Gripping story with well-crafted characters

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

This movie had a personal EFFECT upon me. my husband - at the time was named John - but we called him Johnny because he was the baby of the family. As my mature husband - he was a "traveling employee for Avildson Tool Corp, - (Yes, the same Alvidson that won an Academy Rewardfor "Rocky") I played piano at the time - I started lessons at age six - It was after many years that I was was married to Johnny . I played mostly classical music. Chopin was my favorite - Etudes an Nocturnes. I saw the film - "}Johnny Guitar" and was very intrigued with especially with Mercedes' Cambridge part. But, of course - the fiery passion between Joan Crawford and Sterling - oh , well - we know how that goes.The song also got into my guts and I had to learn how to play it, AND I did ! My version was very good . from piano to forte. A crescendo from start to finish. It exemplified the two main characters - Joan Crawford and Sterling Haden.

A strong willed female saloon owner (Joan Crawford) is wrongly suspected of murder and bank robbery by a lynch mob, when she helps a wounded gang member.I can see why this western has something of a cult status. Certainly an outlaw who has a guitar strapped to his back rather than a gun makes for an interesting character. And it asks that age old question: can a leopard change his spots? Can Johnny Logan become Johnny Guitar? Joan Crawford leads the film, apparently because she helped produce it. For the life of me, I never figured out her appeal. Her acting is good but no great. She is no joy to look at. And from what I understand, she was more or less a terror to everyone around her. How did she ever get to be as big as she was?

Nicholas Ray has taken a theme of America's expansion westward to the Pacific and brought us two strong women who embody landownership, cattle barons and the ever widening industrial revolution and urbanism that will challenge and ultimately vanquish older capitalist forms of power. Love is a theme but the women, Vienna played with nerve and steel by Joan Crawford and the impulsive Emma Small by Mercedes Cambridge overshadow the men in the film. And it's a duel in sun between the whore that made good as a bar girl and now has a title for land the railroad will develop and she will build a town on it, and Small the gun totting land and cattle baroness. is 'Johnny Guitar' a precursor of feminism? It's up to you to judge. Nonetheless, it's Crawford's finer hour.

In this Republic Pictures movie produced by Herbert J. Yates and directed by Nicholas Ray, Joan Crawford, who could be more awe-inspiring than any man alive, was a woman who needed the man who had run out on her years before, Johnny Guitar himself: Sterling Hayden was his sometimes boisterous self, but, again, in this movie Vienna (played by Crawford) was a woman who needed Johnny Guitar, since she was harassed by Emma Smalls, a woman who was poisoned with hate toward Vienna; Mercedes McCambridge was outstanding as the hate-possessed woman. Another actor who was mean toward Johnny Guitar was Ernest Borgnine, who played Bart. Ward Bond was his loud self as Mr. McGivers, Ben Cooper played well his part as Turkey, a young eighteen-year-old boy who was trying hard to be a man, and Scott Brady was definitely an arrogant man. The story is simple: at the beginning there is a stagecoach robbery...in which Emma Small's brother is killed... as Johnny Guitar is going into town, and Emma Smalls who, unlike Vienna, does not want the railroad to come through, is so prejudiced toward Vienna that she, in her own mind, thinks Vienna was responsible for the robbery. Then, after a bank robbery by Scott Brady and his three cohorts, Emma is again convinced that Vienna is responsible, and she leads a posse to pursue and kill Vienna; and no, Vienna can not survive without Johnny Guitar. Not only do Crawford and Hayden play two people who love strongly, but the movie addresses hatred, bitterness, extreme anger, and prejudice, and the effects of same. New Mexico looked beautiful (in its own way) and Peggy Lee's voice is melodious as she sings the title song from the movie. The superb acting, the beautiful scenery, and the thought-provoking story render this movie an outstanding production.