A crooked businessman named Kent (Brian Donlevy) rigs a card game with the help of a fetching dance hall queen Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich). The result: Kent winds up with the last strip of land he needs to charge ever rancher bringing cattle through the town of Bottleneck. And the sheriff who looks into that crooked card game winds up dead.
Kent has the mayor proclaim Washington Dimsdale as the new sheriff. That’s his first mistake. Wash might be a drunk, but he sobers up once a badge is on his chest and summons help in the form of the son of a legendary lawman. Only when Thomas Jefferson Destry (James Stewart) shows up in Bottleneck, he’s disembarking a stage holding a bird cage and parasol. Worse yet, he’s not wearing a gun.
Kent’s second mistake is underestimating the new deputy sheriff. Destry senses that the weak link in Kent’s seemingly lawful ownership of all that grazing land might be what happened to the former sheriff of Bottleneck. So he starts asking questions, lot of questions. And that makes Kent and his allies quite nervous.
It also makes Frenchy nervous, because she’s come to care what happens to this sheriff who urges her to wash the paint off her face and start living up to the lovely woman beneath the makeup.
Review:
A wonderful Western with broad dashes of comedy. It rescued Dietrich’s career; it marked Stewart’s first outing in Western garb. It reportedly sparked an affair between the stars.
Deitrich’s sings two memorable songs — “Little Joe” and “See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have.” She also engages in a catfight with a jealous wife that’s broken up when Destry pours a bucket of water on the women, prompting Frenchy to turn on him.
Director George Marshal also got fine performances from Charles Winninger as the former drunk who becomes sheriff and Mischa Auer as a foreigner who yearns to be a cowboy and just wishes his wife would call him by his real name rather than that of an ex-husband. He winds up joining Destry and Wash in their quest for justice.
Marshall also handles both death scenes at the end of the film very well.
A Tom Mix version of “Destry Rides Again” had been released in 1932; the film was made for a third time as “Destry” in 1954 with Audie Murphy and Mari Blanchard in the lead roles.
Directed by:
George Marshall
Cast:
Marlene Dietrich … Frenchy
James Stewart … Destry
Mischa Auer … Boris Callahan
Charles Winninger … Washington Dimsdale
Brian Donlevy … Kent
Allen Jenkins … Gyp Watson
Warren Hymer … Bugs Watson
Irene Hervey … Janice Tyndall
Jack Carson … Jack Tyndall
Una Merkel … Lily Belle Callahan
Billy Gilbert … Loupgerou
Samuel S. Hinds … Judge Slade
Tom Fadden … Lem Claggett
Virginia Brissac … Sophie Claggett
Lillian Yarbo … Clara
Joe King … Sheriff Keough
Dickie Jones … Claggett’s son
Runtime: 94 min.
Memorable lines:
Clara, the maid, as Frenchy dumps gold coins out of her cleavage: “What’s coming out, a new gold rush?
Bartender: “They’re waiting for you, Frenchie.”
Frenchy: “The longer they wait, the more they like it.”
Frenchy: “I don’t want your husband, Mrs. Callahan. All I want is his money. And his pants.”
Lily Belle: “And how’d you get ’em? By makin’ eyes at him while you cheat, you guilded lily you.”
Frenchy: “But Mrs. Callahan, you know he would rather be cheated by me than married to you.”
Destry: “I bet you got a lovely face under all that paint. Why don’t you wash it off one day and have a look? Then figure out how you can live up to it.”
Sheriff Dimsdale: “How can you talk about eating at a time like this?”
Destry: “Because I’m hungry.”
Destry: “Been throwing things again?”
Frenchy: “How did you know?”
Destry: “I read a book once that said women always look their best in the peace and quiet that follows the storm of violence.”
Destry: “Wash, why don’t you go home? I’ll entertain our guest (prisoner in jail).”
Wash: “No, siree, I’m gonna sit up with that two-legged cactus and pour water into him until lillies sprout out both of his ears.”
Destry: “Be a very interesting sight.”
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