Johnny Guitar/Two Mules- Chris Jones

In both Johnny Guitar and Two Mules for Sister Sara we see the alpha male cowboy coming out of his normal loner mentality and instead going along with a woman as his companion. IN both of these movies the alpha male cowboy is still apart from society, in Johnny Guitar he and his companion are being chased by a posse and in Two Mules for Sister Sara they are assigned to go and open up the French garrison for the Mexican army, which they do alone. However there is a major shift in the alpha male cowboy because in each movie there are key situations in which the woman either takes the lead or at least aids the alpha male cowboy in performing his task. The most major of these incidences is in Johnny Guitar when at the end of the movie Vienna and Emma have a duel of their own, whereas in previous westerns it was almost always the alpha male cowboy who was in the duel and it was against another man. In Two Mules for Sister Sara there is a scene where Hogan becomes injured and can't shoot the charge to disable the train and Emma must aid him by putting the gun at the correct angle for him. Both of these situations shows us how the alpha male cowboy is still an outsider, but at the same time there is a shift towards him having people around him to help.