That this macabre, cynical film pre-dates the Kennedy assassination is what still gets me. As does the “note thrown out the window” scene.
Dan Ireland doesn’t tell the Pepsi story right: the point is Crawford was married/widowed to/by the company’s president and was one of the major shareholders (language warning):
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c0EradeRJE"
(The first thing I’d do if I won the lottery would be to replace all my wire hangers with padded satin ones. And I’m deadly serious about that. I’ve said this long before Mommy, Dearest came out. It’s a poor-girl-gets-rich thing.)
And Johnny Guitar is one of my ten favorite films.
But now we need to balance things out — presenting the greatest actress in movie history, who taught me very early on (I saw this 1971 interview as a chld) that being a “problematic” woman — even if you “lose” — is good business:
(The Alexis Smith role she’s praising is “Phyllis” in the original Broadway production of Follies. If like me, you don’t really “get” Sondheim, this helps:)
