Average Rating: 8.3/10
Reviews Counted: 26
Fresh: 25 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 1
liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 3,043
One of the strangest westerns on record, Johnny Guitar has less in common with Zane Grey than it does with Sigmund Freud and Krafft-Ebbing. The title character, played by Sterling Hayden, is a guitar-strumming drifter who was once the lover of Arizona saloon-owner Vienna (Joan Crawford). Though her establishment doesn't make a dime, Vienna doesn't care because the railroad is going to come in soon, bringing a whole slew of thirsty new customers. This puts her at odds with bulldyke rancher Emma
PG, 1 hr. 51 min.
Western, Drama, Action & Adventure, Musical & Performing Arts
Jan 1, 1954 Limited
Sep 16, 2008
All Critics (27) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (26) | Rotten (1) | DVD (4)
Let's put it down as a fiasco. Miss Crawford went thataway.
One of those classic westerns that has maintained its status by reinventing itself every decade since its release in 1954.
For all its violence, this is a surpassingly tender, sensitive film, Ray's gentlest statement of his outsider theme.
Rich, creative Western with much to say about politics and gender.
...manages to be both a serious critique of McCarthyism and a camp classic...
A politically subversive Western, made during the McCarthy era, Nicholas Ray's cult movie offers two strong roles for women, Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge, who may be latently lesbian.
This 1954 Freudian Western is one of the all-time left-field wonders of the studio system, a film so subversive it's a wonder it ever got made.
A pop-culture madhouse dressed up in spurs and a cowboy hat
Like the other great American films of the 50's, Johnny Guitar breaks through the mold.
Bizarre, unforgettable Nicholas Ray western that ends in two women shootout!
Quite possibly the weirdest Western ever made by a mainstream studio in the 1950s... I flat-out loved this movie.
It's about time it was acclaimed for it what it really is: a genuine western film classic.
Ray's film is not a romantic comedy, but a Western. Or is it?
It has been called Freudian, feminist, operatic, high camp and plain bizarre. Best of all, the film acts as a vigorous indictment of the McCarthy witch-hunts; as a lynch mob rides after Crawford while McCambridge bullies witnesses into false confessions.
It's quite a weird western with Joan Crawford filling the John Wayne shoes, glossy romantic scenes which could be thrown into a Douglas Sirk film and all painted with dramatic red strokes - from the sunsets, to a dramatic fire to Crawford's iconic lips. And it all ends in a rootin' tootin' gun shooting between its two
October 24, 2011Super Reviewer
I hate westerns, so I rated it lower because of that, but it is a different kind of western than normal. The story is sort of boring, but the characters aren't is another way of putting it. Anyway, it's interesting.
September 5, 2010Super Reviewer
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