Blondes vs. Brunettes #7 - Catfights and Gunfights #1

Two of the great resources out there are Ed Stips' Yahoo Group "MovieTVcatfightalert"

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/movietvcatfightalert/info

and "Catfight Collectors" on runboard.com

http://bcatfightcollectors.runboard.com/

 

 

In the past couple of weeks both of them (they have an incestuous relationship that I'm jealous of) have discussed the 1954 western "Johnny Guitar" starring Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge.  At the end of the movie, the two ladies had a nice little gunfight with each other that ended with Ms. McCambridge getting blasted by Joan.  There's no point in discussing any further since they were both brunettes.

But it did get me to thinking about a couple of westerns that did feature blonde vs. brunette gunfights that actually started as catfights before the ladies decided to take it outside.

WATCH: The Women They Almost Lynched - The Catfight

The first of these was the 1953 movie "The Woman They Almost Lynched" starring Audrey Totter as the blonde gunslinger and Joan Leslie as the brunette saloon owner.  As usual, let's just skip the inane plot and get to the good stuff, namely the two women getting into a knock down drag out bar room brawl with the brunette Leslie getting the best of blonde haired Totter.

 

Naturally, Totter decides to seek revenge against her brunette opponent and decides the best way to do it is in an old-fashioned shootout. Totter of course, is sure she will win as she fancies herself as a real tough cookie who can handle a gun.  And she thinks that Leslie is a wimp who is clueless with a gun. Now you might just think that Totter would Think twice about this since the wimp had just given her a first class ass whipping in a fight, but no point in trying to think logically.  Well, you can just see this coming:  Joan Leslie, the nice gal from back east turned out to be as handy with a gun as she was with her fists. In classically silly western style, she wings Totter in the gunfight, shooting the pistol from her hand. Totter who revealed herself as the real wimp, tells Leslie to finish the job which she declines and instead implores Totter to stop acting like a thug and start acting like a lady.

 

 

Watch: The Woman They Almost Lynched - The Gunfight

Yawn.

The best part of the post-fight reaction occurred when one of male onlookers said to Totter, “She fights better than you, she shoots better than you and she even talks better than you", and the other dude says, "Yeah, I bet she can even cook better than you."

Hahahaha!

I thought that was hilarious.

The second movie was the 1954 western, Jesse James Women. In this flick's somewhat odd casting, Don "Red" Barry, an actor well into his 40s, played the role of James who was gunned down while he was in his early 30s.

Blonde Peggie Castle and black haired Betty Brueck played the lead female roles as a saloon keeper and trail boss, respectively. The gals come to blows inside Castle's bar when they both were vying for the attention of James. Like Totter, Castle is another blonde brimming with confidence but this time it's justified as she really knocks the crap out of dark haired Brueck. Like The Woman They Almost Lynched, the loser, in this case the brunette, decides to strap on the guns and have a shootout with the winner which in this case was the blonde castle. It's a nice little showdown but it's ruined by Jesse James in another silly little western maneuver when he wings not one, but both of the women simultaneously with two guns, one in each of his hands.  YaRight.com

Watch: Jesse James Women - The Catfight

After their guns are shot out of their hands, the woman charge each other and can be seen in the background fighting but the scene shifts to another one of James' criminal plots and we never see the result.

 Not that I'm complaining, but both of these movies, along with Johnny Guitar, beg the question: What the hell were they all smoking in 1953-1954?

 

 Watch: Jesse James Women: The Gunfight