WESTERN CLICHÉS

I've been busy watching Gunsmoke and The High Chaparral re-runs along with some other western films and TV series. I didn't see any resemblance between Richard and 'Big' John Cannon in The High Chaparral though. Maybe he was thinking of the character Victoria's dad:

"If you weren't my daughter Victoria I'd be dating you"

The best films are still the great John Ford ones made in the 1940s and 1950s.
The best of the TV series from a filming, acting, writing and direction point of view is Rawhide. This is classy stuff and still holds up well.

I noticed many clichés though. In the older films these were original and have been copied relentlessly. In the later films they are kind of set pieces that the audience expects. Here are some:

• The drunk gets thrown out of the saloon. He goes out the left side of the swinging door and, 5 seconds later comes back through the right side swinging door.
• There is some sort of altercation in the saloon bar. At the end there is a dead silence for a few seconds before the piano player looks around and then turns back to his piano to play manically.
• A woman comes between the major protagonists.
• The hero has a prim and proper 'fiancee' who is usually a schoolteacher but also has a saloon girl on the side who has a jealous crush on him.
• The bad guy has a stupid son who kills a friend or family member of the good guy and is killed by the good guy thus triggering a feud.
• One of the good guys is an alcoholic.
• Drinking wine, beer or non-alcoholic drinks is frowned upon. Real men drink whiskey.
• Bullets always make ricocheting noises no matter where they are fired.
• Good guys can hit people and moving objects a long way away using their handguns.
• Respectable townspeople who reluctantly join in the fight never have handguns. They have shotguns which never seem to hit anything. They usually get shot.
• The corral keeper is a crusty old guy who helps the good guys. He rarely wears a shirt preferring to wear an undershirt with braces holding up his pants.
• One of the good guys gets accused of a murder he didn't commit.
• They all ride their horses way too fast through desert landscapes.
• The stage coach goes way too fast through desert landscapes.
• They never seem to carry much water when travelling through desert landscapes.
• Desert landscapes.
• Poker games where someone cheats.
• Eating is very rarely shown (except in John Ford films or where they gather around the chuck wagon in drover films).
• Bad guys wear spurs even when not riding horses.
• Bartenders never seem to give any change.
• Sitting around a campfire always ends badly.
• A scene of a family inside a cabin always means that renegade Indians are going to attack.
• Travelling Shakespearian actors are always ridiculed by the bad guys.
• Actors and any dapper guys are 'made to dance' by shooting at their feet.
• In shootouts the big mirror in the saloon always gets hit.
• In saloon brawls chairs always get broken over heads but no heads get broken.
• In saloon fights someone always gets thrown through the front window.
• In Western towns there is never evidence of a glazier shop or business.
• Churches are always being built of burned down.
• You never see a Catholic priest or Catholic church.
• Mexicans and Native Americans are invariably the bad guys or cannot be trusted.
• The good guy rides away at the end.