Ride Hard and Carry a Big.....Stick?

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

I watched Angel and the Badman for the first time last night. A good movie. The young John Wayne is good as both a gunslinger and a romantic lead. And Gail Russell is beautiful, as she was a few years later in Seven Men From Now. Her personal story was a sad one, to be sure.

 

Anyway, Quirt (Wayne), the gunman falling under the influence (and spell) of the Quaker lass, sets out with his friend to thwart the bad guys' rustle of a cattle herd. In doing so, they arm themselves with....sticks! Big sticks admittedly. They charge the bad guys, who have just murdered a bunch of cowhands, and club them off of their horses with the sticks. Then they ride on, leaving the bad guys afoot, but otherwise little the worse for wear.

 

I was....amazed. Sticks? I've never before or since seen a Western using sticks rather than guns in such a setting. Nor despite a bit of desultory internet searching, could I find any commentary on this scene. Something to do with the Quaker theme, no doubt, but still most unusual and strange to see.

 

Are there other stickfights on horseback in Westerns?

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

Little Big Man. Early in the film, Jack narrates a scene where the tribe would club their adversaries. 

 

 

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Good point. The Indians would use clubs, but against one another.

 

This scene was so strange, though, I had to rewind and look again. The bad guys were shooting the cowboys down right and left. Then Wayne and his two friends come out of the rocks with the big sticks, to knock or push the still-armed bad guys off their horses.  They did so without undue incident and rode off.

 

Truly the oddest Western fight I've ever seen.

[sassnetguy50]

The preacher in Pale Rider uses an axe handle.

[Creeker, SASS #43022]

First thing I thought of

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

The scene starts at about 59.01. Really gotta be unique:

 

 

[Alpo]

Dumb, too.

 

It's not that Quakers are against guns. Quakers are against violence.

 

Don't matter whether you shoot somebody, or stab them, or run them down with a horse, or stampede cattle over them, or hit them with a stick. They don't want you to do that.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

It's sort of a Quaker movie. The last scene, as Quirt leaves gunfighting for the farm with Penelope, he hands his SAA to the sheriff (played by Harry Carey Sr.) The lawman says that the only man who needs a gun is the one who is carrying one.

 

Good movie all in all, though. I like the early JW movies. The bar fight scene is one of the classics of the genre.