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.

[–] necoleman 9 years ago

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

However you label it is fine with me.....this is just one of my favorite movies; probably because it's both...LOL!

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

[–] mchnive 9 years ago

Just Plain Bad - in fact, horrible.
Melodramatic Claptrap- terrible movie.

[–] heelmaster2000 9 years ago

It's honestly a little bit of both, but I feel that it leans a bit towards cult classic.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] mdonln 9 years ago

WardenGordonBorden says > 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!

I couldn't agree more. The whole time I was watching the movie I was thinking how bad it was but, like you said, I couldn't stop watching. The performances were like a preliminary run through or a rehearsal reel that accidentally got released in place of the actual movie. It's just really bad.

Sterling Hayden who I always thought had so little energy on screen that he couldn't overact if he tried.

Sterling Hayden always seems to have a similar molasses way of moving and speaking. I've noticed it in his other movies so I wasn't really surprised by it. Still I found his performance in this completely unconvincing; the same as everyone else.

Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]

[–] flanger216 8 years ago

But isn't that the best part of a cult classic weirdo movie -- to be so singular and inexplicable that it defeats all notions of quality? Nicolas Ray made a few of them ("In a Lonely Place" and especially "Bigger Than Life" being my other favorite 'beyond criticism' movies by him). I love art that simultaneously lights up the parts of my brain that signify "this is good" and the parts of my brain that signify "this is bad." It's one thing to make a nice, respectable 'good' movie that makes the audience applaud politely at the end, but how rare and precious a thing to make a riotous passion project that is both bad and good and somehow transcends the very idea of bad vs good? I would take a psycho fever dream like "Johnny Guitar" over something 'good' any day of the week.

[–] yakimuckus 8 years ago

I think the OP is on the right track. I couldn't believe the rating this has on IMDB. Throughout the movie, I kept thinking "is there a single line in this film that isn't obviously cultivated to be as clever and over-dramatic as possible?"

And I couldn't stand the two female leads. Both of them looked like they were constantly going to 'pop' from all the righteous tension they weren't quite containing. McCambridge in particular alternated between acting like the Wicked Witch of the West and just plain insane. I couldn't figure out why anyone would rally to her cause. It's not like I wouldn't have liked the story and these two characters if it wasn't (and they weren't) supremely over-acted and over-dramatized.

I get what people are saying, that it was 'supposed' to be that way (or maybe it wasn't, if one poster was correct about the director's final opinion of it) - almost a satire of westerns. Maybe that explains why the "posse" went from 'out for blood' to 'tired of killing' and back every five minutes. But to me the movie was just plain bad.

[–] antoniorochira 8 years ago

Great film...OP doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

And the whole 'overacting' was just a thing back then.

[–] jrhpax 8 years ago

I don't think it's "either/or." It's both.

But mostly it's Just Plain Bad.

Joan Crawford's acting in "Torch Song" and "Autumn Leaves" is more ludicrous. But she's terrible in "Johnny Guitar." She had had so many face lifts by then that she couldn't manage any expressions. Her eyes are lifeless. Her big speeches about "evil" are inadvertently funny when you realize what she was like in real life.

Mercedes McCambridge isn't as bad as Joan Crawford, but she's terrible, too. Did anyone else notice the scene in which her skirt was blowing similarly to Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca"? (Her entire performance seemed a knockoff of Judith Anderson's.)

"Overacting" was NOT just a thing back then. I don't think "overacting" is the right word, anyway. It's "bad acting."

Just about everything else in the movie is great, including Scott Brady and Sterling Hayden.

[–] cervantes-4 7 years ago

Famous quip about the movie is that it is a remake of Beauty and the Beast with Sterling Hayden as Beauty.

I still have a full deck; I just shuffle slower now.

[–] greenbudgie (2355) 5 years ago

I've just rewatched it and I'll confirm it as a classic as far as I'm concerned. I like the way that the Victor Young theme tune keeps insistently accompanying the drama. I could have done with more of the Peggy Lee lyric which only creeps in at the end. My favourite screen presence comes from Joan Crawford and Royal Dano. I've rated it 8/10.

[–] Wuchak (8167) 3 years ago

I cast my vote for cult classic. Sure, it's melodramatic to the point of being surreal, not to mention implausible, but it's colorful, passionate, original and mesmerizing. It's a Tarantino Western 40 years before Tarantino movies existed.