It’s a hoary old cliché - grizzled cowboy strikes match nonchalantly on his stubbly chin and lights up a cheroot - but is it actually from a real scene in a film? Lots of pages state without evidence that Clint Eastwood did it in the Man With No Name films, but the closest actual scene I can find is when Mortimer (Lee van Cleef) strikes a match on Juan Wild’s hunched back in a bar.
Inquiring minds need to know.
In Stalag 17, Sefton (William Holden) strikes a match on the beard of another prisoner. It was kind of a dominance (pecking order) kind of thing.
Previous thread (2010)
Basic conclusion: likely not possible with current strike anywhere matches, might have been possible with really old time strike anywhere matches.
Ooooh, I’ll have to try it on my brother! 
Thing is, though, that there is a window for “optimum coarseness”. He has to go a day and a half to have stubble that literally hurts if you hug him and rub cheeks. That would be the time to try it. It actually starts to soften as it gets longer than that.
That would have been a fun Mythbusters.
Oh, man, I’d forgotten about that. Holden was so cool in that movie.
I tried striking a match on my stubble one night (alcohol was involved). I couldn’t get it to work. If it had worked, I’m sure it would have burned the shit out of me, so I was probably lucky.
I have a vague memory of seeing a cartoon cowboy (Looney Tunes?) lighting a match on face. Unfortunately my google fu is weak today, Or it doesn’t exist.
There’s a place on my wood stove that is for striking matches. It doesn’t work with the matches you get today. I try it every now and then to see if something has changed.
You can light a match with your thumbnail, but you’ll never do it again after you get burning sulphur under your nail.
Same with your teeth, till you pop the burning matchhead off on your tongue…and it sticks:eek:.
When I saw the OP I thought of lighting matches off a zipper fly.
I think I have lit a match off my zipper before. I can’t recall for sure though.
I think Moe struck a match on Curly’s shaven head, but I can’t give any specific short title where it happened.
Not exactly what you’re looking for, but there is a guy in a cowboy hat.
@1:07
