Cowboys

[Stumpy Pepys]

I was thinking on the way home, are there many westerns featuring cowboys doing actual work? Like, y'know … herding cattle? Rather than drinking, womanising, playing poker and shooting people?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Cowboys

The Misfits. Mustangs rather than cattle, but the real deal, especially the later scenes.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Cowboys

For all the cowboy mythology, actual cowboys are rarely the heroes in Westerns, at least in a cowboy category, but rather soldiers, lawmen and outlaws, the latter of which might or might not have worked as cowboys.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Cowboys

My Darling Clementine has the Earps herding cattle, until the Clantons rustle 'em and kill ma bruther James.

[elguapo4]

Cowboys

Red river or open range are two that spring to mind

[Patrick Thistle]

Cowboys

City slickers.

[treibeis]

Cowboys

Stumpy Pepys wrote: womanising

In the cowboy films I've seen, there hasn't been all that much womanising. They harrass gunsmiths and turn over liquor stores more than they womanise.

[Nefertiti2]

Cowboys

Red River has fantastic cattle shots & has a lot about the business of getting cattle to the slaughterhouse ls in Chicago.

Lonesome Dove the miniseries written by Larry McMurtry is just fantastic- the novel is even better.

[G-Man]

Cowboys

treibeis wrote: In the cowboy films I've seen, there hasn't been all that much womanising. They harrass gunsmiths and turn over liquor stores more than they womanise.

They couldn't, because the only women in Westerns were

• assorted middle-aged wives, virtuous widows, and

• the inevitable idealistic schoolhouse teacher. If our hero falls for her, she will be quite outspoken and initially repulsed by him. But when he saves her from rape by the dentally-challenged Bad Boy, they may fall in love.

• a couple of sexually-awkening daughters of the sheriff/judge whom our not yet superannuated hero may be falling for (putting him on collision cause with the Law before he redeems himself).

• A sassy, gender-role defying Independent Woman, possibly a blacksmith. These are optional, and can be replaced by chain-smoking, cynical yet good-hearted saloon and/or brothel owner. Our hero can't be womanising her because he already did, seven years ago. They're still friends, and he doesn't mind when she walks in on him when he's having a bath (and, Western Movie Hero, smoking in the bath?)

• and a variety of prostitutes, mostly with hearts of gold -- except the scheming harlot who our hero is warned about. But her ignores those warning, because his redemption is dependent on Lawman Daughter's/Schoolhouse Teacher's purity.

In short, there's little to womanise with there. That's why the brothels are booming in Western Town. I suppose there was a shortage of romancing opportunities in real life, too.