Eureka Entertainment is to release JOHNNY GUITAR, Nicholas Ray’s extraordinary psychological western starring Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden, on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK as part of The Masters of Cinema Series from 20 September 2021. Presented in a Limited Edition Set of only 3,000 copies featuring a Hardbound Slipcase and 60-page Collector’s Booklet.
Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner with a sordid past. Persecuted by the townspeople, Vienna must protect her life and her property when a lynch mob led by her sexually repressed rival, Emma Small, attempts to frame her for a string of robberies she did not commit. Enter Johnny Guitar, a guitar-strumming ex-gunfighter who has a history with Vienna.
Mis-understood by US audiences upon release, the film was embraced by European cineastes and is now regarded as one of the greatest western pictures of all time. An intensely stylised masterpiece from director Nicholas Ray, Johnny Guitar makes its UK debut on Blu-ray as part of the Masters of Cinema series.
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY CONTAINS
- Hardbound Slipcase
- 1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a 4K restoration of the original film elements, framed in the film’s originally intended aspect ratio of 1.66:1
- Brand new commentary by critic Geoff Andrew, author of The Films of Nicholas Ray: The Poet of Nightfall, newly recorded for this release
- Brand new video piece by Tony Rayns
- Brand new video essay by David Cairns
- Brand new interview with Susan Ray
- Archival introduction to Johnny Guitar by Martin Scorsese
- Trailer
- PLUS: 60-page collector’s book featuring new essays on the making of Johnny Guitar and on female gunslingers in the western genre, both by western expert Howard Hughes; an essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum; and archival writing and ephemera
