Joan Crawford (Mildred Pierce) 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 (Mercedes McCambridge; All The King’s Men), attempts to frame her for a string of robberies she did not commit. Enter Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden; Dr. Strangelove: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb ), 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.