Pictures. The screenplay was adapted from a novel of the same name by Roy Chanslor.
In 2008, Johnny Guitar was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [4] [5]
On the outskirts of a wind-swept Arizona cattle town, an aggressive and strong-willed saloonkeeper named Vienna maintains a volatile relationship with the local cattlemen and townsfolk. Not only does she support the railroad being laid nearby (the cattlemen oppose it), but she permits "The Dancin' Kid" (her former amour) and his confederates to frequent her saloon.
The locals, led by John McIvers and egged on by Emma Small (a onetime rival of Vienna for the Dancin' Kid's affections) are determined to force Vienna out of town, and the hold-up of the stage (erroneously blamed on the Dancin' Kid) offers a perfect pretext.
Vienna faces them down, helped by the mysterious and just-arrived Johnny Guitar, a guitar-player who had an interview scheduled with her that day. McIvers gives Vienna, Johnny Guitar, and Dancin' Kid and his sidekicks 24 hours to leave. Johnny turns out to be Vienna's ex-lover and a reformed gunslinger whose real name is Johnny Logan. A smoldering love/hate relationship develops.
Dancin' Kid and his gang rob the town bank, while Vienna is there by coincidence, to fund their escape to California, but the pass is blocked by a railroad crew dynamiting a way in, and they flee back to their secret hideout (a played-out silver mine) behind a waterfall. Emma convinces the townsfolk that Vienna is as guilty as the rest, and the posse rides to her saloon.
Vienna appears to be getting the best of another verbal confrontation when one of the wounded bank robbers, a youth named Turkey, is discovered under a table. Emma persuades the men to hang Vienna and Turkey, and burns the saloon down. At the last second Vienna, though not Turkey, is saved from hanging by Johnny Guitar. Vienna and Johnny escape the posse and find refuge in Dancin' Kid's secret hideaway.
The posse tracks them down, and the last two of Kid's men are killed by infighting; one, Bart, is killed by Johnny when Bart was going to betray and shoot the Kid. A halt is called to the bloodbath by the posse's leader, McIvers. Emma challenges Vienna to a showdown and shoots Vienna in the shoulder; Dancin' Kid calls to Emma but is killed by a bullet to the head fired by the angered and insanely jealous Emma. Vienna then shoots Emma in the head. The posse allows Johnny and Vienna to leave the hideout in peace, watching them go.
Crawford and Nick Ray were scheduled to make a film called Lisbon at Paramount, but the script proved unacceptable. Crawford, who held the film rights to the novel Johnny Guitar, which its author Roy Chanslor had dedicated to her, brought the script to Republic and had the studio hire Ray to direct an adaptation of it. [6] [7] [8] [9]
Crawford wanted either Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck for the role of Emma Small, but they were too expensive. [10] Claire Trevor was next in mind for the role but was unable to accept because she was tied up with another film. [11] Finally, Nicholas Ray brought in McCambridge.
Most people claimed Crawford was easy to work with, always professional, generous, patient and kind. [12] [13] Issues between Crawford and McCambridge cropped up early on, but Ray was not alarmed – at first. He found it "heaven sent" that they disliked each other and felt it added greatly to the dramatic conflict. [8] The reasons for the feud appear to date back to a time when Crawford had once dated McCambridge's husband, Fletcher Markle. According to some of the other co-stars, McCambridge needled Crawford about it. [12] McCambridge also appears to have disliked that Crawford and Ray were in the midst of an affair. Crawford, on the other hand, disliked what she perceived to be "special attention" that Ray was giving to McCambridge. [8] Making things worse was that McCambridge was battling alcoholism during this period, [14] something she admitted later contributed to the problems between her and Crawford. [15]
On September 20, 2016, Olive Films released the film on Blu-Ray and DVD as part of its lineup, Olive Signature. The release features an archival introduction from Martin Scorsese, an audio commentary from Geoff Andrew, and several featurettes. [16]
During its initial theatrical run, Johnny Guitar had grossed $2.5 million in North American rentals. [3] According to Kinematograph Weekly the film was a "money maker" at the British box office in 1954. [17]
Variety commented, "It proves [Crawford] should leave saddles and Levis to someone else and stick to city lights for a background. [The film] is only a fair piece of entertainment. [The scriptwriter] becomes so involved with character nuances and neuroses, all wrapped up in dialogue, that [the picture] never has a chance to rear up in the saddle... The people in the story never achieve much depth, this character shallowness being at odds with the pretentious attempt at analysis to which the script and direction devotes so much time." [18] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times singled out Crawford's physical appearance, stating "no more femininity comes from her than from the rugged Heflin in Shane. For the lady, as usual, is as sexless as the lions on the public library steps and as sharp and romantically forbidding as a package of unwrapped razor blades." He further commented that the film was no more than a "flat walk-through — or occasional ride-through—of western cliches...The color is slightly awful and the Arizona scenery is only fair. Let's put it down as a fiasco. Miss Crawford went that away." [19]
Harrison's Reports praised the film as "one of the better pictures of its type. Filmed in what is without question the best example of Trucolor photography yet shown, its mixture of romance, hatred and violence grips one's attention throughout, in spite of the fact that it is overburdened with a number of 'talky' passages. This, however, is not a serious flaw and could be corrected by some judicious cutting of the rather overlong running time." [20]
According to Martin Scorsese, contemporary American audiences "didn't know what to make of it, so they either ignored it or laughed at it." European audiences, on the other hand, not having the same biases as American audiences, saw Johnny Guitar for what it was: "an intense, unconventional, stylized picture, full of ambiguities and subtexts that rendered it extremely modern." [21] During its release overseas, the film found acclaim by then-critics Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut who wrote reviews in the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma . [22] [23] Truffaut further described the film as the "Beauty and the Beast of Westerns, a Western dream". He was especially impressed by the film's extravagance: the bold colors, the poetry of the dialogue in certain scenes, and the theatricality which results in cowboys vanishing and dying "with the grace of ballerinas". [24]
In his 1988 release Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar paid homage to the film. His lead character Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura), a voice artist, passes out while dubbing Vienna's voice in a scene where Johnny (voiced earlier by Pepa's ex-lover Iván) and Vienna banter about their conflicted past. Almodóvar's film also ends with a chase and an obsessed woman shooting at his lead character. In 2012, Japanese film director Shinji Aoyama listed Johnny Guitar as one of the Greatest Films of All Time. He said, "Johnny Guitar is the only movie that I'd like to remake someday, although I know that it's impossible. It's probably closest to the worst nightmare I can have. I know for sure that my desire to remake this movie comes from my warped thought that I want to remake my own nightmare." [25]
On the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% with an average score of 8.52/10 based on 45 critics. The website's critical consensus reads: "Johnny Guitar confidently strides through genre conventions, emerging with a brilliant statement that transcends its period setting -- and left an indelible mark." [26]
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
Johnny Guitar (musical) is a musical based on the film and novel, which debuted Off-Broadway in 2004, with a book by American television producer Nicholas van Hoogstraten, lyrics by Joel Higgins, and music by Martin Silvestri and Joel Higgins. The musical was nominated for numerous awards for the original production, and has been produced around the world. Licensing is available through Concord Theatricals. [29] [30]
Mean Streets is a 1973 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, co-written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin, and starring Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. It was produced by Warner Bros. The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 2, 1973, and was released on October 14. De Niro won the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as "Johnny Boy" Civello.
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. The musical score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The black-and-white film was inspired by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November–December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story. The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen, while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.
Goodfellas is a 1990 American biographical crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese, and produced by Irwin Winkler. It is a film adaptation of the 1985 nonfiction book Wiseguy by Pileggi. Starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco and Paul Sorvino, the film narrates the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980.
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American epic revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw gang on the Mexico–United States border trying to adapt to the changing modern world of 1913. The film was controversial because of its graphic violence and its portrayal of crude men attempting to survive by any available means.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western buddy film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy, and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid", who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance's lover, Etta Place, flee to Bolivia to escape the posse.
Ernest Borgnine was an American actor whose career spanned over six decades. He was noted for his gruff but relaxed voice and gap-toothed Cheshire Cat grin. A popular performer, he also appeared as a guest on numerous talk shows and as a panelist on several game shows.
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Nicholas Ray was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor best known for the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. He is appreciated for many narrative features produced between 1947 and 1963, including They Live By Night (1948), In A Lonely Place (1950), Johnny Guitar (1954), and Bigger Than Life (1956), as well as an experimental work produced throughout the 1970s titled We Can't Go Home Again, which was unfinished at the time of Ray's death.
Carlotta Mercedes Agnes McCambridge was an American actress of radio, stage, film, and television. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress". She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her screen debut in All the King's Men (1949) and was nominated in the same category for Giant (1956). She voiced the demon Pazuzu in The Exorcist (1973).
Sterling Walter Hayden was an American actor, author, sailor, model and Marine. A leading man for most of his career, he specialized in westerns and film noir throughout the 1950s, in films such as John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954), and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956). He became noted for supporting roles in the 1960s, perhaps most memorably as General Jack D. Ripper in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
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