Joan Crawford in JOHNNY GUITAR 🌵 Steve Hayes: Tired Old Queen at the Movies

Nicholas Ray’s classic, color, Noir, western JOHNNY GUITAR ('54) offers Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge the chance to chew up their male co-stars, the sagebrush, and most of the scenery while gunning and going at each other in the old West. Coming along for the ride are such Film Noir stalwarts as leading man Sterling Hayden, Scott Brady, Ernest Borgnine, at his slimiest, Ward Bond, John Carradine, and cute, blond cowboy Ben Cooper, as the youngest of the gang members, stuck with the unfortunate of name of “Turkey”. It’s a rootin’, tootin’, shootin’ fest from beginning to end and the perfect way to round out the summer! “Come a ti yi yippy yay yippy yay!”

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[tommoncrieff]

I love this movie. It’s a masterpiece. Joan Crawford was not often in colour films. Here she looks like she was photographed with a different process to the rest of the cast, she scorches your eyes. Her eyebrows and lipsticked lips walk into the room and pop 3 seconds before she appears. They’re the biggest stars in the movie. When she wears that yellow blouse with the zinging red neckerchief in the exact same shade as her lips, it’s like you’re being fired to the moon in a circus cannon.

[janettepolt]

Joan was a trip!!! I saw this in high school. We would watch anything with Joan or Bette Davis. They were pros.

[beiderbecke]

I'm also a tired old queen, and a tired old artist, and the saturated colors in this film make me want to blow the dust off my old tubes of paint, and attack a canvas! When I was young, I mostly watched this film for its campiness, but over the decades, I've found myself really embracing the characters and themes, they all resonate with me. One thing has never changed, I want to see Johnny Guitar and the Dancing Kid go at it! Who'd wind up on top? Sorry to ramble, it's late, and there's gin.

[alanrowekelly]

That shot with Mercedes backing away from the flames outside of Vienna's is actually a reverse shot - and your 'Mercedes' is Spot On!!!

[dhardhag]

You do the best Mercedes McCambridge. Ever!

[gljm]

a Town where the Women are Butch and the Men are vulnerable there was Johnny Guitar. "

[montego]

All due props to our queen Joan Crawford, but what really makes this movie for me is Mercedes McCambridge, though perhaps more accurately, the delicious animosity between the two of them.

[jokerz]

Ernest Borngine, Royal Dano, Ward Bond, Frank Ferguson, and John Carradine the character actors in this film are worth watching alone.

[Sie_an]

Thank you, Steve, for showcasing the old movies that had so much real talent….writing, directing, acting and behind-the-scene crews.

[stephencharitan]

Time to do RAIN - newly restored and one of Joan's best....I enjoy watching you like reading a favorite book....

[shanecasebeer]

Crawford and McCambridge tear it up, and this Western holds up better than many films of the era with its subversive and critical sensibilities. Much thanks for your review - stellar as usual!

[sweetbutterbaby]

This might be her most celebrated movie amongst critics today. Indiewire just named it the greatest western ever.

[TheVid]

Oh Steve...you're the top! I just love Peggy Lee singing the title song!

[higbyrocket]

Hi Steve my name is Theodore, I may only be 15 but i love classic movies especially Joan as well as Bette and Barbara. Back in July me and my dad went to a screening of Johnny Guitar at a local movie theater in Western Massachusetts where they were showing it as part of a "Big Screen Classic' series. My dad (who's name is John) had never seen it before. He loves movies but the movies he loves and watches are mostly modern and semi classic films going back to the 70s. He thought it was cool to see an old movie on the big screen and this was his first JC movie he had ever seen. The theater was a lot busier than i thought it was going to be and when the film was over it got a standing ovation! One person that you should have mentioned was Peggy Lee who wrote the title song! She is one of my favorite singers and i was disappointed when you didn't say a word about her!

[jayalanchristianson]

Steve Hayes, You simply Reign Sovereign. And spot on with Joan. She was thee most watchable actresses, in my opinion.

[ladywisewolf]

Who needs historical accuracy when you have Joan in perfect 50's style coiff, make up and rootin tootin cowgirl chic that Dale Evans couldn't hold a candle to! What fun! Thanks Steve.❤️

[albertmorris]

I was a Tired Old Queen myself, but you Revived me! I found myself MESMERISED by you and your astonishing, on-point review. BRAVO, Steve!

[MrQbenDanny]

That Mercedes McCambridge imitation is beyond funny 😁!!!
The PRIZE is that STUNNING color!!! As great as in Gone with the Wind!!!

The famous Italian soprano RENATA TEBALDI said in a magazine interview that in the role of MINNIE( A owner of a saloon in the wild west who can hold her own with men) in the masterpiece opera by Giacomo PUCCINI "La Fanciulla del West", She copied Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar 🎸... If you listen to the recording, you will see and hear it!!!!

[rabit]

Two movies in one. A cowboy/western and Beauty and the Beast. Sterling is the beauty of course. Steve as Mercedes, flawless lol hugs!!!

[kaocean]

One of my favorite Joan Crawford movies, just so good!!!