Johnny Guitar

You're nothing but a railroad tramp who's not fit to live amongst decent people.

Johnny Guitar is out of Republic Pictures and is directed by Nicholas Ray. It's written by Phillip Yordan, who adapts from a novel written by Roy Chanslor, and it stars Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Ward Bond, Ernest Borgnine & Scott Brady. Victor Young scores the music, with the theme tune sung by Peggy Lee, and Harry Stradling Senior photographs in Trucolor.

On the outskirts of an Arizona cattle town is a saloon run by the strong willed Vienna (Crawford). It's not a busy place, and the users of it tend to be more of the rough kind, notably The Dancing Kid (Brady) and his gang. At the request of Vienna, her former lover Johnny Gu...

A cult 50s Western thats colorful, melodramatic, surreal and mesmerizing

The railroad is coming soon to a town in northern Arizona where a tough saloon owner (Joan Crawford) faces off with a power-mad cattle baron (Mercedes McCambridge) over the Dancin Kid (Scott Brady) and more. Into this mix Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) rides into town, a former love of the saloon proprietor. Who will be left standing when the ashes settle?

Johnny Guitar (1954) is melodramatic to the point of being surreal, not to mention implausible, but it's colorful, passionate, original and spellbinding. It's a Tarantino Western 40 years before Tarantino movies existed. The director, Nicholas Ray, also did Rebel Without a Cause (1955) so imagine that ...

Vienna (Joan Crawford) runs her bar on the outskirts of town earning the disdain of just about everyone else. When the stagecoach is robbed, a baying mob turn up accusing her of involvement. They havent a shred of evidence, but egged on by Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) whose brother had been killed, the sheriff (Frank Ferguson) and local kingpin McIvers (Ward Bond) are determined to take her in. Luckily, she has just hired Johnny (Sterling Hayden) to come and pluck some strings for the punters entertainment and so his, unarmed, intervention lessens the tension a little and then the local gunslinging Dancin Kid (Scott Brady) arrives with his gang and the would be posse leaves empty-handed but with Emma swearing that she will have her revenge. ...