It’s tricky to pinpoint the moment when the movie world could proclaim the first openly lesbian film. Identifying early cinematic representations of lesbianism was like collecting crumbs off the top table. Sapphic sisters were used to watching whole films just to see a character (usually portrayed as victim, killer, neurotic or prostitute) shoot a covert look that audiences could interpret as queer – for instance, the apparent lesbian subtext between Vienna (Joan Crawford) and Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) in Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954).