The Trials of Darryl Hunt

Directors Ricki Stern (left) and Anne Sundberg

Journalist Phoebe Zerwick

Zerwick today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT             B+                                                                               USA  (113 mi)  2006  d: Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg

Racism is more powerful than facts because racism is illogical and it is emotional and therefore, facts don't matter.        —Larry Little, founder of Hunt Defense Fund

Originally premiering on HBO cable television in 2007 after it won the Documentary Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, this is a ghastly story, one of the best documentaries on the seemingly hopeless, coldhearted nature of racial injustice, particularly when multiplied by the hundreds and even thousands who may have undergone similar fates, made all the more compelling in this film by the intimate closeness the filmmakers get with the people involved in the case, from the lawyers to the activists, the prosecuting attorneys, the newspaper writers, the mother of a young white woman in Winston-Salem, North Carolina who was brutally raped and murdered, and the man who was convicted of the crime, Darryl Hunt.  A young teenager at the time who always proclaimed his innocence, he spent 19 ½ years in prison for a crime he never committed, the last ten years even after DNA evidence exonerated him, as the police had no other suspects for the crime, so could not conceivably believe the crime was committed by anyone else.  The filmmakers followed this story only in the last 10 years of incarceration, using badly aged archival footage for the earlier years mixed with present day testimony from those actively involved in the case.  What intrigued the filmmakers were the diametrically opposed racial views on this case in the Winston-Salem community, as Mark Rabil, Hunt’s defense attorney from the beginning, knew what he was up against as the rape and murder of a white woman by a black man fit the Southern racial stereotype that “evoked the image of a lynching.” 

And sure enough, that same pattern unravels, as District Attorney Don Tisdale takes over the case from the local police.  In 1984, Deborah Sykes, a young white newspaper copy editor for The Winston-Salem Journal was sexually assaulted, raped, sodomized and stabbed to death in a nearby park just blocks from where she worked.  Although no physical evidence linked him to the crime, Darryl Hunt, a 19-year-old black man, was charged with the heinous crime based in large part by an eyewitness identification made by a former Ku Klux Klan member.  In an atmosphere of racial division, Hunt was convicted by a jury of 11 whites and one black, and sentenced to life imprisonment.  The indicators that mattered most were using that same Ku Klux Klan eye witness who was nowhere near the scene of the crime, an emotionally distraught, mentally unstable junkie prostitute who was browbeaten into saying whatever the prosecutors wanted her to say, a nearly all white jury, and the sympathies and emotions that are played upon by the prosecutors, who are more interested in getting a conviction than revealing the facts in the matter.  Evidence and facts are overlooked, in some cases criminally suppressed and covered up so that the overall big picture could be served, and in the language of the police as they allegedly intimidated Hunt’s own witnesses, many of whom simply disappeared, ”Y’all know that nigger is guilty.”  Time and again when evidence or suppression of evidence is called into question on appeals, it’s simply set aside under rulings that this would not have changed the outcome of the case. 

Told from the point-of-view of three principal subjects, an enterprising investigative journalist, an unyielding defense attorney, and a wrongfully convicted man, this exposé offers an eye-opening examination of a community and a criminal justice system both tainted by racial bias and fear.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, no members from law enforcement were willing to speak to the filmmakers, instead the film does a good job painting a portrait of Hunt as a young man from those who knew him, as they stand up for him when he proclaims his innocence throughout the long and terrible ordeal.  As Hunt reveals, “All I needed was for someone to listen.”  His gentle nature defies the trial’s image of a violent criminal.  Despite having no record, he is described as a young apprentice of known criminals because his best friend has a long rap sheet.  Initially the District Attorney offers Hunt $12,000 to testify against his friend, and when he refuses, he is charged with the crime, which carries the possible penalty of death.  Hunt describes his first night in prison when he was placed in “the hole,” a place down at the end of the cell block separated from the rest of the prisoners where there was no ventilation and it was over 100 degrees, as the guard told him the last person he placed in there hung himself.  Welcome to the next 19 years of your life.  There are a series of appeals, even a new trial, but the testimony of the Klansman and the emotional climate in the courtroom all but seals the deal.  One of the newspaper reporters recalled being in court, claiming no one knew about any suppression of evidence or tampering with witnesses or that it was a Klansman lying on the witness stand, but she described how emotions prevailed, how it would have been impossible for anyone in the courtroom to believe Hunt was not guilty of the crime. 

The film exposes a legacy of racism in the criminal justice system and the human toll it produces, drawing upon excerpts from Hunt’s letters and diaries, while profiling activists, clergymen, and lawyers who advocated for his release.  Hunt’s mother was murdered when he was a boy, raised by his grandfather, a 9th grade dropout, with nothing in his life pointing to violence, steadfastly claiming from the beginning that he had no contact whatsoever with Deborah Sykes.  Ten years later in 1994, the DNA evidence proves Hunt could not have raped the woman, yet the government still sticks to their story, no matter the price, as the District Attorney and the appeals courts stupifyingly retain their belief that this should not affect the outcome, even after the DNA excludes Hunt’s friend as well, the one who was alleged by police to be the real perpetrator.  What’s perhaps most distressing is how science, like evolution, is viewed so suspiciously in the South.  Eventually, the flimsy evidence as well as the judicial incompetence comes to light.  Hunt is offered a plea agreement pleading guilty to second degree manslaughter, allowed to go free based on time served, an offer his lawyer and friends urge him to accept, as based on the racial climate surrounding the case it is unlikely he would ever receive a fair trial, but he rejects this offer knowing he never committed the crime.  Probably the most compelling moment in the film is the hope that the State’s Supreme Court will overturn his conviction and perhaps even set him free.  Everything points to that possibility.  As his lawyers gather around their office to call him in prison with the news over a speaker phone, we hear them relay the news that the appeal was denied by a vote of 4-3.  The hush in the room is indescribable, as is the silence on the other end of the line.  Hope simply vanishes into thin air. 

Despite the setbacks, Hunt’s calm and peaceful demeanor attracts the attention of April Griggs the moment she lays eyes on him, a young Muslim girl, the stepdaughter of Iman Khalid Griggs, one of Hunt’s most ardent supporters.  Their relationship of trust in God and in one another is one of the most affirmative aspects of the film, as there isn’t an ounce of pretense in their feelings for one another.  They actually get married in prison, which he calls the “happiest day in his life.”  Her unshakable belief in this man is overwhelming.  Some 18 years after the murder, with racial animosity in the community still divided along color lines, the local newspaper that the victim worked for before she was murdered assigned a reporter to conduct their own investigation, Phoebe Zerwick, spending some 6 months or more pouring over the evidence before releasing a massive 8-part series in November 2003 which found that the police used questionable tactics and unreliable witnesses to convict Hunt, explaining the facts and inconsistencies of the case, which had a profound effect of uniting the races, as white religious leaders joined blacks to demand more public scrutiny in the case, which included demanding to know whose DNA was at the scene of the crime.  When the District Attorney budges, claiming the outcome has already been legally decided, a court orders a lab to release the results, which leads to Willard E. Brown, a man already convicted of raping another woman prior to Hunt’s incident, a man the police initially reported was innocent of the murder as he was incarcerated during the time, but they were mistaken, as Brown was released early and his DNA was present at the crime scene.  Still the District Attorney refuses to release Hunt, finding the results unfathomable, so Hunt remains in prison subject to further review.  His ultimate day in court is electrifying, as the victim’s mother, Evelyn Jefferson, takes the stand and makes her feelings known that she still believes Hunt raped and murdered her daughter, while Hunt in turn faces directly towards the mother and after breaking down in tears claims after all these years he can’t explain it either, that he never touched her daughter, but she would always remain in his prayers.  It’s an astonishing scene of stark realism that will remain embedded in the minds of viewers for quite some time, long after we learn of Hunt’s freedom and eventual exoneration, yet we also learn that the prosecutor in the case gets promoted to a special position in the Bush administration.    

Postscript

Hunt was released from prison on Christmas Eve, 2003.  On February 6, 2004, Superior Court Judge Anderson Cromer vacated Hunt’s murder conviction, dismissing the case, receiving a pardon by the Governor on April 15, 2004, while on February 19, 2007, the city of  Winston-Salem settled with Hunt in his lawsuit against the city where Hunt was awarded a settlement of $1,650,000, which he used to found The Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice and The Darryl Hunt Freedom Fighters, becoming a national advocate for social justice.  He is also an award winning speaker, mentor, community activist and author, speaking to hundreds of conferences, schools, film festivals, and religious groups.  He has played a pivotal role in North Carolina’s state-wide effort to pass a Death Penalty Moratorium Bill and has appeared before a U.S. Judiciary Committee hearing on the death penalty appeals process.  Some years later, however, Hunt’s life went into a downward spiral, living in a transient hotel, estranged from his family, using drugs and lying to his friends, conditions exacerbated by continuing mental health struggles that are commonplace to released prisoners suffering lingering postprison trauma, committing suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot in 2016 at the age of 51.  Hunt spent most of his years in prison in solitary confinement, and it should be pointed out that just recently an estimated 300,000 prisoners were held in solitary confinement in U.S. jails and prisons at the height of the COVID pandemic, according to estimates from the Solitary Watch and The Marshall Project, while a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Study Links Solitary Confinement to Increased Risk of Death ...) indicates prisoners who spend the most time in solitary confinement are more likely to die after release from suicide, homicide, or overdose, all of it linked to severe PTSD from our prison system.  Phoebe Zerwick is now the director of the journalism program at Wake Forest University and earlier this year published the definitive book on this tragic ordeal, Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt. 

Room for Doubt - Winston-Salem Journal  Part 1 of 8-part series from Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

JournalNow Special Report | Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs ...  The Search Begins, Who Saw What, Part 2 from Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

JournalNow Special Report - Winston-Salem Journal  Arrest and Protest, Part 3 from Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

Split jury struggles to a guilty verdict but has enough doubt to ...  Uneasy DA Wins a Conviction, Part 4 from Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

Investigators bring back old witnesses, gain some new ones  Part 5 from Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

All-white jury in Catawba County doesn't buy defense ...  ‘Guilty’ Again, Part 6 from Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

State: DNA Results Irrelevant - Winston-Salem Journal  Part 7 from Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

Closed Doors - Winston-Salem Journal  Part 8 from Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt  website for entire 8-part series, Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt, by Phoebe Zerwick from The Winston-Salem Journal, November 2003

Johnny Guitar

 

Director Nicholas Ray

Ray with Joan Crawford

Crawford (left) with Mercedes Cambridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOHNNY GUITAR         A                                                                                                             USA  (110 mi)  1954  d: Nicholas Ray

Never seen a woman who was more of a man.  She thinks like one, acts like one, and sometimes makes me feel like I’m not.    —Sam (Robert Osterloh), one of the blackjack dealers

Easily Nicholas Ray’s most subversive film, coming after They Live By Night (1948),  In a Lonely Place (1950), and On Dangerous Ground (1952), doing well at the box office but trashed by the critics, completely misunderstood at the time, refusing to conform to expectations of the male-dominated Western genre, which is typically an amalgamation of racism, sexism, and xenophobia, viewed by Ray as the biggest failure of his career, a continuance of his brooding outsider theme while also an indictment of mob psychology.  Conceived as a blatant response to the Hollywood blacklist and the witch hunt period of McCarthyism, this was a Cold War-era pursuit of men and women who were accused of being communists, most were falsely accused and imprisoned, their livelihoods and careers ruined by men who blatantly pushed the conspiracy theories of the day, yet the film’s reputation has been resuscitated by Martin Scorsese and other film scholars, beloved in Europe, including François Truffaut, who hailed Ray as “the poet of nightfall,” describing this film as “the Beauty and the Beast of Westerns,” listed at #9 for best picture in 1955 from the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, Cahiers du Cinema: 1951-2011, with many now praising this as among Ray’s best work.  Based on a 1953 novel by B-picture screenwriter Roy Chanslor, with a script largely credited to Philip Yordan, though blacklisted writer Ben Maddow may have contributed, heavily revised by Ray, it was written for Joan Crawford, who bought the rights for the movie, basically the producer for her own picture, the one calling the shots, often altering the script to suit her, with Crawford at the time an aging film star who grew paranoid about her fading career, constantly making demands that only heightened her insecurity, where there was constant friction on the set between her and her leading man, Sterling Hayden, with Crawford calling him “the biggest pill in Hollywood,” while Hayden exclaimed, “There is not enough money in Hollywood that could lure me into making another picture with Joan Crawford.  And I like money.”  Yet within this cauldron of Hollywood combustion and turmoil lies a truly magnificent script, among Hollywood’s greatest poetry, as the dialogue is crisp and fiercely antagonistic, filled with shots and counter shots at one another, where this is the epitome of a town that’s not big enough for the two competing interests, with Joan Crawford as Vienna representing the new world dream of the railroad, hoping to cash in on the future, and Mercedes Cambridge as Emma Small representing the old world of cattle interests, where they don’t believe in fences or anything restricting the far reaches of vast and unlimited lands.  Vienna even has a miniature model of a town in her saloon, destined to become a railroad stop, referenced by Sergio Leone when he created Claudia Cardinale’s character in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968).  Subverting the Western as a male vehicle, Nicolas Ray pits two women against one another, both detesting the other, with the film seething with their outright contempt, becoming an eroticized antagonism, with both distinguishing themselves in the roles, while Hayden as Johnny Guitar serves as the love interest, a role usually reserved for a woman, yet his pretty boy image is mocked by his direct and straightforward approach, standing up to any man, though often from the shadows.  Due to the camp nature of the film, wildly flamboyant with exaggerated stereotypes and operatic melodrama, some may question the feminist intent, but that’s the baffling nature of the film, examining the costs of a woman’s independent action through lurid, violent exaggeration, where Vienna isn’t willing to sacrifice her autonomy for Johnny, and just as surprisingly, he never asks her to.  Described as “a revisionist western, a feminist polemic, a vibrant fairy tale, a subversive cold war parable, maybe even a queer cult classic, ReFramed No. 23: Nicholas Ray's 'Johnny Guitar' (1954),” it has a beloved stature in the gay community (who loved to do Crawford in drag), openly embraced for how it has undermined the sexual roles, leaving audiences confused at the time of its release, with Vienna bitterly reminding Johnny, “A man can lie, steal, and even kill, but as long as he hangs on to his pride, he’s still a man.  All a woman has to do is slip – once, and she’s a ‘tramp!’  Must be a great comfort to you to be a man.”  There are also lesbian undercurrents, with Emma having a delusional fantasy about the Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady), yet her real interest, it seems, is Vienna, yet the sentiment is not reciprocated, which only leaves her more incensed, subconsciously repressing that interest and wanting her dead if she can’t have her.  It’s a strange alignment of stars, certainly among the most mysterious of all Westerns, yet it has all the standard conventions, a stagecoach holdup, a bank robbery, a hired gun, a posse turned into a lynch mob, a villain’s lair, a barroom brawl, a woman with a past, and a kid trying to prove himself.  Hayden’s tough guy persona is used to brilliant effect, as he doesn’t carry a gun, carrying a guitar on his back instead, introducing himself as a disinterested bystander at one point, “I’m a stranger here myself,” completely confounding the outlaw gang who don’t know where he stands, making the barroom confrontation even more wonderful, as the standoff isn’t with guns but with words, a delightful turn of events, and the rapid-fire dialogue doesn’t disappoint, ever more mythologized over time, endlessly quoted and repeated, including his maxim for living, “When you boil it all down, what does a man really need?  Just a smoke and a cup of coffee,” a line that diffuses armed conflict from escalating. 

The last film shot on Trucolor, a highly saturated two-strip, red and blue process, much of it shot in some stunning outdoor landscapes of Sedona, Arizona by Harry Stradling Sr, while other scenes were filmed near Oak Creek Canyon between Phoenix and Sedona, where the rocks have a reddish tint, yet Crawford refused to subject herself to the desert setting, so all her outdoor close-ups were actually shot in studio, using a double for long shots.  Shot at Republic Pictures, Ray’s first after leaving RKO, a smaller low-budget studio known primarily for B-movies that was a step down from Crawford’s days as the glamorous star at MGM and then Warners, so she let Ray and everyone else on the set know it, making their lives a living hell with temper tantrums and constant demands for more scenes and close-ups, even attempting to sabotage actress Mercedes Cambridge, bullying her on the set while ripping her costumes to shreds, thrown along the side of a highway in a drunken spree.  Ray reportedly vomited several times before arriving to work each day, as the heightened tension working with Crawford was unbearable.  Not like any other cowboy drama, playing havoc with Western conventions while reveling in sexual role-reversals, where in the middle of it all is Victor Young’s enchanting musical score, Ray sets his film shortly after the Civil War, taking place outside a fictitious town of Red Butte, Arizona (identified by the bank), as a stranger wanders into town by the name of Johnny Guitar, but along the way he witnesses a stagecoach robbery from high above a mountain vista, unable to see details, while all around them explosions are going off to make way for the coming railroad.  Entering town is like entering a dream, arriving during a sandstorm, where all you can make out is the name of the saloon, Vienna’s, with a casino inside, yet it is eerily empty, with no customers, yet the barkeep and dealers are all eyeballing the man who walked in out of a storm, discovering Vienna, now the owner, is a former saloon hostess, with short cropped hair, dressed entirely in black boots, pants and shirt, with dark red lipstick, yet carrying a holster, just like a man.  Seen early on having a business meeting with a railroad executive, she more than holds her own, viewed as a domineering force who is defiantly self-reliant, even barking out orders in her low voice to her casino workers, yet this establishment is peculiarly built right into a rock, which accounts for some of the jagged walls.  The leisurely pace of the opening is interrupted by the arrival of an angry mob led by Emma, including John McIvers (Ward Bond), a cattleman mayor, Marshal Williams (Frank Ferguson), and a motley group of men, providing a dead body as evidence, calling out for Vienna to be charged with the murder of her brother in the stagecoach robbery, though no evidence points to her.  Emma claims it was done by the Dancin’ Kid gang, friends of Vienna, claiming she’s harboring a gang of criminals and needs to be run out of town.  Vienna starts out on the top of the stairs, eyeballing the group, calmly proclaiming her innocence, indicating “Down there I sell whiskey and cards.  All you can buy up these stairs is a bullet in the head.  Now which do you want?”  But when Emma makes it personal, making threats, she walks down the stairs, with Emma warning, “I’m going to kill you.”  Vienna answers, “I know.  If I don’t kill you first.”  And therein lies the dramatic theme, radiating a persistent anxiety about change, as the two protagonists are dead set in their intentions, both fiercely independent, yet stubbornly persistent.  Emma’s hysteria is matched by Vienna’s calm restraint, never backing down, but holding her own against heavily stacked odds.  McIvers gives her and her ilk 24-hours to get out of town if they want to avoid trouble, an ultimatum at odds with the Marshal’s law, but he means business, with threats setting the stage for future hostilities.  In the midst of this showdown in the saloon, Johnny distinguishes himself as the only man without a gun, yet his calmness and good humor belies the situation, egged on by Bart (Ernest Borgnine), one of the Kid’s gang, and the two get to tussling, mostly happening offscreen, as the camera stays on Vienna and the Kid, who stand around a blackjack table discussing their feelings, returning to the fight only when it’s over, a forgettable brawl of no consequence whatsoever, with Johnny beating him senseless.  While no one says it out loud, this stranger seems surprisingly at ease, appearing out of nowhere, raising the question, “Who is this guy?”  Johnny and Vienna have a history together, yet broke it off five years ago, with Vienna calling him back as hired protection, yet her underlying motivation is to rekindle that love affair.  She hides her feelings, however, behind the bravado of the brawl, with each dancing around the inevitable, creating a mysterious ballet of emotional standoffishness, yet then instantaneously they apparently reconnect, awakening the next morning with their relationship reassured.  Vienna has some unfinished business, making a withdrawal from the bank to pay off her staff, as she’ll be closing down.  But they’re met by the Kid and his gang, who are there to rob the bank, thinking so long as they’re run out of the premises, they’ll at least have some traveling money.  While the timing couldn’t be more peculiar, the outlaw escape is equally harrowing, as they head into the mountains at the same time as dynamite explosions are closing down the pass, making the crossing impossible, returning to their hideout tucked away from it all, perched atop a mountainous rock, yet completely out of sight behind a waterfall, with the anxious men seething in anger and discontent.

While this is a Joan Crawford picture, Mercedes Cambridge steals the show as a raving psychopath, insanely over-the-top, serving as the town instigator, stirring the men into a frenzy, underscoring the men’s sheepishness, quickly forming a posse headed by McIvers (which mirrors Ward Bond’s anti-communist role in spearheading the McCarthy attacks), but she spurs them on at every turn chasing after the Kid and his gang, banishing Vienna from town, and even worse, instilling the men with a lynch mob hysteria, veering into territory explored by Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936) and William Wellman’s The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), where ordinary citizens can be bullied into a psychotic rage, completely transformed into a communal bloodlust for killing.  While McIvers is the man in charge, she is the pathological force that actually drives this picture, playing an unforgettable role of pure evil incarnate, getting a maniacal reaction after torching Vienna’s business and burning it down, and while the community may be responsible for carrying out a hanging, she goads them all along the way, pushing them further and further into following their worst instincts, crossing the line into criminality and even murder.  The half-crazed, pathological mania behind her neurotic vengeance is at the heart of the picture, standing for the ruthlessly corrupt power behind the McCarthy hearings, whose rigid standards are driven by a delusionary, Puritanical repression, matching Emma’s own deeply repressed sexual identity, with Vienna explaining that the Kid “makes her feel like a woman, and that frightens her,” instead instilling a poisonous venom over every frame of the film.  Identity fluctuates throughout this picture, as Vienna changes from pants to dresses (butch to femme), Johnny goes from being unarmed to wearing a gun, Johnny has changed his name, while Vienna has changed her profession.  Moreover, the Kid and his gang are charged for a stage holdup they didn’t commit, Vienna is repeatedly charged with masterminding crimes she had nothing to do with, while her sexual role from male to female also fluctuates with the costume she wears.  She is financially independent, owning her own business, and is always in control of her relationships, whether it be with the Kid or Johnny, always choosing the man she wants rather than be chosen by them.  Meeting an angry lynch mob in her saloon after the bank robbery, she’s alone in a cavernous saloon wearing a flowing white dress of innocence, seen calmly playing a sad song on the piano, an astonishing yet remarkably unforeseen image with the interior rocks adding an eerie backdrop, but when the vicious mob overruns her claim of guiltlessness, she’s hauled off for a hanging with her saloon gleefully burned down by Emma.  The lynch mob possesses evil intent, consumed on getting vengeance, browbeating a terrified kid into implicating Vienna (pressuring many well-known actors and directors into naming names is precisely what was so heinous about the McCarthy hearings), promising him immunity, but breaking every promise they make, hanging him anyway while Vienna is gallantly rescued by Johnny with the noose still around her neck, a last second reprieve from the gallows’ rope.  A figure of female power in a traditionally male-dominated West, she maintains her composure even after her business is burned to the ground, viewed as a rugged, tough individual, an equal in every respect to Johnny Guitar, or any other man, switching back into pants afterwards, easily exuding both masculine and feminine traits, but what’s missing is any sense of vulnerability or female mystique, where any romance is more suggestive than real or visibly expressed onscreen.  While Mildred Pierce (1945) breathed new life into Crawford’s flagging career, this film coincided with a downturn in her star status, where the exaggerated fever dream of this film only heightened a prevailing view of her as camp.  Figuring into this public descent was Crawford’s open attack on Marilyn Monroe’s flaunted sexuality, which she likened to a “burlesque show” unsuitable for the screen, claiming her films weren’t doing any business.  The story was a sensation in Hollywood, with most defending Monroe, who would, of course, become a huge box office star, while Crawford was viewed as an over-the-hill actress whose star had faded, openly revealing her jealousy of Monroe’s quick ascent into the Hollywood mainstream.  Even during the filming of this film, the press viciously attacked her, claiming her behavior on the set was unprofessional, accused of bullying Mercedes Cambridge, with Sterling Hayden echoing that thought, so her personal life matches a character that hates all other women, viewing them all as rivals, which greatly accelerates her exaggerated view as camp.  The finale, however, really tops it off, where there is an inevitable shootout between the two female stars, taking place at the outlaw hideout, while the men are reduced to secondary characters who simply watch it all happen, but the film begins and ends with Johnny, elevated to an intoxicating degree with a lover’s kiss in front of a waterfall to Peggy Lee’s wistful and melancholic rendition of the final theme song, Johnny Guitar (Title Song) YouTube (3:11), singing “There was never a man like my Johnny, like the one they call Johnny Guitar,” as if the entire film has been narrated by her.  Out of nowhere, viewers are reminded that the title of the film is in name only, as Crawford is the one wearing the pants and pushing all the buttons.  Described as part fatalism, part romanticism, the cinema of outsiders and loners, and also the cinema of gun fighting women, critic Jonathan Rosenbaum described this as the “first existential western.” 

Martin Scorsese introduces Johnny Guitar (USA, 1954) dir. Nicholas Ray YouTube (3:27)