Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)

Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar

Cast: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady, Ward Bond, Ben Cooper, Ernest Borgnine, John Carradine, Royal Dano. Screenplay: Philip Yordan, based on a novel by Roy Chanslor. Cinematography: Harry Stradling Sr. Art direction: James W. Sullivan. Film editing: Richard L. Van Enger. Music: Victor Young.

Nicholas Ray's weird Western baffled critics and audiences at the time, but is now celebrated as a visionary triumph, even interpreted as a satire on McCarthyism. In 2008 it was added to the "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" films preserved in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. I don't know about its cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance, but I do know that its performances by Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge are some of the most entertaining ever put on film, even if the actresses hated what they were doing at the time -- and hated each other. There's nothing else like it.

The Outlaw (Howard Hughes, 1943)

The Outlaw (Howard Hughes, 1943)

Cast: Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell, Walter Huston, Mimi Aguglia, Joe Sawyer, Gene Rizzi. Screenplay: Jules Furthman. Cinematography: Gregg Toland. Art direction: Perry Ferguson. Film editing: Wallace Grissell. Music: Victor Young.

Any list of great bad movies that doesn't include The Outlaw is not to be trusted. Because it is certainly bad, with a callow performance by Jack Buetel as Billy the Kid, a one-note (sultry pouting) performance by Jane Russell as Rio, and disappointing ones from old pros Thomas Mitchell and Walter Huston. It's ineptly directed by Howard Hughes, with awkward blocking and an abundance of scenes that don't go much of anywhere. It was weakened by Hughes's battles with the censors over Russell's cleavage and over the sexual innuendos -- an inept explanation that Rio and Billy were married while he was in a coma serves to legitimate the fact that they are sleeping together after he revives. It also implies that Billy rapes Rio, but she falls in love with him anyway. It's laden with a gay subtext, suggesting that Pat Garrett and Doc Holliday are in love with Billy -- and with each other. It's full of Western clichés and one of the corniest music tracks ever provided by a major film composer: Victor Young shamelessly borrows a theme from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 as a love motif for Rio and Billy, falls back on "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" at dramatic moments, and "mickey mouses" a lot of the action, including bassoons and "wah-wah" sounds from the trumpets to punch up comic moments. And yet, it's kind of a great bad movie for all of these reasons, and because it reflects its producer-director's megalomania, resulting in countless stories about his behind-the-scenes manipulation, his hyped-up "talent search" for stars that produced Russell (who became one) and Buetel (who didn't), and most famously, his use of his engineering talents to construct a brassiere for Russell that would perk up her breasts the way he wanted. (Russell apparently found it so uncomfortable that she secretly ditched it and adjusted her own bra to his specifications.)

The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)

The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)

Cast: Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready, Rita Johnson, Elsa Lanchester, Harold Vermilyea, Dan Tobin, Harry Morgan. Screenplay: Jonathan Latimer, based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing. Cinematography: Daniel L. Fapp, John F. Seitz. Art direction: Roland Anderson, Hans Dreier, Albert Nozaki. Film editing: LeRoy Stone. Music: Victor Young.

The Big Clock is a satisfying blend of suspense and comedy of the kind often called "Hitchcockian," which usually means it would probably have been even better if Hitchcock had directed it. But since he didn't, it's worth admiring what director John Farrow and screenwriter Jonathan Latimer did with the material provided them by Kenneth Fearing's novel. Fearing had worked at Time magazine when Henry Luce was head of that publishing empire, so it's clear that he had Luce in mind when he created the imperious Earl Janoth, played with mustache-stroking glee by Charles Laughton in the film. So there's a substratum of satire on publishing moguls like Luce -- a breed that still exists in our day, embodied by Rupert Murdoch. (And still attracts satire, viz., HBO's Succession.)  The plot centers on another Hitchcockian trope, the Wrong Man. In this case, the object of suspicion is George Stroud, editor of one of Janoth's properties, a true crime magazine called Crimeways. Ray Milland plays Stroud, a hard-charging journalist who feels trapped in Janoth's empire. Eventually, through a well-set-up series of coincidences, Stroud finds himself investigating a murder in which he becomes the chief suspect, even though it was actually committed by no less than Janoth. There are domestic complications, too, involving Stroud's wife, a thankless role nicely played by Maureen O'Sullivan. The victim is Janoth's mistress, with whom Stroud has become involved because she suggests she has dirt on Janoth that Stroud can use to his advantage. The film handles all of these plot snarls with finesse, one of the rare instances in which knowing whodunit from the outset doesn't detract from the suspense. Censorship blunts some of the edges: In the novel, Stroud's marriage was less happy and his involvement with the victim more intimate. Janoth's bisexuality was also more explicit in the source -- in the film it's suggested when we see Janoth receiving a massage from his bodyguard, played silently by Harry Morgan, who remains a brooding presence in the background of other scenes. The film is enlivened by a gallery of mostly comic secondary characters, including Elsa Lanchester as a giddy artist whose works Stroud for some reason collects.

The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler, 1942)

The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler, 1942)

Cast: Alan Ladd, Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Bonita Granville, Joseph Calleia, Richard Denning, Frances Gifford, Donald MacBride, Margaret Hayes, Moroni Olsen, Eddie Marr, Arthur Loft, George Meader. Screenplay: Jonathan Latimer, based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett. Cinematography: Theodor Sparkuhl. Art direction: Haldane Douglas, Hans Dreier. Film editing: Archie Marshek. Music: Victor Young, Walter Scharf.

There's something a little febrile about The Glass Key, and I don't just mean the movie -- it' s inherent in Dashiell Hammett's novel, too. The movie heightens it with the casting of Veronica Lake, who always seems a little out of it in her movies, on which she often clashed with directors and/or stars. And William Bendix's sadistic thug has a special menace for those of us who remember him in his familiar sitcom role, as the working-class schlub in The Life of Riley. It was a breakthrough role for Alan Ladd as the semi-conscientious right-hand man to Brian Donlevy's shady politician. Ladd gets beaten into the hospital by Bendix, where he spends a lot of time doing what he does best: flirting, in this case with the nurse. He also flirts with Lake, as the daughter of Donlevy's political rival turned ally, as well as with Bonita Granville, as Donlevy's sister, and even the wife of the corrupt newspaper publisher who wants to frame Donlevy for murder. And so on, in a reasonably faithful translation of Hammett's book that only misses the author's dryly tough prose style.