Episode 12: Johnny Guitar w/ Jim Laczkowski

Film critic and podcaster Jim Laczkowski joins me for a discussion on Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar. 

Follow Jim Laczkowski: https://linktr.ee/jimlaczkowski

Jim's Written Review of Johnny Guitar: https://directorsclub.substack.com/p/johnnyguitar

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast Network.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome back to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys, a classic Western
film and TV podcast. My name is Hunter. This week
we're talking about Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar. Joining me in
the discussion is Jim Laskowski, host of the Director's Club
podcast and creator of the Now Playing podcast Network, which
hosts a number of film related podcasts. I'm a longtime
listener of the Director's Club and Jim is the perfect

(00:37):
guest for this discussion. Here's our conversation on Johnny Guitar. Jim,
thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hey there, what an honor to be here early in
its inception. But man, what a great idea for a podcast.
I'm stoked.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Oh well, thank you. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on.
I've been a fan of the Director's Club for a
long time now, so I'm very grateful for the opportunity
to have a conversation with you. But for anyone who's
hearing you for the first time, can you tell us
about yourself and the Director's Club.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, this is it's wild to think how far back
it's that show goes. Really, because you know, Patrick and
I just started, like when he was living his parents'
basement in twenty eleven, and we were just like, you
know what, we disagree on Cameron Crow and Rob Zombie.
Let's just talk about that for a podcast. But then
my initial idea stemmed from what if instead of a

(01:31):
book of the Month club, we did a Director of
the Month club and just made that the focus of
the show. Inspired by I know, your love of film
junk as well, that definitely helped play a role. I mean,
film Junk and film spotting were kind of the big
names for me back in the day, and that's you know,

(01:51):
essentially how I got my start, not just as a podcaster,
but as a film critic for the Chicago Film Critics
Association too. But yeah, like it just you know, Patrick
and I we just love to talk about movies, and
we wanted to give it a format and not just
do another new release show. And you know, so that
really kicked things off for us over time, and man,

(02:14):
if you started listening, I think in twenty fifteen, that
was a really good year for movies. And I know
Bill Ackerman became a regular guest and eventual co host,
and he's one of my favorite people on the planet
right now, and you know, it's like it's a it's
a big family, it's a big loving family. And I
helped started the now Playing Network for reasons that are

(02:36):
kind of obvious. I just love listening to my friends
nerd out about movies, including Bill and Patrick and many
others that you know, I just kind of wanted to
give them a home base, similar to you know, all
the great work that Ryan Veryl is doing that I
know you your pals with him.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
So yeah, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
It's all it's all kind of goes back to Director's
Club and it's sort of is evolved from there, including
me deciding to focus on writing now with the Substack,
which is also just Initially it was starting out as
this one project of me just writing about films and
songs and music, but I decided I just need one
place for everything, including my writing film reviews podcast. So

(03:19):
that's now Directors Clubs dot Substack dot com. That's just
where everything is going to be from now on. So
I'm just glad that I just dwindled it down because
I was getting tired of having to update so many
different things at once.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, well, listeners should definitely check out the Director's Club
and Jim's substack as well. And now for Western fans specifically,
I know you've covered Anthony Mann, Sam Peck and Paw
and Sergio Leoni. Are there any other Western kind of
specific directors you've covered? Those are the three that I
can recall. Hmm.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, And oddly enough, maybe Sergio Leoni was during the
time that Brad and Al took over, basically two buddies
of mine, you know, because Patrick and I were getting
a little burnt out and I wanted to focus on
other things for a little while. So I just decided,
like these two guys I was running into all the
time at film screenings, I would just overhear them talking,

(04:15):
and it was like, gosh, these guys should have their
own podcasts. And then when I just said, I want
to keep Directors Club going, but why not try it
with different hosts and Brad now had a completely different approach,
but at the same time, they were just so thorough
and so insightful, and they might have covered Leoni. Okay,
I haven't. Actually I would love to, of course, but no,

(04:38):
it's just those are the main ones that certainly we
focused on within the show proper but yeah, that's just
it's certainly a genre that I didn't warm up to
right off the bat, Like it was something that I
kind of wrote off as being I don't know, maybe
too conventional or predictable, like, Okay, we know who the

(04:59):
good guy is. It's probably John Wayne, and we know
who the bad guy is, and rarely did I feel
it was going to surprise me in any way. You know.
I was just kind of like shrugging it off. And
you know, because when you're growing up, especially in your
teens and your twenties, you do have like a sense

(05:20):
of elitism or just like, Okay, I'm all about Tarantino
and like whatever he's doing and kind of like following
him and almost like creating a shrine to a specific
type of filmmaking, and anything outside what you're really into
at that period of time is kind of just like, eh,
I don't know about that. But and I started loving

(05:42):
the horror genre first and foremost because of Sam Raimi,
who actually made a great Western in my opinion. Yeah,
but yeah, it's you know, it sort of led to
I think a lot of the reason why I started
to warm up to the Western genre was because Quentin
Tarantino called Rio Bravo his favorite movie at the time

(06:07):
that I saw Paul Fiction. When I started reading interviews.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
With him, Yeah, that sort of kicked things off for me.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Was just like, Okay, so if this cool guy making
you know, this insane genre mashup that I'd never seen
anything like it before, is saying, oh, Westerns are cool,
then I better go out and find some Westerns. So
I usually have Quentin Tarantino to think for a lot
to thank for a lot of reasons, and that's one
of them.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Oh me too. Yeah, he's a huge influence as far
as like different genres that I've checked out throughout the years,
are I kind of oh to him, Like in the
early two thousands, I mean like after I saw Kill
Bill Volume one, I mean that opened up opened me
up to so many things like Shaw Brothers and even

(06:56):
like Jallo and Luccio Folci because I remember a lot
of always a lot of his interviews he talked about
Argento movies and Folci and that's when I first got
into Italian horror, which I'm like you, I'm also a
big horror fan. So yeah, Tarantino anytime, anytime he releases
a movie and he's doing press, I feel like I

(07:17):
add quite a bit to like my watch list, and
so yeah, he's He's definitely somebody who has you know,
I definitely got into westerns before I got into Tarantino.
I've been watching westerns for a long time, but He's
He's been huge as far as expanding my kind of

(07:38):
cinematic horizon, I guess you could say, yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
And I think even before him and seeing Rio Bravol,
like a couple of years before Pulp Fiction, uh, just
because it won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Clint
Eastwood's Unforgiven also really kickstarted, at least for me, like
kind of a feeling that there was more to a

(08:03):
Western than just good guys and bad guys, because you know,
at the time, I was like, Wow, a Western in
the nineties won Best Picture, and I better see what
this is all about. And to me it was it
was interesting that it was deconstructing violence and the psychological

(08:26):
effects of enacting revenge and not like in a metal
way like Scream or something, but it's you know, like
Eastwood is sort of like commenting on his early work
in that film, like demystifying the conventions and expectations and
archetypes without like always spelling it out. I mean, there's

(08:49):
definitely dialogue where I think it kind of spells things out,
like what he's trying to get at. But I think
that's what I needed from a Western at that time,
maybe something a little direct, visceral, and yet it has
a little bit more on its mind about like, well,
what does it mean to kill a man? Yeah, because
in the past, like I just thought Western's like, oh,
somebody gets shot, he's dead, that's it, let's move on.

(09:12):
But here you're thinking about the ramifications the consequences of
what that actually does psychologically to a person, and I
thought that really added a whole lot more to you know,
just the genre, and like just I think that's why
it won Best Picture, because it wasn't just like good
Guys in Bad Guys shoot him up and.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
That's it, right right, Yeah, definitely, So.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
That's that's what kickstarted it for me.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Sure, all right, well, I think at this time we
can get into our main topic. We're gonna be talking
about a really interesting movie that is I think surprisingly
very influential. It's Nicholas Raised Johnny Guitar and it was
released in nineteen fifty four star as Joan Crawford as
Vienna in one of her only roles in a western,

(10:01):
and Sterling Hayden. Sterling Hayden plays Johnny guitar, and there's
a number of recognizable faces like Ernest Borgnine, John Carrodine,
Ward Bond, and Royal Dano. And also co starring in
this is Mercedes McCambridge, who plays Emma, and she worked
in the western genre quite a bit after this. She
was in episodes of Wagon Train, Rawhide, Bonanza and Gunsmoke,

(10:25):
and she was also in Anthony Mann's remake of Cimarron.
And the credited writer is Philip Jorden, who he is
credited on. He has credited on a number of other westerns,
including one of my favorite westerns from the fifties, Day
of the Outlaw Ooh. But it was originally written by
Roy Chancellor, which he adapted from his own novel, and

(10:47):
he wrote it specifically for Joan Crawford, and then it
was shot by Harry Stradling Senior. And he's got a
pretty strong filmography. He shot I think a couple of
Elia Kazan movies and he shot several Alfred hitch Talk movies,
and this was Nicholas Ray's first movie after leaving RKO,
where he made his first eight movies, including my personal

(11:08):
favorite Nicholas Ray movie, They Live by Night. Now, Jim,
I know that you're a big fan of Nicholas Ray,
so I want to give you a moment to just
gush about one of your favorite directors. What makes Ray
such a special filmmaker to you?

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Whow It's hard to sum that up quickly, but I
will say he is a director's director, you know. I mean,
he's He's made a ton of great films that like,
each time I watch him, or like, depending on which
one I'm watching at the time, I go, maybe this
is my favorite, Yeah, just because like a lot of

(11:43):
them are just so damn consistent. And I think even
Jean Luca Dard said that Ray is cinema right, and
Scorsese considers Johnny Guitar to be an al timer. I mean,
I'm sure he just loved Nicholas Ray in general too.
But I think what fascinates me about his work whenever
I watch it is just like a lot of his
movies are kind of about dislocation, being out of place,

(12:08):
out of time, or like lost inside society to where
there's this crumbling of personal identity happening to our protagonist,
and obviously when you think of being a teenager, identity
is still forming, and he captures a lot of conflicting
emotions that come with being a teenager in something like

(12:28):
Rebel without a Cause. But you know, I mean that's
probably his breakthrough work that you know, you know, everybody
knew can reference Rebel without a Cause. Everybody thinks of,
you know, when they say James Dean, they think Rebel
without a Cause. So that's kind of what he might
be the best known for. But I'm kind of with
you in that they Live by Night is right up

(12:52):
there with something like bad Lands or Monnie and Clyde
as being like this definitive lovers on the Run picture
that the acting, the cinematography, everything about that movie just
fires on all cylinders from beginning to end. But then
you jump ahead to what he did with like framing

(13:12):
and color and lighting in something like Bigger than Life.
That movie, to me is and I think it really
helps that I saw Johnny Guitar and Bigger than Life
on a big screen in thirty five millimeter at the
Music Box Theater. I think that just emphasized even more,
Like what he does with me is on sen and

(13:34):
framing and just all the you know, the aspects that
go into filmmaking in such a glorious way. There's just
no denying like how ahead of his time he was
because he was tackling dark subjects like medication addiction in
Bigger than Life, and how it kind of alters the
mind of this family man as he's like, you know,

(13:55):
crumbling and succumbing to this disease. Like there's there's this
incredible shot of James Mason's shadow towering on a wall,
looking literally bigger than life as he's practically emotionally abusing
his son, and I'm just kind of like this was
in the fifties. I can't believe I'm watching this like it.

(14:17):
It's so subversive and yet so emotionally raw that I
just I'm kind of amazed. And there are definite moments
like that in Johnny Guitar where my jaws on the floor.
By how much he brings to film and filmmaking, and
there's a reason why so many great artists will cite
him as being an influence. And we'll get into more

(14:40):
specifics with Johnny Guitar. But yeah, like as a whole,
you can't go wrong with pretty much the majority of
Nicholas Ray's filmography. There's a couple I haven't seen at all,
so maybe there are some stinkers, but the ones that
I've made an effort to seek out, like at least
three or four of them, I would happily put on

(15:01):
a list of two hundred favorite movies of all time.
So that's saying a lot, and that's a huge reason
why he's become one of my all type favorites.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yeah, they Live by Night is probably in my top fifty.
I mean I adore that movie, sure, yeah, And I
also I like, I haven't seen Bigger than Life in
a long time, but I do remember liking it, and
I really like in a Lonely Place also. But like you,
there's still some movies in his filmography that I haven't seen,

(15:31):
but I'm sure I will get to them eventually. Now,
one thing that did kind of surprise me was how
well Johnny Guitar did at the box office. It made
two and a half million dollars in the US and Canada,
and I couldn't track down the international box office. But
I mean we know it was at least a critical
success overseas well in France at a minimum, But just

(15:54):
to give you an idea of the company it was
in as far as box office earnings are concerned, it
made just like two hundred thousand dollars less than Dial
In for Murder hmm, and it made it made more
than Brigadoon, which I know is not the most commercial
of Vincent Minelli's like big budget musicals, but it is
still a big budget musical starring Gene Kelly so and

(16:16):
it made a decent amount more than that. But the
highest grossing Western of the year was Honda, which Will
Donson and I we will get to in the next
four years as we go through John Wayne's Western filmography.
But yeah, I think the movie has a much greater
legacy than anyone could have predicted at the time of
its release.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, and then and again, I mean, maybe it's because
it's not just a Western. It's a Joan Crawford mellow drama. Like, right,
it's not just one thing. I think that's kind of
what when I go back and rewatch it, I'm kind
of amazed by like just doing so much, even though

(17:00):
the story in of itself. You kind of know the
beats it's going to hit, you know again, Like that's
probably the reason why initially Westerns to me, I'm like, well,
I think I know what to expect, and it's it's
I'm not saying this at all as a blanket statement,
but like recently, the reason why I just don't care
as much about Marvel movies, it's really that reason. It's

(17:22):
like comic book movies to me, I don't know if
they're going to bring anything new to the table to
where I'm going to walk in and go wow, I
had never seen that before. But right, but Westerns, no, No,
I don't feel that way at all now, like I
can if there's even a new Western coming out, I'm
just curious to see what the filmmaker is going to

(17:44):
do with it. But then going back to Johnny Guitar,
I think it's just full of surprises and things that
you wouldn't expect, starting with the title, you.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Know, yeah, yeah, definitely, because.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
The title character is Johnny Guitar, but it's really all
about Joan Crawford.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, and of course Mercedes McCambridge too.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
All right, now I'm going to read now this is
a lengthy synopsis, but I am going to read the well, actually,
you know what, I'm going to give you the option.
I can either read the letterbox synopsis or if you
feel like you can do a synopsis yourself, go ahead.
What are you more comfortable with. I'm terrible at doing
a plot synopsis, like that's.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
My least favorite part talking about film. But you know
you can go for it. You can go for it.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
I trust you, Okay, So I'm just I'm just gonna
read the letterbox synopsis because I'm actually incapable of doing it.
When if somebody, if I reck a movie, recommend a
movie to somebody and they ask me what it's about,
I just tell them, look, it would it would be
so much better for you if you just watched it.
Like hearing me explain it will definitely make you not

(18:55):
want to see it because I can't do it properly.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
I feel you.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, all right. So on the outskirts of town, the
hard Nos Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables
of the region, including Dancing Kid and his gang. Another
patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger
and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town
that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival,

(19:22):
rallies the townsfolk to take revenge on Vienna's saloon, even
without proof of her wrongdoing. All right, So, Jim, what
did you think? I mean, we've gotten into it a
little bit already, but what did you think of Johnny guitar?

Speaker 3 (19:36):
Well, I've grown to really love this movie again. I
did a Nicholas Ray episode with Sergio Mims way way back,
and you know, he had a lot of great things
to say about this film. And I think even at
the time I was a little bit harsher on a
first viewing, just because I'm like, uh, I don't know

(19:57):
about Mercedes McCambridge, you know, and Sergio himself was justifying
that performance. And sort of nowadays I'm like, oh, I
think I'm on Sergio's wavelength with this now. But I'm
kind of looking at this movie through an interesting lens
and thinking of it as well. This is Mildred Pierce
wearing a holster, you know, saying lines like all you

(20:20):
can buy up these stairs is a bullet in the head,
and I just on the simplest of levels. I just
think that's cool, you know, like to be simplistic about it,
it's just I just love seeing Joan Crawford be a
badass in this world, in this setting, And like we
just talked about it is the surprises start with the title,

(20:41):
because you think it's all gonna be the Sterling Hayden
Johnny guitar show when he walks into that saloon, but
this is this is all about Joan Crawford's Vienna, who
is leading the story here and surprisingly is just really steadfast,
really confident and full of conviction about what she wants

(21:03):
and what she wants to do, while Sterling Sterling Hayden's
kind of often in the background, being the more lovelorn
half of the couple. And it's just funny to me
because like I'm expecting him to be the hero, and
in a way, he is, but he's not the protagonist.
So this is kind of like a nice showcase of

(21:26):
Nicholas Ray's pensiant to subvert expectations. And that's a huge
reason why I think this movie works, even if I think,
if I'm not mistaken, Nicholas Ray himself ended up not
being a huge fan of this movie. As a whole,
which is I don't know. It's kind of funny when
that happens, when a director is like, uh, that movie

(21:49):
that everybody loves, I don't love it.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, you know, that's it's always a surprise.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
It's always a surprise to find that out. And I
know there's so much tension on, Like Mercedes McCambridge and
Joan Crawford hated each other, so again, maybe that helped
the film. I don't know, but there's so much to
talk about with this movie. I mean, I just think
of the shot of her, you know, standing on those

(22:15):
stairs pointing a gun down men looking up to her,
at her literally in that scene, she's just this tower
of determination, and yeah, it's the film kind of starts
there and doesn't let up as far as I'm concerned with,
you know, being so many different things. You can look

(22:36):
at it as an allegory for like the witch hunt,
McCarthyism era, or radical feminism. And some people really do
sense like this hidden subtext that perhaps Vienna and Emma
are secretly into each other, and that's you know, you
can make that argument. I don't know if I feel

(22:57):
that way. It's it's more of a than anything concrete.
But hey, if people want to, you know, buy into
that theory and find that within the film, I'm not
gonna fault them or say they're wrong, but it's just interesting.
I think over time how much people are reading into
this movie, and for good reason, because I just think
there's a lot of layers to it.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, this was probably my I probably might like my
third and fourth time seeing Johnny guitar. I like, like you,
I watched it a couple times within a span of
a like a pretty short period of time, and I
do I like it quite a bit. I especially like
the first act. I mean, it is incredible, and there's
something I love the opening. There's something about like seeing

(23:41):
Sterling Hayden witness the stage coach robbery. Like I think
it's shot in a way that informs the audience immediately
that Ray isn't interested in making a traditional Western like
any other Western that has a stage coach robbery. There's
going to be multiple angles, like you'll you're gonna see
fear in the passengers faces, and like the out law
shooting the passenger and the victim falling. All those scenes.

(24:05):
That's how all of these scenes play out. So I
do think it's funny how they choose to shoot that here,
especially on a rewatch. I did think it was amusing.
So it starts like subverting your expectations from the get go.
And I think the first scene in Vienna Saloon is outstanding.
It's a really extended scene. I think it's about thirty

(24:28):
five minutes of the runtime, and I think the way
the tension builds, it almost feels like a climactic final confrontation.
And Joan Crawford is incredible. I mean, I think this
is some of her best work. Like when she's upstairs,
like you were saying, talking down to everyone, she delivers

(24:49):
the line so well and it's a really well written scene.
I do enjoy. I enjoy the rest of the movie,
but I do think it becomes less compelling as it
goes on. Like stylistically, I think it's always interesting, but
I do think what unfolds after, like the incredible setup,
just doesn't thrill me as much as those first thirty

(25:11):
five minutes or so. And there are some problems I
think with the script that I'll get into later. Like,
I would still recommend this movie, and while there are
a number of Westerns I enjoy more. I don't think
that there are a lot that are as interesting to
discuss or even as interesting to revisit as Johnny katari is.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
I completely agree with that for sure. I mean, I
can certainly make I can buy the fact that, man,
because of that setup being so strong, kind of you're
kind of expecting maybe a little bit more meat on
the bones and less of just kind of like, Okay,
you know, the expectations aren't being subverted, especially once we

(25:55):
get to you know, the final shootout. It's like, well,
we know what's going to happen here. And even some
of the character dynamics like with Turkey and yes yeah
and the dancing kid, like all that kind of stuff.
I'm like, I'm more interested in this seeing Sterling Hayden
and Joan Crawford's characters together. Yeah, I feel like that's

(26:19):
the that's the emotional core of the story here, especially
when they're being intimate and trying to be vulnerable and
express what they're thinking and feeling together. Even if like
the score is really raised in certain points, like I
mean again, that's where the where raised pensiant for melodrama.

(26:42):
I could see people being turned off by that because
they're not expecting that in a Western, really, you know, like,
oh gosh, what's this soap opera doing in my Western?
I don't want this, you know, but I kind of
love that he did that, you know. And I think
like filmmakers like Pedro Almodovar like cite this as a
huge influence on their work as a whole for that reason.

(27:02):
It's like, yeah, you know, it's something like the skin
I live, and he's gonna throw in some melodrama or
like some grandiose production design just just to like, you know,
kind of mess with you a little bit, but in
a way that keeps you glued to the screen. And
that's the case with this film for me. Is like
maybe there's some maybe there's some imperfections or questionable dialogue

(27:26):
or character choices that I don't feel are strong, but
just because everything surrounding it, or at least on a
visual level or the score or just you know, some
choices that Ray makes with the camera, I'm still highly
entertained and engaged by the film.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah. Now, I do think now we have mentioned some
things that set this apart from from other Westerns. I mean,
like obviously the opening, like keeping the camera keep like
the way the camera keeps its distance from the stage
coach robbery. I think it's very different from a traditional
western action scene. And then even the title itself suggests

(28:08):
the main character will be Sterling Hayden, but of course
he isn't. And then the main conflict is between two women,
which I think is definitely unusual for the time in
this genre. And this is a long list of the
things that separates it from traditional westerns. But what are
some things that stand out to you as being like
subversive in this movie?

Speaker 4 (28:30):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, I mean hmm, I think to me, like a
lot of the things that stand out and stick with
me are the interactions with Sterling Hayden and John Crawford,
especially that shot when I think of it, well, this
probably is a painting background, but god, that's a beautiful sunset,

(28:53):
right gorgeous When they're leaning against the wooden fence and
trying to have a conversation, but she is not making
eye contact with him at all as he's like professing
his feelings. She makes eye contact with him twice when
she says to him, you are gun crazy and I
hired you as a protector. Those are the only two times,

(29:14):
and when she makes that assertion about what she wants
and what she believes. That's when she looks at him.
And little moments like that sort of give this movie
more weight and depth because like it's intentional, right, Like
he's doing these things in a way that adds to
the character and gets you involved with their relationship. I

(29:38):
just sense like he cares about their interior life and
what they're feeling in that moment rather than just like
all right, let's get to the next confrontation or the
next shootout or the next set piece, and maybe that
can cause you to get a little restless or want
a little bit more in terms of yeah, just fireworks maybe,

(30:00):
But I don't know, Like this is just kind of
an experience of getting really caught up in just how
things are going to play out with this with this woman,
And certainly like there's just climactic dialogue scenes even with

(30:21):
with Emma at you know, Mercedan mccambridge's character here, that
are kind of incredible to see, like when they're confronting
one another, whether if it's early on or later in
the film, that that's just there's like a visceral impact
that I think that happens with with those two characters
in particular, and you brought it up earlier. It's just

(30:43):
a genuine surprise that that's where this is ultimately going
to lead up to, because we're used to following the
men and we don't get that here as much like
they're more in the background, you know, when I when
I see some of these characters pop up up in
certainly the actor names like Ernest Bord and I oh Boy,
John Cawardine, but they're more just you know, supporting players throughout.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And now one character who I think
probably doesn't get talked about as much that I think
we should spend some time on is is Turkey's. He's
played by Ben Cooper. And Ben Cooper was in twenty
eight movies and most of them were westerns, and he
was also in a bunch of Western TV shows like
gun Smoke and The Riflemen. And I've seen him in

(31:33):
a couple other movies recently. One of them was another
Republic Pictures western directed by William Whitney, and it's also
shot in true color. It's called The Outcast, Okay, and
he plays a character called the Kid, and it's a
pretty similar character to Turkey. Except that movie has no

(31:54):
sympathy for his character. There's no sympathy for him in
the Outcast, and this character is is definitely like a
genre genre archetype. I mean, a small and stature gunman
who's like too big for his bridge, for his breeches,
you know, wants to be a tough guy, but always
gets you know, destroyed by someone that he's not even
a match for. And Ben Cooper actually parodied this type

(32:19):
of character and support your local gunfighter. But I love
the way his character is portrayed in this. I really
like the moment in the first scene at Vienna's saloon
when the dancing Kid and his gang leave, but Turkey
stays behind and tells Vienna, you know, he that he
won't be seeing her anymore and he's going to miss her.

(32:40):
And then she says he shows him that she's going
to miss him a lot. And then he he offers
to stay and look after her, and she asks who
would look after him, and and and he says that
she talks to him like he was a boy, but
he insists that he's a man, and then she has
the line, see I have it here, Oh, every man

(33:01):
is entitled to be a boy for a little while,
you were cheated Turkey, and he's sort of like insulted
by this. But I actually think it's one of the
like genuine sweet moments in the movie, because like, even
people who are on the same side are constantly at
odds with each other in this movie. And I really
like that Turkey is a character that Vienna seems to

(33:23):
have genuine sympathy for and she really cares about him,
and I think it makes it even more affecting when
he's the character who is forced to say that Vienna
is part of the gang with the dancing kid. But
what are your thoughts on Turkey and like in the
interactions between him and Vienna.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
I completely agree with you in loving that sentiment, that
line that she, you know, says to him along with Gosh,
I just love when she says to Johnny Guitar, I've
searched for you and every man I've met. That's another
incredible line of dialogue. But yeah, I think you know,

(34:03):
it's when I think of some of the side characters,
I mean, they're definitely a big part of the story,
like the dancing kid in Turkey do play significant roles
in at least how the gang has like these interactions
and makes decisions together. But I feel like there's this
continual testing of masculinity in Bravado among like a lot

(34:27):
of these characters, including you know, like the dancing kid
is just a young, impulsive punk, right, and then you
know Johnny Guitar is like gonna show him what's what
when he like shoots his gun away, and like those
types of moments kind of like add a little bit
of layers to just not being your typical archetypes. But

(34:50):
you're mentioning that, like you're mentioning the fact that they're
they're these specific archetypes that show up in the Western
genre and here it's it's again like when I mentioned
early on with with Johnny Guitar especially, he is kind
of relegated to being the one longing after our protagonist

(35:14):
here in a way that's like, you know, you kind
of expect the opposite to happen, and I think a
lot of that happens, Like opposite interactions occur within this
film that you don't normally get, and that's really what
makes this kind of a unique Western. But like everyone
who defends Vienna ends up dead. Everyone. But yeah, it's

(35:36):
just kind of like you'd think that, you know, them
doing what they do is going to lead to you know,
like a like a salvation or at least what they're
doing is going to be justified in the end. But like, gosh,
it's it's it's kind of tragic in a way, especially
what happens to Turkey and then you know, especially the kid.

(35:59):
My god, you know, that's all that's haunting. But I
feel like every interaction has some kind of hidden meeting,
even if it's not necessarily like explicit, it's there's just
something underneath the surface. And I think we'll talk about
that too, between the two women, because I mean, that's
probably a question I have for you, is if you
believe there's something going on there that I mean, people,

(36:21):
you can make the argument people are reading a little
too much into certain things sometimes, but you know, I
just I'm I'm all for every moment between Vienna and
any man or any woman in this film because I
just love seeing her reaction and it being kind of
unexpected at times like that, Like you talked about.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yet now, the reading of the relationship between Crawford and
Mercedes McCambridge, I well, I don't get that from watching
this movie at all, and.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
I'm I'm with you. I'm definitely more with you on that.
It's just kind of interesting that people see that possibility.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
And so many people see that possibly. Sure. Even Roger
Ebert in his review mentioned that.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yeah, And I think Jonathan Rosenbaum might have brought it
up as well, like he's yeah, he's another huge Ray aficionado,
and it's m if it's there. I'm just not finding
it right that, you know, between them, I'm just sensing animosity,
you know, and power and wanting power and control over

(37:37):
the situation that they find themselves entangled in. I don't
necessarily see, you know, something like oh, it's actually an
explosion of erotic fire when she burns down the saloon
at one point. I just found that really interesting to

(37:58):
point out, like when I wrote about it, that like
that that's something that people can glean when watching this film.
And I'm not saying that they're wrong, but it's just
more just an interesting perspective that I don't necessarily see,
but I can see how others possibly could. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, honestly, I didn't even it didn't even cross my
mind until I read your Substact review. That was the first, like,
because then I read the Roger Ebert review after that,
So yeah, it was something that didn't even cross my mind.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
I know, that's kind of funny when that happens, especially
when because I mean more often than not when I
do write my reviews, I do like citing other people
like Rosenbaum in that particular instance, when they're like, oh,
I wish I wrote that, you know, like they summon
up beautifully in a way that just like is inspiring
and probably leads to me wanting to write about things
in the first place. So yeah, like finding that out

(38:57):
was kind of fascinating to see. I mean, I obviously
see the deconstructing of gender dynamics, but maybe not to
the extreme of like, well, it's clear that Mercedes McCambridge
and Joan Crawford they secretly are in love. Yeah, no,
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
But that's why I'm with you all right now. I
do want to break down the script just a little bit,
because I think the majority of my issues with the
movie are in the script. And I would never say
it's a bad script, but I do think it's got
a few flaws. Now, other people have mentioned this as
something that makes no sense, but the dancing kid's idea

(39:41):
to rob a bank because they're getting kicked out of
town anyways, so it might as well be for something
they actually did. That makes no I don't understand that,
but I know it's in there because it's really the
only way to get his gang in Vienna to be
at the bank at the same time. But it's still

(40:01):
a little silly to me. And now this is my
most petty criticism of the movie, but I think some
of the dialogue feels very written, and specifically the way
they use irony. I think it's supposed to be like
clever or poetic, but I think it becomes monotonous as
the movie goes on. Like I'll give you an example

(40:24):
of what I think is a good version of this,
and it's during the scene between Johnny Guitar and Vienna.
He asks her how many men she's forgotten, and she
replies with as many women as you remember. And I
think that's actually pretty good, Like that's a solid flip
on Johnny Guitar's line. And then there are other lines

(40:48):
like this throughout the movie, and I didn't note all
of them, but the next time it kind of stood
out to me. As being not a good attempt at
This is after Turkey's Turkey's death, Yeah he yeah, he
has like a death by hanging the dance. The dancing
kid asks how did he take it hard? And Johnny

(41:09):
guitar says he's never heard of someone taking a hanging easy.
And at that point I was like, the writer is
just committed to this bit where questions are responded to
with this ironic flip, and it's getting annoying, like really
annoying to me. And then I have I have one
final issue and then I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

(41:31):
But there's a scene where Johnny is telling Vienna about
mobs and how they become a single unit as opposed
to being separate individuals, and the movie symbolizes this beautifully,
like by having the mob all dressed in black and
move together in unison. But the men seem to snap

(41:51):
out of it during the final scene, and I think
Ward Bond or someone has a line where they say
this has always been between Vienna and Emma and he
tells the men to stop shooting, and I kind of
think the ending would have been stronger if it was
more downbeat and the mob actually finished what it seemed

(42:13):
like they had set out to do. Now, now do
you do you agree with that or what are your
thoughts on that?

Speaker 4 (42:22):
Well?

Speaker 3 (42:22):
I certainly like I like that it just becomes more
or less a shootout between the two women at the end.
I don't Yeah, I don't know if it had gone.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Like more.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Rio Bravo territory, or at least like kind of a
general gang violent ensues kind of approach to confrontation. I
guess what they're saying in that moment makes sense to me,
and certainly how things play out feels right, but it's
again like it. It feels like another subverting of expectations.

(42:59):
May be in a way that's a little unsatisfying, but
it doesn't bother me. I think the thing that with
the dialogue is, especially in thinking of it because I
mentioned soap opera earlier, there's some of it that's just
like really eye rolling that at the same time, maybe

(43:20):
because of the tone, I just sort of accept it
and just kind of go, well, that was overwritten, or
that was kind of cheesy, or you know, I get
where you're coming home with the opposite reactions, or just
like being ironic for ironic sake rather than it being
genuine or something that two human beings would be saying

(43:40):
to each other on a regular basis. I kind of
just think of it, and this is you know, sort
of touched upon like the idea of artificiality being okay
in this world as like more of a feeling of
this is heightened. This is kind of ridiculous, But I'm

(44:01):
happy with that because he sort of established that pretty
early on. You know, just like how these people are interacting,
how they're talking is yeah, it's not realistic to say
the least. And the one strike for me that keeps
it from being full blown masterpiece honestly is the pacing

(44:21):
and the running time. And we certainly talked about how
great the setup is. If this had been a little tighter,
at like one hundred minutes instead of one hundred and ten,
I think it would have really helped. I agree, you know,
like someone like he probably could have learned from someone
like Bud Bettecker, right, you know, and maybe when like
they get to the hideout in the cave, that could
have been trimmed, or even some of the scenes with

(44:44):
just supporting characters or like Borg nine or Carrodine. Like
I mean, I love them, but maybe cut that just
to make it a little more focus and less rambly.
That doesn't take away from the overall experience for me,
Like even some of the flaws that you're pointing out total,
I totally see that, but just for me, like, I'm
just so happy to be in this world that I

(45:06):
sort of forgive those flaws And even if it's like
a scene or two goes on a bit long, it
doesn't take away from the overall impact. I could watch
Joan Crawford play the piano for hours, you know, when
they're at a saloon. That's an amazing shot. But like, yeah,
in terms of the ending, I'm hm, like part of

(45:26):
me feel felt, at least on a first viewing, well
that was expected. Well that was kind of anti climactic.
I kind of wanted something more. But maybe I've warmed
up to it more on rewatches and just sort of go.
Now that I know what to expect, I'm kind of
open towards the way things play out more than like
thinking of it as like something to criticize.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Gotcha, yeah, I do. It's tough because I do agree.
I do like that it is kind of about it
and with it being between Vienna and Emma. But I
but I also feel like, well, I don't know, maybe
it was just them like trying to subvert expectations, like

(46:10):
like you were saying, because like certain Hayden's dialogue is
clearly saying that, like this mob just becomes like he
paints them as being basically an unstoppable force and they
they like have They're all operating at like with the
same mindset and nothing's going to change that. And then
I think that it does change. I think, I don't know,

(46:32):
part of me wishes they had like stuck to that. Sure,
but yeah, it doesn't like it's not a huge I
don't think it's a huge flaw, but it is something
that stood out to me on this rewatch.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
Yeah, and you think a movie called Johnny Guitar Johnny
Guitar would actually have more of an impact, Yeah, you know,
and how things play out by the end. But he's
just there to support her. He's just there to support Vienna,
And I kind of like that too.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Yeah, No, I do too. And I actually really like
Sterling Hayden and I think he's perfectly cast in this. Yeah,
but now I do want to talk about it now,
so we have touched on, you know, kind of its
influence and people that admired it. And you know, one
of those people's one of the people was Francois Truffau,

(47:21):
and he wrote a great review of it. But one
thing that is kind of funny in his review is
he says that the editing is deplorable.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
Hmm.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
I don't know. I can't remember if he elaborated on that,
but I did think that nothing really nothing about the
editing stood out to me as being bad. But yeah,
he said it was deplorable. But there's so many people,
like there's a musician who saw this movie at the
time it was released. His name was John Watson and
when he saw the movie, he changed his stage name

(47:51):
to Johnny Guitar because of the movie. And then Gaudard
referenced it in a couple movies, and I know it
was an inspiration for once amount of time in the
way and you had mentioned Scorsese's a fan. In Pedro Amadavar,
I think he references it, like very specifically in A
Woman on the Verge of a Nervous breakdown.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Yeah, I've been meaning to go back to that just
to see.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, and then and it's a movie that I feel
like the cult audience for this just grows as time
goes on. And most of the people I follow on
letterbox are probably yeah, they're probably around my age. I
think they're probably somewhere in their forties, and a lot
of them who have seen Johnny Guitar give it anywhere
from four to five stars. And when I saw that, like,

(48:37):
my initial thought was that they, if they really responded
to this movie, they might not like other Westerns that much.
And then you mentioned something in your written review that
got me thinking, And I think most Westerns you see
from this era are going to feel artificial on potentially

(49:01):
multiple levels. And I think the fact that Nicholas Ray
pushes the artificiality even further is a huge part of
its critical reappraisal. And when you mentioned that the people
who appreciated the movie early on understood the artificiality, was
the point that like really stood out to me in
your review, and I was wondering if you could kind

(49:22):
of elaborate on that point.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
Yeah, it's it's it's interesting to me because I mean, clearly,
like I've been hoping for my favorite filmmaker, Paul Thomas
Anderson to not venture into the past anymore like all
his movies is you know what was last one? Maybe
Punch Drunk Love. I think that kind of goes into

(49:47):
present time, and maybe that's just like, Oh, I am
living in the present time. I know that world. I
can relate to it, I like, and that's something like,
you know, is this a personal idea of I don't
know what it's like to live in certain eras in

(50:08):
the fifties or even when Tarantino covered any number of
different eras in his films. So it would just be
interesting to notice that I'm trying to get to this
in in a roundabout way, but in the right way.
But I'm just trying to say, like, within the Western

(50:28):
genre and in that world, I tend to go, I
don't know this world. I've never lived through this era,
so to me, it screams movie. It screams Capital M
motion picture. This is a set, these are the characters.
This is this you know, the saloon is built on

(50:48):
a stage, So you know, this is not Cassavetti's right,
this is this is not grounded and raw. This is
just something that might just be an overall feeling I
get when I watch a Western, because I'm not in
that world. I don't I've never lived in that world.

(51:10):
So a lot of filmmakers that have influenced or a
lot of filmmakers that were influenced by Ray may like
just been stylistic, sometimes to a fault. Like sometimes it
would annoy people, like someone like Guard. They would call
attention to the fact that you're in movie land, that
everything is meant to be heightened or stylized to sort

(51:31):
of take you away from reality in the mundane, and
like we've been talking about with Johnny Guitar as a whole,
Ray just really embraced melodrama here to where things like
a matte painted backdrop or Mercedes mccambridge's performance is meant
to be theatrical and to some degree artificial, perhaps you know,

(51:54):
to make an allegorical statement, or maybe it just felt
like the right choice for him with this material. And
I agree with that choice. Like I think, you know,
given these characters, given the way they talk, given what
they're going through, I don't think making this like a
purely raw and you know, primal and kind of more

(52:17):
grounded experience would help. So that's that's kind of what
I'm trying to like say, when artificiality helps or highlights
the film that you know, It's like when you see
the production design and the color palette and the lighting,
similar to when you're watching an elmode of our film,

(52:38):
you kind of get that feeling of I'm not in reality,
but I like this world that's been created before my eyes,
so I like being here, right, So that's kind of
what I'm getting at. I know it's kind of rambling.
Maybe it's because it's late for me, but you know,
feel free to edit around, but I'm just you know,
getting to that feeling of artificiality being good in this case.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yeah, And I also think it's an artificiality that is
probably probably for younger viewers. It's probably an artificiality that's
easy to easier to buy into than like other Westerns
from this era that maybe like potentially a more like

(53:25):
a more traditional Western may feel like cheesy, whereas this
I don't think this movie is cheesy because it goes
all in on the heightened aspects of it. Does that
make sense, No, it it definitely does.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
But even some of the dialogue you were pointing out
as you were saying it on its own, gosh, it
sounds cheesy. But if you're watching it in the context
of the film, and there's a score and the way
they're saying out and their eyes are wide or something
like just the way they're acting it seems to work,
you know, at least yeah, it does in the moment.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah, and you're kind of there are certain aesthetics that
you kind of have to like accept or like give
yourself over to, like like like Lynch. I could explain
a David Lynch scene to you and you be like,
there's a shot of beatles underground, Like, how would that?
How is that an effective scene? And then you see

(54:25):
it and it's a combination of the way he uses
sound design and color and everything that makes the like
creates a world that only exists within that movie, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
Gosh, yeah, And the way you even describing that to me,
like film feels like the best of all worlds because
it's combining so many elements to convey an idea. And
like we're talking about earlier, I don't necessarily gravitate towards
plot and plot description for a reason. I mostly remember

(54:57):
what I feel watching a movie, right, And I think
even Paul Thomas Anderson has said something along those lines too,
And it's just kind of funny because I think of, gosh,
you know, with a movie or a western, you got acting,
you got writing, cinematography, music, sound design, and it's all
right before your eyes, and you know that. It's become

(55:20):
my favorite art form, probably because it has so many
different elements working together as like this this gang, this unit,
this cohesive hole that you just hope that once you
put it all together, it's gonna make people feel something.
And in the case of Johnny Guitar, I'm surprised, like, oh,

(55:40):
I actually feel for these people. It's not just like,
you know, shoot them up and get the bad guys
and that's the end. It's more of like, oh, crap,
I don't want. I don't want, you know, Vienna to
suffer anymore, or have to deal with all the horrors
that she's dealing with, or to lose more people that
you know, have surrounded her and supported her her whole life. Yeah,

(56:05):
it's just I think that's what I appreciate about most
films is that, oh, I'm actually affected by what's taking place.
It's not just I'm entertained and that's it's what's for dinner.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Right, Yeah, all right, Well, that is pretty much all
I had. Now I do have. Well, I think he
touched on this earlier, But did you kind of mention
what this movie shares with other Nicholas Ray movies as
far as like thematically or stylistically.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
Yeah, a lot of that, you know, I've sort of
touched on earlier. That you know. I think for the
most part, he's just really good at capturing people who
feel lost in their place, and certainly you think of
in a lonely place as kind of literally being that,
and just I mean, he's he's just really curious about

(57:00):
what people are feeling on the inside as much as
what's taking place in society or in the outside world.
And this is kind of one of those films that
just happens to be encased in Western tropes, but they're
there to be just different than what you'd expect. And

(57:21):
I think he's kind of even did that. If we
went back to something like They Live by Night and
maybe decided together to analyze that film on its own,
we'd find some surprising elements that you wouldn't find in
a typical noir or a typical Lovers on the Run picture.
And that's kind of what I love about going back
to his films in some ways, like his biggest breakout

(57:43):
film with reve All without a cause, I won't say
like it's his most conventional film, but a lot of
it's on the surface for me with that movie, like
I kind of get what it's going for and still
find it amazing and satisfying in its own right. But
something like Johnny Guitar, you go back to it and yes,
there are definitely imperfections to point out, and we have,

(58:06):
but they're just you still get a lot out of
the experience because there are things that you would not
expect to see in a traditional Western, and it's probably
why I keep wanting to talk about it. I'm so
glad I had the opportunity to do that with you
because it's a special film, and I'm just so glad
that somebody like Sergio Mims was like, you got to

(58:26):
see Johnny guitar for the Nicholas Ray episode. I probably
would have anyway, but you know, he's, Yeah, he's an
inspiration and somebody that will always think of when we
talk about Nicholas Ray.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Awesome. All right, Well, do you have any final thoughts
or does that that pretty much cover it?

Speaker 3 (58:44):
Oh that, I'd say that covers it. I mean it's
you know again, the word existential gets thrown thrown out
a lot these days to describe certain films, and I
would say that's applicable here in terms of like it
presenting like the dangers of conformity and how repression of
individuality can get, you know, cause people to act out

(59:08):
in certain ways, whether if it's I have to defend
my territory and what I've built or what I want
to see in life, and I will do whatever it
takes in the case of Joan Crawford's Vienna here, and
of course there's going to be opposition, and there's going
to be people who take who want to take her
down and control what she wants, and that's inevitable because

(59:30):
this is a film we need conflict. But yeah, uh,
you know, Rageous Again cares about the psychological mind games.
But he also doesn't neglect us some gunplay or really
cool confrontations or great scenes like you mentioned. Certainly, just
the way he's shooting that opening sequence is setting you

(59:50):
up for something different and Okay, well this may not
be unforgiven, but it's still a favorite of mine. And
just how it surprises me, continues to surprise me, and
I just want other people to experience it for themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Awesome. All right, well, Jim, where can people find you
on social media?

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Well, for the most part, everything is like situated right
now at Directorsclub dot substack dot com, and all my
links are pretty much there, like I have one of
those you know, trendy link trees link trees. Okay, yeah, yeah,
that's just basically like you go there and then bam,
like all my links are there. But of course I'm

(01:00:32):
on letterbox because I'm a nerd and I have to
log everything I watch. And that's of course just my
first and last name, Jim Laskowski, which feel free to
link to in the show notes if you like.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Thanks man, Oh yeah, I will have all the links
in the show notes for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Great.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
All right, well this was great, Jim, Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Thank you. Looking forward to talking with you again in
the future for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
I hope you enjoyed this episode. I love being able
to talk about Johnny guitar with Jim. Definitely check out
the Director's Club podcast and make sure you read his
written review of Johnny Guitar, which I've included a link
to in the episode description, what did you think of
this week's episode and what are your thoughts on Johnny guitar.
You can let me know by emailing me at Tumbleweeds
and tv Coowboys at gmail dot com. You can follow

(01:01:19):
us on Facebook, Instagram, and x All the links are
in the show notes. Next week, Zach Bryant from They
Lived By Film is back, and this time we're talking
about Clint Eastwood's Hang Them High. Until then, if you're
looking for more film related podcasts, please check out other
shows on the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
Hello, this is Aaron West. I am the author of
the A twenty four New Wave. In this book, I
look at A twenty four a's output and I make
the argument that we are in a new wave movement
right now. A twenty four plays a major role. This
book has a supplemental podcast where each episode is a
brief conversation about an A twenty four related topic, whether

(01:02:02):
an actor, director, or even a genre. As I continue
research for the book and conduct interviews, I expect to
record podcasts episodes with people involved with the company. You
can find the podcast at Sendjourneys dot com or wherever
you find podcasts, and we are proud to be members
of the Someone's Favorite Productions Podcast Network.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
Thank you for listening. To hear more shows from the
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