An analysis of Western
films discloses the use of a number of specific types of scenic
elements that tend to recur frequently in such movies. The order in
which these scenic elements occurs may differ, and not all may be
present in a film, although, typically, many, if not all, do tend to
appear. In addition, each scenic element can be shown by itself or in
combination with another (for example, an offer of a bounty may be
accepted or rejected, earned or lost). Scenic elements that occur in
all the movies analyzed below are indicated by bold font.
In Tombstone (1993),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Despicable
deed: An action, usually criminal, that is beyond the pale, even for
outlaws
Relocation
Reunion
Health
problem
Character
flaw
Stake:
A source of income, often temporary
Murder
Arrest
Law
enforcement
Gunfight
Ambush
Retaliation
Refuge:
a place of safety
Challenge
Substitution:
the replacement of an expected or intended character or object with
an unexpected replacement
Showdown
Vendetta:
protracted revenge against several parties
Marriage
In
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
(1966), these scenic elements occur in this order:
Interrogation:
formal or informal, legal or otherwise
Murder
Surrender
to authorities: of oneself or one's prisoner
Rescue
Abandonment
Revenge
Duplicity:
often as a means of double-dealing or double-crossing
Reunion
Capture
Escape
Sabotage
Intelligence:
information gained through personal observation, primary sources, or
secondary sources
Robbery
Rescue
In
The War Wagon (1967),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Relocation
Revenge
Intelligence
Hiring
of expert(s)
Robbery
Rescue
Offer
of bounty
Drunkenness
Negotiation
Intervention
Diversion
Theft
Forced
detour
Division
of forces
Drunkenness
Ambush
Murder
Crash
In
True Grit (1969),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Murder
Robbery
Hiring
of expert(s)
Pursuit
Tracking
of fugitive(s)
Partnership
Attempted
abandonment
Discovery:
information gained through a character's own action, rather than
those of another party or from a primary or secondary source
Capture
Interrogation
Defiance
Attempted
ambush
Feint
Gunfight
Death:
loss of life due to a natural cause or a justified killing, as
opposed to murder
Escape
Pursuit
Wounding
Kidnapping
Ultimatum
Attack
Injury
Snakebite
Commandeering of
civilian vehicle
Payment
Promise
Wager
As
this partial analysis of the recurring types of scenic elements
common to Western films shows, such movies frequently use the same
scenic elements, despite the dramatic details of their plots. A
writer who is interested in writing a Western novel or screenplay can
use these same scenic elements to construct a plot based on a
structure that has stood the test of time.
Sometimes, the
stories of the actors behind the figures of the Old West—at least,
as they are portrayed in Hollywood Westerns—are as interesting as
those of the cowboys, gunfighters, outlaws, and sheriffs themselves.
A case in
point: character actor Chill Wills, who was known as much for his
gravely voice and his gruff demeanor as he was for his rugged
appearance.
He starred in
many Westerns, alongside some of the most famous leading men of the
genre, including John Wayne, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor,
Gene Autry, and Robert Preston.
It was after his role as Bee Keeper in the
1960 film The Alamo,
starring John Wayne, that Wills got into trouble. Bee Keeper was the
sidekick of Davy Crockett (John Wayne). According to Cynthia Brideson
and Sara Brideson, authors of the highly
recommendedAlso
Starring Forty Biographical Essays on the Greatest Character Actors
of Hollywood's Golden Era, 130-1965,
Wills's role won him “his first Oscar nomination,” and he wanted
the award badly enough to hire a publicity agent to conduct a
campaign for him.
His
agent, W. S. Wocjiechowicz, conceived the idea of blanketing
“Hollywood trade papers” with an ad containing the copy, “We of
The Alamocast are
praying harder—than the real Texans prayed for their lives in The
Alamo—for Chill Wills to win the Oscar.”
Wayne,
who had great respect for the real men of the West, was offended. Not
only did he deny that “any of the cast had condoned” Wills's
slick campaign, but he also “condemned” it.
The Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Science also found the campaign offensive. As
a result, the Academy forbade any future such campaigns by stars who
were nominated for the award.
Wills
didn't win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Instead, he lost to Peter
Ustinov, who won for his part as Lentulus Batiatus, the owner of the
gladiator school in Spartacus.
To get a true idea of the
complexity of the American West, as it is suggested by the posters
that promote John Wayne's many Western films, it's necessary to
analyze many of these advertisements. In this post, however, only one
is considered, so, admittedly, only the surface has been scratched
here.
The point of this post is
to identify some of the elements that Hollywood filmmakers
considered, at the time of the poster's appearance, to be of
sufficient interest to the genre's fans that they could be used to
persuade them to part with the price of the movie's admission.
McLintock, released
in 1963, stars John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Patrick Wayne, Stefanie
Powers, Jack Kruschen, Chill Wills, Jerry Van Dyke, and Yvonne De
Carlo. Three women in a Western are two (or, in many cases, even
three) more than usual; consequently, their presence suggests that
this film focuses on the relationships between men and women of the
Old West more than many other such films.
Despite the presence of
Patrick Wayne, Jack Kruschen, Chill Wills, and Jerry Van Dyke,
there's really only one male character of importance in the motion
picture: Wayne's character, George Washington (“G. W.”)
McLintock. As the movie's poster
makes clear by focusing on him and O'Hara, the flick is
primarily about his
relationship to her.
Wayne
is shown as huge, his portrait taking up the upper two-thirds of the
poster's space. He appears to be laughing, except that he looks more
pained than merry (but, then, Wayne often
looks pained, on screen and in posters). The fact that the film is a
comedy suggests that he is, in fact, laughing.
Beneath
his image, the movie's title, “McLintock!,” appears, complete
with exclamation point.
Beneath
the title, three pictures, looking much like snapshots, are featured,
the middle one of which slightly overlaps the one before and the one
after it. Comprising a sort of triptych, these smaller images seem to
be the soil, so to speak, out of which the comparatively gigantic
head and shoulders of McLintock arises, as if his being is rooted in
the activities the “snapshots” depict. The order of the smaller
images also suggest a beginning, a middle, and an end, and all of
them suggest violence of a sort.
The
first picture shows two men engaged in a fistfight, while a third
lies on the ground, apparently recovering from a blow.
The
second shows a man pursuing a woman dressed only in her underwear; he
holds part of her torn dress; she, the rest of it. One of the
buildings behind the couple is the McLintock Hotel. Probably to
maintain an element of suspense, neither of the two figures (or those
of the fighting men) are identifiable as members of the cast and, in
fact, look like any of the actors, so viewers can't tell whether the
fighters include Wayne or the couple consists of him and O'Hara.
The
third of the smaller pictures shows another brawl, in which one man,
shown in the foreground, knocks his opponent down, while, in the
background behind them, a third man holds a fourth, while a fifth
falls to the ground. Most of the men, of course, wear six-shooters,
holstered on their hips.
The
poster seems to indicate that McLintock is a man of violence, a
fighter and (by today's understanding) a perpetrator of domestic
violence. A businessman, probably of some social and economic
standing in town, he's outwardly respectful, but he's certainly no
saint. Like his business rivals, physical combatants, and his own
wife, others are subject to his will; a dominant personality he's
able and willing to impose his will on men and women alike. Somehow
(perhaps because the bigger image of him is laughing), he appears to
be likable.
With
some speculation, based on the poster's imagery, these notions are
about all a viewer can discern concerning the movie's likely plot.
Filmmakers were betting that these inferences would be enough to lure
fans of Westerns in general and of Wayne in particular into theaters
in 1963.
By
consulting a summary
of the movie, we can see whether the implications suggested by the
movie's poster (or the interpretation of it, at least, that's offered
in this post) are close to the content that the film actually
delivers, are far afield, or are somewhere between these polar
possibilities.
The
movie, we find, is based “loosely” on William Shakespeare's
comedy The
Taming of the Shrew. G. W.
is more financially successful than his name on the hotel, as shown
on the poster, suggests, and he's not primarily a hotel owner; he's a
rancher, a cattleman, and a mine operator as well.
His
wife Katherine (O'Hara) has left him, to live back east, after
suspecting he's committed adultery. His daughter Becky (Powers), a
college student, lives with him. In Katherine's absence, G. W.'s
hired a homesteader, the beautiful widow Louise Warren (De Carlo),
whose adult son Devlin (“Dev”) (Wayne's son Patrick) lives in
McLintock's house with her.
All
is cleared up between G. W. and Kathleen, after G. W. spanks her with
a coal scuttle, a technique he picked up from his daughter's fiance,
Dev, who earlier delivered the same punishment to Becky, using the
same instrument, whereupon the quarreling younger couple became
engaged.
The
poster is vague about the fistfights it depicts, but, it seems, they
reference the brawls that occur in the movie. The man pursuing the
woman in the central picture at the bottom of the poster is G. W.;
the woman he pursues, his wife (although their identification is,
perhaps intentionally, left unclear in the poster).
Wayne,
who developed the script, included the spanking scenes to indicate
his own aversion to domestic violence. However, according to O'Hara,
Wayne “really spanked me! My bottom was black and blue for weeks!”
Although
the poster seems purposely vague about the motives of the characters
and the particular details of the situations in which they are
depicted, again, probably to preserve suspense, it does a fair job of
hinting at the nature of the film and its general theme.
Fans
of the Western who enjoy action and adventure that includes sex
(symbolized on the poster by O'Hara's half-dressed state) and
violence (suggested on the poster by the pictures of fisticuffs) and
features a manly, if familiar, star as protagonist were likely to
fork over the price of admission to enjoy McLintock,
the filmmakers apparently believed, since this poster was released to
promote the film.
The
persistence of these ubiquitous dramatic (and narrative) elements,
which have become more and more explicit and pervasive in Westerns,
as in other genres of film, suggests that today's audience remains at
least as interested in these elements of the genre as was the same
genre's audience in 1963.
Western
movies tend to do well at the box office, especially when their
leading character is a star of the magnitude of John Wayne or Clint
Eastwood.
How
much do posters and lobby cards designed to promote these films help
sell tickets? The answer is anybody's guess, but, apparently, even in
the digital age, Hollywood believes that there is magic in such
advertisements. Movie posters and lobby cards have long been staples
of the promotion of movies of all genres, Westerns included. They
remain so today.
Like
movie posters that promote other genres, those that advertise Western
films can pinpoint some of the features of such fare that
screenwriters have found appeal to viewers. The same features, one
might suppose, would also appeal to readers of Western novels.
Let's
take a look at a Western movie poster, with an eye toward what,
specifically, they advertise that's central to this genre.
The
poster for Pale Rider,
featuring Clint Eastwood, shows
a
lone gunman fanning his Colt
a
lone gunman who is dressed well by the standards of his time
seven
men standing in a line
a
block of buildings typical of Western towns
a
caption, in small letters, at the heart of the sun-like circle to
the right of Eastwood's head
the
colors yellow, orange, red-orange, and reddish-brown
What
can we infer from the images, design, colors, and text?
Typically,
the Western hero is a solitary figure who's good with a gun and who
is willing to risk his life to defend himself, another person, or his
own values. He tends to be larger than life. The poster focuses on
Eastwood's character, a lone gunman who is shown as a giant among
men; the seven other figures shown in the poster are not only
literally beneath him, but they are tiny in comparison, and, while he
is shown in full color, they are little more than shadows. Next to
him, the other men are insignificant, more like pesky gnats than
worthy foes.
Not
only is the lone gunman bigger than anyone else, but he is also
central: he is shown near the center of the poster's focus. Thanks to
his size, his facial features are easily discernible; he has an
identity; he is an individual, a person with character. His weathered
appearance, leathery skin, and sharp features mark him as an
independent, hard-bitten man who's been around and knows the score.
In his eyes, we see steely determination; his bared teeth show
aggression. He is focused, intent, one with his gun. A man on a
mission, he stands and delivers. These are the qualities of
personality, the poster suggests, that are important to the audience
for this actor's films. Moviegoers (or readers) who enjoy Westerns
want a man who, even alone, will take a stand, risk his own life, and
combat forces which would defy or destroy the principles he holds
dear.
The
lone gunman dresses better than many of his day, which suggests that
he enjoys financial success. He may make his living by his gun. He
may, in other words, be a gunfighter or a mercenary. (Those familiar
with the “spaghetti Westerns” in which Eastwood starred will
know, of course, that, in Pale Rider,
he plays a bounty hunter).
The
sun behind him isn't a halo exactly, or, if it is, it doesn't fit him
precisely, but the effect is similar; the concentric circles of the
high desert sun frame him closely enough to suggest that there may be
more to him than meets the eye, even if he himself is not altogether
holy.
The
poster's colors are bright and vibrant, but the sun's brilliant
yellow, by degrees, merges with the brown of the hero's coat and the
sky, the element of air merging with the element of earth. Perhaps
the lone gunman is a demigod, the Wild West's version of Hercules.
Western fans want their heroes to be Heroes, to be writ large, to be
of nearly supernatural dimensions.
The
fact that the movie is set in the West is presented almost as an
afterthought. The stretch of low buildings with false fronts and the
line of small figures in Western garb are more like quick sketches
that suggest, rather than depict, the setting. It is clear that the
film is not so much about the West itself as it is about this one
individual, the lone gunman who stands out.
White
adds touches of sunlight to the brim of the gunman's hat (which is
not a Stetson; this man is a gunman, but he's no cowboy). White also
highlights his left cheek, the top of his shirt, the cuffs of his
shirt sleeves, and the handle and the cylinder of his second gun, the
Colt stuffed in his gun belt, a phallus not quite hidden and ready to
hand, doubling his manhood.
In
the yellow circle of the sun, the poster's caption, in small letters,
whispers part of a verse in the book of Revelations: “. . . and
hell followed with him,” suggesting the consequences of the Pale
Rider's visit and connecting him to a figure of the Biblical
apocalypse: “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name
that sat on him was Death, andHellfollowedwithhim.”
If there was any doubt as to the lone gunman's identity, the caption
spells it out: the Pale Rider is, in fact, Death personified.
Without
seeing the movie itself, these suggestions are all the poster's
viewer has by which to decide whether to see the film. According to
Box
Office Mojo,
Pale
Rider
grossed over $41 million, a fourth of this amount during its opening.
Although other factors contributed to the film's success, it seems
that potential viewers liked what the poster showed them. If they
were attracted by the themes, the type of hero, and the character
traits suggested by this poster, it's likely that they would be drawn
to similar themes, heroes, and character traits in Western novels as
well.
Although it's not unusual
for Western movies (and books) to express religious themes, such
dramas and narratives rarely have supernatural elements. Two
exceptions to the “rule” are Clint Eastwood's films High
Plains Drifter (1973) and Pale
Rider (1985).
In the
former picture, certain of the protagonist's characteristics and
abilities suggest that there may be more to him than is first
apparent, and the movie provides a clue or two as to the possible
nature of the stranger.
First,
as James L. Neibaur points out in his chapter “High Plains Drifter”
in The Clint Eastwood Westerns,
the “stranger” whom Eastwood plays “is mysterious, he is
controlling, he is all-knowing, and he is powerful” (104).
Second,
Sarah Belding, the wife of hotel operator Lewis Belding, tells the
stranger that the town's previous sheriff, Jim Duncan, was buried in
an unmarked grave, adding “the dead don't rest without a marker”
(104).
Third,
in a dream it is revealed to the stranger that the town's leaders
conspired to have the sheriff beaten to death by three brothers with
whips, before allowing the murderers to be arrested. Having been
released from prison, the killers are now on their way back to the
town, Lago, to avenge themselves on the town.
Fourth,
after painting the town red and renaming Lago “Hell,” the
stranger abandons the townspeople, just as the killers return. In his
absence, many of the citizens are killed, and the town itself is
burned to the ground. It is only then that the stranger returns and
kills one of the murderers, Dan Carlin, using a whip, which he
then throws into the saloon, “alerting the two surviving brothers,”
whom he kills (104).
Fifth,
as the stranger rides out of Hell, Mordecai, a dwarf whom the
stranger had named mayor and sheriff of Lago, is in the town's
cemetery, carving a marker for a grave. “I never knew your name,”
Mordecai says. “Yes, you do,” the stranger replies. The marker
Mordecai carves bears the name Marshal Jim Duncan; it is for the
sheriff's once-unmarked grave. Presumably, now that his grave is
marked, the stranger will be able to “rest.”
As
Neibuar observes, There has been some discussion as to the identity
of the stranger”:
The script originally indicated that the stranger was
the marshal's brother . . . and the scenes alluding to this
[identity] were filmed, but Eastwood had them excised. In the film,
the stranger is more a ghostly figure, perhaps a reincarnation of
Duncan, based on the final lines between him and Mordecai and the
supernatural air of the story” (107-108).
The New York Times's
1973 review of the film also suggests that the movie is intended to
have a supernatural angle:
High
Plains Drifter, with Eastwood as
director as well as star, is part ghost story, part revenge Western .
. . . It exalts and delights in a kind of pitiless Old Testament
wrath . . . Eastwood's characterization of The Stranger [is that of a
figure] who settles God's score with Lago . . . (108).
The
fact that Eastwood, the director, cut the scenes that represents the
stranger as the sheriff's brother and the clues that the character is
a ghostly or reincarnated avenger, seem clearly to suggest that
Eastwood himself wants the movie to be understood as having a supernatural theme.
Twelve
years later, Eastwood would make another Western with a supernatural
slant, Pale Rider
(1985). Like the ghostly stranger in High Plains Drifter,
The Preacher of Pale Rider
“is mysterious, he is controlling, he is all-knowing, and he is
powerful,” or, as Neibaur describes him, “he seems to have a
mysterious, mystical quality, able to evade people in a gunfight by
seeming to disappear. He comes from nowhere; he leaves when the job
is done” (149).
The
Preacher's association with Christianity is made plain by his
arrival, just as fourteen-year-old Megan Wheeler is praying that God
will send someone to deliver her mother, herself, and the other gold
prospectors from the gunmen who just stormed through and destroyed
their camp, killing her dog.
When
she sees The Preacher riding into the ruins of the prospectors' camp,
Megan believes that he is the answer to her prayer, and, indeed, he
rides a pale horse, just like one of the four horsemen of the
apocalypse, of whom she has just read in the book of Revelation: “And
I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was
Death, and Hell followed with him.”
In
discussing The Preacher, the Chicago Tribune's
editorial writer, Stephen Chapman points out that he is not Christ
the Savior, but the Jesus “who brought not peace but a sword, the
one of Revelation who raises the righteous into heaven and casts the
wicked into the depths” (149).
The
Preacher's supernatural origin is also suggested by the feats he
accomplishes single-handedly, exploits that the men among the
prospectors are unable to accomplish collectively. He fights off
several men, defeating them with no other weapon than an axe handle;
he defeats a Goliath-size adversary with the same sledgehammer he
uses to cleave a boulder in half with a single blow; he outguns a
group of gunfighters notorious for their skills with a pistol; when
he departs, he leaves behind him a courageous and united community
who, before his arrival, were divided and afraid.
As
Neibaur suggests, Eastwood underscores the supernatural dynamics of
Pale Rider by ensuring
that it shares similarities with his other supernatural film, High
Plains Drifter:
The
setup [of Pale Rider]
has immediate similarities to High Plains Drifter
(1973) upon the Eastwood character's entrance. In that film [High
Plains Drifter], he enters a
very quiet town. In Pale Rider,
he arrives as the town has quieted down from a most recent attack.
Among the first things the stranger does in High Plains
Drifter is respond with stoicism
to men confronting him in a saloon, later shooting them down when
they physically accost him in a barber shop soon afterward. In Pale
Rider, the stranger comes to the
rescue of a man being attacked by a group of others, effectively
beating them down. . . . The man he rescues, Hull Barrett . . . the
leader of the miners, invites the stranger to his house for dinner.
He appears wearing a clerical collar and is thereafter referred to as
The Preacher. These initial scenes establish the character's
abilities as well as a mystery about his backstory (148).
The
scenes also establish a link between the two supernatural films and
their supernatural heroes. However, the older movie invokes
reincarnation to explain Sheriff Jim Duncan's return from the dead,
while the later film invokes the Bible, solidly grounding Pale
Rider's supernatural aspects in
the Christian vision of death and judgment.
In
High Plains Drifter,
the stranger creates Hell; in Pale Rider,
he is death, delivering the wicked to judgment, for, although Chapman
sees Eastwood's Preacher as Jesus, the movie itself offers several clues that suggest a different identity for The Preacher: the film's very title, which is an allusion to Revelation 6:8, the Bible verse that equates
the “pale rider” to Death, the apocalyptic horseman who ushers in
hell, and the nature of The Preacher as a supernatural figure
delivered by God in answer to Megan's prayer clearly indicate that he
is Death personified, not Jesus.
Whereas
the stranger in High Plains Drifter
abandons “sinners” to hell, The Preacher in Pale Rider
kills the wicked and appears to leave their eternal fate to the
judgment of God.
Supernatural
Westerns are so unusual that their existence—and their raison
d'être—seem
to beg explanation. Despite the mystical undertones of High
Plains Drifter
and the Christian overtones of Pale
Rider, it's
likely that neither film is an expression of religious faith on the
part of Eastwood himself, who told movie critic Gene
Siskel that he is an atheist. However, Eastwood also admitted
that he does “feel spiritual
things,” declaring that “if I stand on the side of the Grand
Canyon and look down, it moves me in some way.” He's also a devoted
practitioner
of Transcendental Meditation.
Eastwood's
own take on his supernatural Westerns is that both are allegories.
High Plains Drifter,
he says, is “just an allegory . . . a speculation on what happens
when they go ahead and kill the sheriff and somebody comes back and
calls the town's conscience to bear.There's
always retribution for your deeds” (The
Clint Eastwood Westerns,
105). Likewise, Eastwood explains, “Pale
Rider is
kind of allegorical, more in the High
Plains Drifter
mode: like that, though he isn't a reincarnation or anything, but he
does ride a pale horse like the four horsemen of the apocalypse . . .
It's a classic story of the big guys against the little guys . . .
(The Clint Eastwood Westerns,
149).
For
Eastwood, perhaps each of his supernatural movies is “just an
allegory,” but, of course, the creator of a work of art doesn't
determine its meaning, except for himself. Any interpretation that is
supported by the details of the story itself is both reasonable and
possible, and there seems more internal evidence in Pale
Rider for a Christian
interpretation than for an atheistic or a secular one.
After
all, the movie deliberately alludes to Christian beliefs, to a
specific Biblical account of apocalypse and judgment, and to a
supernatural order of existence that transcends the ordinary world of
the Wild West in which the movie is set.
Western
culture is suffused with the traditions of the Christian faith;
allegories which include supernatural characters and events,
especially when they are informed by specifically Christian doctrine
and tradition, can certainly be reckoned to possess and to
communicate Christian themes.
Bane
Messenger, the protagonist of my own series, An Adventure of the Old
West, has a name of religious significance as well. Bane (the
nickname by which Banan goes) derives from the Old English word bana,
meaning “killer, slayer, murderer, a worker of death”; the Late
Latin word angelus means
“messenger.” Putting them
together, Bane Messenger can be read as meaning Angel of Death,
which, the books of the series, Good With a Gun,
The Valley of the Shadow,
and Blood Mountain,
suggest, as does the short story “Bane Messenger, Bounty Hunter,”
a prequel that introduces the series, is how Bane regards himself.
Get this book FREE! (Click HERE or see upper right corner for details.)
His
skill with a gun, like his indomitable will, his steely nerve, and
his love for justice, equip him as an instrument of divine
righteousness and wrath. It's his mission, he believes, to use the
“gifts” he's received to ensure that justice triumphs and the
innocent are protected from “the worst sort of men,” those, as a
bounty hunter, he tracks down to kill or, as a lawman, risks his life
to stop. Believing himself on a mission sanctioned by his Creator,
Bane puts his own fate in the hands of God every time he draws his
gun, putting his life in mortal danger in order to bring desperate
killers to justice, dead or alive.
In
Part 1 of this series, I explained how I strip the particular
incidents of a plots to the bone, transforming them into generic
expressions of action similar to the narrative motifs, or functions
or dramatic personae, identified by Vladimir Propp in Morphology
of the Folktale.
By
doing so, I have developed a good size list of the types of incidents
(and, indeed, their relationships to one another) that typically
occur in Western movies (or novels).
The
same technique, of course, can be applied to any other genre as well,
providing similar indices of motifs for any type of fiction from
action-adventure thrillers to science fiction or young adult novels.
In
addition to the generic incidents I compiled on the basis of James L.
Neibaur's summary of A Fistful of Dollars,
I added additional generic incidents his summaries of other plots of
Clint Eastwood's Westerns.
Neibaur's
summary of A Fistful of Dollars
(1964) disclose these generic incidents:
The
hero proves his worth.
The
hero is hired to join a gang.
The
hero plays two rival gangs against one another.
While
the gangs fight each other, the hero seeks to benefit himself at
their expense.
The
hero commits an act that makes him somewhat sympathetic but does not
make him less mysterious.
To
avenge and protect his injured friends or supporters, the hero
tricks the villain and kills him.
These
generic incidents are based on Neibaur's summary of A Few
Dollars More.
A
hero's rival acts.
A
hero acts.
A
hero's rival acts again.
A
hero's rival and a hero exhibit their respective skills, trying to
intimidate one another, but, instead, impress each other and join
forces against a common enemy.
To
carry out their plan, a hero's rival and a hero split up.
The
plan of a hero's rival and a hero's unites them after they earlier
separated.
A
hero's rival and a hero attempt to double cross a villain, but they
are discovered and captured.
A
hero's rival and a hero are released by a member of a villain's gang
so the gang can hunt them down and kill them.
A
villain plans to double cross his gang, but a member of the gang
figures out the villain's plan and partners with the villain.
A
hero's rival and a hero kill off a gang, one by one.
A
villain gains the upper hand against a hero's rival.
A
hero intervenes, restoring the balance of power between a hero's
rival and a villain.
A
hero's rival kills a villain.
A
hero's rival reveals a secret, telling a hero what motivated the
rival to hunt down and kill a villain.
A
hero's rival rewards a hero.
A
hero eliminates a final threat.
These
generic incidents are derived from Neibaur's summary of Hang 'Em
High.
An
innocent man runs afoul of the law.
An
innocent man is punished.
A
lawman rescues an innocent man, but takes him into custody and
presents him to a judge.
An
innocent man is found to be innocent.
An
innocent man receives the means to avenge himself.
An
innocent man kills one of the men who unfairly punished him.
An
innocent man receives information about his other persecutors'
whereabouts.
An
innocent man arrests a second persecutor.
An
innocent man teams up with a sheriff.
An
innocent man and a sheriff arrest three more of the innocent man's
persecutors.
An
innocent man defends two of his persecutors in court, because they
had no part in punishing him, but to no avail; they are sentenced to
be executed.
An
innocent man is paid money that is due to him.
Two
of the innocent man's persecutors flee, but three others conspire to
kill the innocent man who now also hunts them.
Three
men ambush and attack an innocent man.
Injured,
an innocent man survives; he is nursed back to health by a woman for
whom he develops feelings.
An
innocent man shoots it out with two men who attacked him earlier,
killing them; the third attacker kills himself.
An
innocent man rides out of town, seeking the two remaining men who
persecuted him.
These
generic incidents are extracted from Neibaur's plot summary of Two
Mules for Sister Sara (1970):
A
villain is violent toward an innocent woman.
In
an unexpected way, a hero responds to a violent act against an
innocent woman.
A
villain flees; a hero shoots him.
Both
a female victim of violence and a hero support a revolutionary force
or cause.
A
female victim of violence poses as a person different from herself,
a pose which alters a hero's behavior.
A
hero is attracted to a female victim of violence posing as someone
other than herself.
A
hero acts in such a way as to protect and impress a female victim of
violence posing as someone else.
A
hero is wounded as he supports a revolutionary cause.
A
female victim of violence follows a hero's instructions, removing a
bullet from the wounded hero.
A
female victim of violence posing as someone else discloses her true
identity.
A
hero fights alongside a revolutionary force.
A
hero is rewarded.
A
hero and female a victim of violence ride off together.
These
generic incidents make up the plot structure of Joe Kidd
(1972):
A
young man is in jail with two older Mexican men who disparage him.
A
jailed young man assaults one of the two heckling Mexican men who
share his jail cell.
A
judge fines a young man for poaching; when the young man is unable
to pay the fine, he is jailed for several days.
Several
Mexican men storm a courtroom, holding the judge at gunpoint while
they complain that their land has been stolen, but their proof has
been destroyed.
A
young man helps a judge to escape from men who hold him hostage in
his own courtroom.
A
wealthy landowner forms a posse to capture the leader of a group of
Mexican men.
A
Mexican leader bails a young man out of jail and invites him to join
his band, but the young man declines.
After
a Mexican leader raids a young man's ranch, he joins a wealthy
landowner's posse.
When
a wealthy landowner holds Mexican villagers hostage until a Mexican
leader surrenders himself, a young man who just joined the
landowner's posse saves the hostages and leaves the posse to capture
the Mexican leader by himself.
A
young man returns to town with a captured Mexican fugitive, only to
find a wealthy landowner and his posse waiting to kill his captive.
A
young man kills the members of a corrupt posse.
In
a one-on-one duel, a young man kills a wealthy landowner who led a
corrupt posse.
These
generic incidents are extracted from Neibaur's summary of The
Outlaw Josie Wales (1976):
A
man's family is murdered.
A
man seeks revenge.
A
man joins a group of other men.
A
man kills to protect a group of which he is a member.
A
man teams up with one of the survivors of a group of which he was a
member.
A
man seeks vengeance by himself.
A
reward is put on a man's head; bounty hunters pursue him.
A
man gathers a diverse group of people.
A
group overpowers an adversarial group.
A
man attacks another man.
A
man attacking another man is himself killed with his own weapon.
A
man rescues a woman from a gang of would-be rapists.
A
man rescues women from a physical attack by a group.
A
man passes on the chance to fight his chief adversary after the
adversary has been seriously wounded.
In
listing these generic incidents, I separated them by movie to show
how such incidents have been structured to generate plots for
complete stories (i. e., films). However, there's no reason generic
incidents cannot be mixed and matched, as long as doing so doesn't
disrupt or destroy the narrative continuity of the selected
incidents.
These
generic incidents are derived from Neibaur's summary of Unforgiven
(1992):
Men
commit a despicable act against a woman.
A
sheriff is lenient in dealing with men who commit a despicable act
against a woman.
A
reward is offered for killing men who commit a despicable act
against a woman.
A
young man plans to collect a reward offered for killing two men who
committed a despicable act against a woman.
A
young man seeks to recruit an older man to help him to kill two men
for whom a reward is offered.
An
old man, having no interest in helping a young man kill two wanted
men for half the reward offered for their deaths, refuses to partner
with the young man.
An
old man who'd refused to partner with a younger man changes his mind
and agrees to help him track and kill two wanted men in exchange for
half the reward for their deaths.
A
sheriff and his deputies beat an old man and throw him out of a
business establishment.
A
young man and an old man's former partner nurse the old man back to
health after he has been brutally beaten.
A
group of men find one of the wanted men they are hunting.
A
group of men ambush another group of men, killing one of the
latter's members.
A
young man finds the second of two wanted men whom he and his partner
are hunting, and he kills their quarry.
A
young man and his older partner escape the wrath of a group of men,
one of whose members he young man earlier killed.
Distraught
over having killed a man, a young man dissolves his partnership with
an older man and leaves.
An
old man learns that his former partner was killed and that his
former partner's corpse is on display in a coffin on a town street.
An
old man instructs his former partner, a young man, to deliver his
original (past) partner's share of a reward to his widow and to
deliver the old man's own share to his children.
An
old man avenges his murdered former partner.
As
a sheriff forms a posse, an old man kills the sheriff's recruits.
An
old man kills a sheriff.
An
old man returns to his children.
Having
been paid his share of a reward, an old man relocates to a new part
of the country, where better opportunities await him.
In
listing these generic incidents, I separated them by movie to show
how such incidents have been structured to generate plots for
complete stories (i. e., films). However, there's no reason generic
incidents cannot be mixed and matched, as long as doing so doesn't
disrupt or destroy the narrative continuity of the selected
incidents.
