While he may not be as well-known today as Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder, director Nicholas Ray had a fantastic run during the ’50s working across a range of genres from film noir (“In a Lonely Place“) to war saga (“Flying Leathernecks“), coming-of-age teen angst (“Rebel Without a Cause“) to westerns, the strangest of which is undoubtedly “Johnny Guitar.” Shot in gaudy Trucolor, it stands apart from other studio westerns of the day, maybe because it isn’t really a western at all — It’s more like a twisted gothic psychodrama that just happens to be set in the Old West.Although the title refers to Sterling Hayden’s nonchalant protagonist, Mr.
Guitar takes a back seat for much of the movie, just one of many of Ray’s subversive twists to the standard western formula.
Instead, the main focus is the bitter rivalry between Vienna (Joan Crawford), a steely saloon keeper,
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