MovieChat Forums > Johnny Guitar (1954) Discussion > Cult Classic or Just Plain Bad?

Cult Classic or Just Plain Bad?

posted 14 years ago by WardenGordonBorden
46 replies | jump to latest

The dialogue is noirish ('Name's Johnny Guitar - anyone wanna change it?') Har!

This movie is like a car crash for me. On one level it's awful, but then, I can't take my eyes off it either! Why??? The acting is high school level at times, and Mercedes McCambridge is unintentionally hysterically funny. Strange color, but different, so it catches the eye. Great cast, but they all overact - except possibly Sterling Hayden who I always thought had so little energy on screen that he couldn't overact if he tried.

I always liked that music though, but they repeat the theme a little too often throughout. I actually bought this movie VHS online cheap at half.com even though I have never actually decided whether it is a piece of crap or one of my all time favorites (at least, cult favorites)! Now I'll have the luxury to take my time and decide.

Anyone else have a vote?

Hi, Bob.

[–] funkyfry 14 years ago

I think it's an incredibly good film, but I do think that a lot of what works in the film is sort of accidental. Fortunate might be a better word than accidental, I dunno. It's like Ray and the writers were so afraid that it wouldn't work that they just threw everything plus the kitchen sink in there. I get the feeling that they felt they had passed the point of no return so they just kept making it crazier and weirder and they figured that if nobody understood it they would just assume they were misunderstanding.

But it's definitely one of my favorite movies of all time and I watch it compulsively every year or so, sometimes more often. There are a couple scenes that I find so strong they justify everything else in the film -- the confrontation in the casino which just keeps escalating with Ward Bond and McCambridge and Co. showing up depositing a corpse on the roulette wheel, then the Dancing Kid and his bunch showing up all laughing and enjoying themselves suddenly faced with this funereal mob, and then Johnny Guitar's inspired entrance when he grabs the spinning shot glass right when it's about to fall. And then the other really brilliant scene is the one between Johnny and Vienna when they talk about their dead romance by candlelight, that scene really moves me because of the way Ray directed it even though some of the dialog is banal.

That's what gets me about this movie -- you can take a scenario that it totally banal, and turn it into something very heightened. It's maybe a Brechtian approach to film, deliberate self-consciousness and theatricality being used to actually heighten dramatic effect. That's what I think when I see Johnny wheeling Vienna into the other room and telling her, "Smile, Vienna, because it's your Wedding day!", the total change of energy in that scene, the characters themselves play-acting a scenario ("Tell me that you've waited for me." "I've waited for you.") and convincing themselves that the fiction is reality. I'd rather consider it Brechtian than "camp." But whatever floats your boat.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

[–] LudwA 14 years ago

i am just gonna say here that i thought Mercedes McCambridge did a great job. Sure overacting and hysterical, but very intense as well :)

[–] funkyfry 14 years ago

You're right actually.... I think Mercedes McCambridge was straight-up incredible in this movie actually. She plays it in the tradition of petty malevolent repressed frontier women, like Parthy in "Show Boat." She somehow conveys the sexual element of her hatred of Vienna and the Dancing Kid without ever letting an inch of the facade crack.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

[–] MrAwersome 14 years ago

The weirdness of it reminds me a little bit of the old Superman tv show from the 50s (if you want nonsensical plots thrown together in incongruous ways, definitely check it out). Alot of people just don't realize how WEIRD the 1950s really were.

[–] bstephens21 14 years ago

Not cult classic... Masterpiece. A grand monument of the American cinema.

[–] Death_to_Pan_and_Scan 14 years ago

While it is considered a cult classic and some find it campy, I prefer to think of it as some sort of bizarre masterpiece. Johnny Guitar is to westerns as Kiss Me Deadly is to film noir.

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'Life is Beautiful' is to Holocaust movies what 'Twilight' is to vampire movies.

[–] funkyfry 14 years ago

Well, I see where you're going wtih that but at the same time Nick Ray could make a "film noir" to make Robert Aldrich hide in shame. Just take a look at "In a Lonely Place" and "On Dangerous Ground" to name two. But it's true that "Kiss Me Deadly" and "Johnny Guitar" both play pretty fast and loose with the whole masculinized ethos of what you could call magazine or pulp action genres of their day.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

[–] kduffy760 14 years ago

Finally--someone else who isn't taken in by the "intelligentsia"(?). Why the critics fall all over themselves praising this movie is beyond me. If my wife and I need a good laugh we can put on 'Team America-World Police, or MST3000, or Johnny Guitar. We snicker all the way thru it. Can you imagine if this movie would have been spoofed on the old Carol Burnett show--with Carol playing both female leads? THAT would have been a classic. (Can't wait for all the indignant responses from the 'bent little-fingered'.

[–] funkyfry 14 years ago

well kduffy760, the director of the movie Nicholas Ray basically agreed with you. He was embarassed of the movie and was astounded when he met people like Godard in France who told him that they thought it was one of the greatest movies ever. He thought the whole popularity of the movie was some kind of joke people were playing on him or some delusion borne out of their outre artistic sensibilities. But I think that what you're missing is that people who are fans of the movie also laugh at it. But in other parts it makes me actually weep with emotion. It's a really bizarre movie when you start getting into it.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

[–] bstephens21 14 years ago

So it's a good thing a work of art belongs to the audience, not the director, once he's finished with it. Ray could hate the film all he wants, it doesn't diminish the film's greatness, or the fact that it's one of the most quintessential expressions of his themes and style.

[–] boramaster 12 years ago

Ok, yes it IS funny. And actually it gets more screamingly funny the more you see it. But the reason some of us love this thing to death is because Ray really DID know what he was doing. It reminds me of the version of the song 'Rag, Mama Rag' that is on 'The Last Waltz'. That sucker ends up with a piano solo by Garth Hudson that just sounds completely out of control. But the more you listen to it, the more you realize that Garth would be able to reproduce it note for note if asked. Point being, just because it seems *beep* up at first doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing :)

[–] gioconda 9 years ago

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

I respect the opinions of Martin Scorcese & Jean-Luc Godard who both have written lengthy dissertations about "Johnny Guitar"

I guess I have bent my little finger ...

This movie is like an Italian opera.

Hyper dramatic, loads of emotional music, over-the top characters with snappy one liners nobody would ever say in real life conversation.

I love it.

It's camp.

It's majestic.

It's silly.

It's a masterpiece.

I've watched it scores of times and will love this movie forever.

"Some men want land. Some want herds of cattle. Some want mines filled with diamonds. But in the end, all a man needs is a smoke & a cup of coffee."
~~ Sterling Hayden in "Johnny Guitar"

[–] necoleman 9 years ago

I am formerly known as HillieBoliday....Member since May 2006

gioconda......good post....and.....ME TOO!! I have been an addicted fan since my very first viewing....so many decades ago! I try to catch it on tv every chance I get, and was disappointed to have missed most of it when I discovered it while channel surfing this morning. I just don't understand why they don't release this on DVD ALREADY!!

"OOhhhooo....I'M GON' TELL MAMA!"

[–] grifftrain2000 7 years ago

While I respect your opinion of this movie as being no good, I have to disagree. But the point is, I don't know why I disagree. Everything you said is basically true. It's corny, it's campy, it's overacted, and unintentionally funny.
All that said, whenever I see this movie is on TV, I cannot turn the channel away from it. All the background I have read about the filming, with cast members fighting, just draws me in more.
To each their own.

[–] Bree_33 13 years ago

A Lovely Masterpiece .Johnny Guitar isn't a movie I love for the plot. It's so rare to see powerful, dominant female characters in pictures made in the mid-1950's.

I... I will begin again

[–] MusoMan 13 years ago

Hmm..some interesting debate regarding this movie. I have just watched it, having accidentally bumped into it on Sky...the title made me switch to it. I started 20 minutes in, but once locked on it was fascinating to watch. I can't give you a reason why, it was just intriguing...very different movie. Try as I might, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. A seriously good movie for all the wrong reasons. I enjoy a good Western, and there are some classics out there, but this one is sooooo different. Western Noir, who would have thought it? This movie should not be judged, just enjoyed.

[–] Supasonic_ 13 years ago

I'd go with cult classic. Sure it's not for everyone, but it's definitely not "plain bad" either. Yeah the dialogue is kinda silly at times for modern folks, but really works in the context of the movie IMO.

The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown

[–] 13 years ago

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