This fight scene from Deadwood has been called one of the most realistic fight scenes ever filmed. I’m going to spoiler it because of the intensity of it. Think twice before clicking on it if you are squeamish viewing intense violence.
That should be a commonplace in realistic depictions of frontier violence, given that the West was largely a cultural extension of the South.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, especially Buster’s shooting abilities.
Yes, that was a staged picture with “city” clothes. No one would wear a bowler out on the range. Teddy Roosevelt in period writing told of frontiersmen teasing someone who had a bowler and shooting it full of holes.
Bowlers were not worn by cowboys. Townsfolk in the more civilized areas, sure.
Lower down is Billy wearing a different hat.
Yes, workers out on the range like cowboys and ranch hands would often wear wide-brimmed hats to keep the sun out of their face, but not always. In general the bowler or derby hat was the most popular hat of the old West.
In the bloody American west of 1880, Little Bill couldn’t put together a posse of combat veterans from the civil war? None who fought Native Americans? None who were willing to pull a trigger as an outlaw pointed a gun at Little Bill? Not even one man?
The barman stepped up, and look what it got him.
He completed his mission, which was to make Munny look bigger and badder.
People like Bill, Munny and Bob are rare. That’s sort of the point.
Bill’s deputies were just ordinary men who were only called upon to look tough and point guns. I’m sure the last thing Bill wanted was to gather together a group of people as depraved as he was.
Sure, such a group would have been ideal to deal with Munny but an utter nightmare to have hanging around the rest of the time.
In the city, but not on the range.
https://truewestmagazine.com/100-best-historical-photos-american-old-west/
#19, 37, 18
this cowboy fits the description (at least the top half!) given in an 1871 Kansas newspaper: “His dress consists of a flannel shirt with a handkerchief encircling his neck, butternut pants and a pair of long boots, in which are always the legs of his pants. His head is covered by a sombrero, which is a Mexican hat with a high crown and a brim of enormous dimensions.”
35, 26, 28, 39, 13
Note the total lack of Bowlers.
Sure in the cities, bowlers were common. but not on on the range.
22 The Genuine Cow Boy Captured Alive
In this 1880s cabinet card, accurately captioned “The Genuine Cow Boy Captured Alive,” Cottonwood Charlie Nebo (far left), a proud proprietor of a horse ranch, wears a bib front shirt, shotgun chaps, bandanna, wide brimmed hat and his fringed, scabbard-style holster.
Based on documentaries I’ve seen plus things I learned while exploring the Billy The Kid Highway in New Mexico, I’d say most of the Young Guns movies were historically accurate.
They did take some dramatic license, of course. But overall I’d say both movies were more than 95% accurate.
The weird thing about Young Guns is that they got a lot of small details right. In some early draft of the screenplay, someone did some real research. (A lot of stuff seems to have been taken from the book Violence in Lincoln County, by William Aloysius Keleher.) But then they deliberately screwed up big things.
So as you are watching it, you go “This is BS . . . this is BS . . . this is BS . . . Hey! That part was true!”
Some of the big things were in real life BTK did not kill Murphy. And John Tunstil was only in his 20’s. Garret did not kill Chavez and Doc was not killed either.
But BTK did meet with the Governor and strike a deal, he did escape from Jail, he did kill Sheriff Brady, and somehow they did fight their way out of that burning house. And he was, briefly, a sworn lawman, and he was educated, at least for the times, and he was bilingual.
Dave did end up getting his head cut off and put on a pike. And Dick was gunned down by Buckshot Roberts.
Did I miss anything?
When you consider that most of the stuff in those movies actually happened it’s a crazy thought. That was truly the wild, wild west!
I’ll toss another hat in the 1883 ring. My wife and I have been enjoying it quite a bit.
Has anyone mentioned just how inaccurate and unreliable period handguns were? I’d say that was a major factor in determining the quality of shootouts.
You guys have nailed most of the ones I would say…LOOKSWISE…large parts of Little Big Man and Jeremiah Johnson.
I wouldn’t. Those pistols were quite accurate. It’s the people holding them that were sub-optimal.
Is that a serious suggestion? Because it seems to me that if you’re falling off your horse, the hat is going to fall off before your head hits the ground.
When you see a nice, little, western town, and main street looks like smooth clay, there is not a mud puddle or a weed growing in the street, then you know that is what probably filmed on a movie lot. Not even a little dandelion here and there. No random piles of horse shit. Every hitching post should have pools of horse piss from them being hitched there for a while.
There are only two types of old western towns, the ones that are on a back studio lot and used over and over again in different shows, and the towns that were clearly just thrown up to make the movie. They look rustic but you can tell that there is no history of use. Newly constructed with old lumber. A lot of Clint Eastwood westerns look like that. High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider, newly constructed out of old wood.
I don’t remember if it was a movie or tv show, but I once spotted the curved studio ceiling above a western town. The storefronts were attached to the outside walls. And not a horse turd to be seen.