Saturday, December 19, 2009

Great bar fights

A little earlier today I put up a post on Froogville about the lovely 1960s singer/actress Dorothy Provine, including a clip of her appearance in the Blake Edwards comedy The Great Race where she delivers a rip-roaring Wild West saloon song.

That song, of course, is quickly followed by a rip-roaring Wild West saloon bar brawl. This one (currently only available on YouTube in French, I'm afraid).


That, of course, put me in mind of this even more outrageous fight scene from a few years later in Blazing Saddles. ("Well, piss on you! I'm working for Mel Brooks!")


Equally memorable but rather more earnest is this contest between Alan Ladd and Ben Johnson in the classic Western Shane, which I watched again just the other night. (It's a pity YouTube doesn't yet appear to have the continuation of this scene where it escalates into an all-in brawl, with Van Heflin joining Ladd to help him face down the entire roomful of cowboys.)


And then there's this, Chuck Connors and Claude Akins grappling to the death in the 1966 Western Ride Beyond Vengeance. This appears to be a fairly undistinguished and now largely forgotten film, remembered chiefly for this great fight sequence (which, unusually, starts outside in the street and moves indoors). [Thanks to YouTube user JMoneyYourHoney - who has posted an impressive selection of great film fights - for these last two.]


And finally, although it's not a Western fight or a bar fight, here's the big fight scene between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in John Ford's The Quiet Man - possibly the most deliriously over-the-top bit of fisticuffs ever filmed (no embedding, unfortunately).

And remember - don't try this at home.

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