The opening credits list the story as "Suggested by Max Brand's novel Destry Rides Again", but the movie is almost completely different. It also bears no resemblance to the 1932 adaptation of the novel starring Tom Mix, which is often retitled as Justice Rides Again.
In 1996, Destry Rides Again was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5]
Saloon owner Kent, the unscrupulous boss of the fictional Western town of Bottleneck, has the town's sheriff, Mr. Keogh, killed when Keogh asks one too many questions about a rigged poker game. Kent and Frenchy, a cheap saloon tramp who is his girlfriend, now have a stranglehold over the local cattle ranchers. The town's crooked mayor, Hiram J. Slade, who is in collusion with Kent, appoints the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale, as the new sheriff, assuming that he will be easy to control and manipulate. However, Dimsdale, a deputy under the famous lawman Tom Destry, promptly swears off drinking, and is able to call upon the latter's equally formidable son, Tom Destry Jr., to help him make Bottleneck a lawful, respectable town.
Destry arrives in Bottleneck with Jack Tyndall, a cattleman, and his sister, Janice. Destry initially confounds the townsfolk by refusing to strap on a gun and maintaining civility in dealing with everyone, including Kent and Frenchy. This quickly makes him a disappointment to Dimsdale and a laughingstock to the townspeople; he is mockingly asked to "clean up" Bottleneck by being given a mop and bucket. However, after a number of rowdy horsemen ride into town shooting their pistols in the air, he demonstrates uncanny expertise in marksmanship and threatens to jail them if they do it again, earning the respect of Bottleneck's citizens.
Through the townsmen's evasive answers regarding the whereabouts of Keogh, Destry gradually begins to suspect that Keogh was murdered. He confirms this by provoking Frenchy into admitting it, but without a location for the body, he lacks any proof. Destry therefore deputizes Boris, a Russian immigrant whom Frenchy had earlier humiliated, and implies to Kent that he had found the body outside of town "in remarkably good condition". When Kent sends a member of his gang to check on Keogh's burial site, Boris and Dimsdale follow, capture, and jail him.
Although the gang member is charged with Keogh's murder (in the hope that he would implicate Kent in exchange for clemency), Mayor Slade appoints himself judge of the trial, making an innocent verdict a foregone conclusion. To prevent this, Destry calls in a judge from a larger city in secret, but the plan is ruined after Boris accidentally gives away the other judge's name in the saloon. Kent orders Frenchy to invite the deputy to her house while other gang members storm the sheriff's office and cause a breakout; now in love with Destry, she accepts. When shots are fired, he rushes back, to find the cell empty and Dimsdale mortally wounded. Destry returns to his room and puts on his gun belt, abandoning his previous commitment to nonviolence.
Under Destry's command, the honest townsmen form a posse and prepare to attack the saloon, where Kent's gang is fortified, while Destry enters through the roof and looks for Kent. At Frenchy's urging, the townswomen march in between the groups, preventing further violence, before breaking into the saloon and subduing the gang. Kent narrowly escapes, and attempts to shoot Destry from the second floor; Frenchy takes the bullet for him, killing her, and Destry kills Kent.
Some time later, Destry is shown to be the sheriff of a now lawful Bottleneck, repeating to children the stories that Dimsdale told him of the town's violent history. He jokingly tells a story about marriage to Janice, implying a marriage between them will soon follow.
Western writer Max Brand contributed the novel, Destry Rides Again, but the film also owes its origins to Brand's serial "Twelve Peers", published in a pulp magazine. In the original work, Harrison (or "Harry") Destry was not a pacifist. As filmed in 1932, with Tom Mix in the starring role, the central character differed in that Destry did wear six-guns.
The film was James Stewart's first Western (he would not return to the genre until 1950, with Winchester '73, followed by Broken Arrow). The story featured a ferocious cat-fight between Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel, which apparently caused a mild censorship problem at the time of release.[6] The film also represented Dietrich's return to Hollywood after a string of flops at Paramount ("Angel", "The Scarlet Empress", "The Devil is a Woman") caused her, and a number of other stars, to be labelled "box office poison". While vacationing at Cap d'Antibes with her family, her mentor Josef von Sternberg and her lover Erich Maria Remarque, she received an offer from Joe Pasternak to come to Universal at half the salary she had been receiving for most of the 1930s. Pasternak had previously tried to sign Dietrich to Universal while she was still in Berlin. Unsure of what to do she was advised by von Sternberg "I made you into a Goddess. Now show them you have feet of clay".
According to writer/director Peter Bogdanovich, Marlene Dietrich told him during an aircraft flight that she and James Stewart had an affair during shooting and that she became pregnant but had a surreptitious abortion without telling Stewart.[7]
Internationally, the film was released under the alternative titles Femme ou Démon in French and Arizona in Spanish.
Reception
Destry Rides Again was generally well accepted by the public, as well as critics. It was reviewed by Frank S. Nugent in The New York Times, who observed that the film did not follow the usual Hollywood type-casting. On Dietrich's role, he characterized: "It's difficult to reconcile Miss Dietrich's Frenchy, the cabaret girl of the Bloody Gulch Saloon, with the posed and posturing Dietrich we last saw in Mr. Lubitsch's 'Angel'." Stewart's contribution was similarly treated, "turning in an easy, likable, pleasantly humored performance."[8]
ABC aired a short-lived television series in 1964, Destry, based on the 1939 and 1954 films, starring John Gavin as the son of the movie's title character.
Irene Hervey was an American film, stage, and television actress who appeared in over fifty films and numerous television series spanning her five-decade career.
Joseph Herman Pasternak was a Hungarian-American film producer in Hollywood. Pasternak spent the Hollywood "Golden Age" of musicals at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, producing many successful musicals with female singing stars like Deanna Durbin, Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell, as well as swimmer/bathing beauty Esther Williams' films. He produced Judy Garland's final MGM film, Summer Stock, which was released in 1950, and some of Gene Kelly’s early breakthrough roles. Pasternak worked in the film industry for 45 years, from the later silent era until shortly past the end of the classical Hollywood cinema in the early 1960s.
The Flame of New Orleans is a 1941 comedy film directed by René Clair and starring Marlene Dietrich and Bruce Cabot in his first comedy role. The supporting cast features Roland Young, Andy Devine and Franklin Pangborn.
Friedrich Hollaender was a German film composer and author.
Night Passage is a 1957 American Western film directed by James Neilson and starring James Stewart and Audie Murphy.
Bandolero! is a 1968 American Western film directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and starring James Stewart, Dean Martin, Raquel Welch and George Kennedy. The story centers on two brothers on the run from a posse, led by a local sheriff who wants to arrest the runaways and free a hostage that they took along the way. They head into the wrong territory, which is controlled by "Bandoleros".
Rancho Notorious is a 1952 American Western film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Marlene Dietrich as the matron of a criminal hideout called Chuck-a-Luck, named after the game of chance referenced in the film. Arthur Kennedy and Mel Ferrer play rivals for her attention in this tale of frontier revenge.
Destry Rides Again is a 1959 musical comedy with music and lyrics by Harold Rome and a book by Leonard Gershe. The play is based on the 1939 film of the same name.
Frenchie is a 1950 American Western film directed by Louis King and starring Joel McCrea and Shelley Winters. The plot is loosely based on the 1939 Western Destry Rides Again.
Frenchie or Frenchy may refer to:
Seven Sinners is a 1940 American drama romance film directed by Tay Garnett starring Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne in the first of three films they made together. The film was produced by Universal Pictures in black and white.
Ramsbottom Rides Again is a 1956 British western comedy film produced and directed by John Baxter, starring Arthur Askey, Sid James, Shani Wallis, Betty Marsden and Jerry Desmonde. It was written by Basil Thomas and John Baxter, basd on a play by Harold G. Robert, with additional comedy scenes and dialogue by Arthur Askey, Glenn Melvyn and Geoffrey Orme.
Destry is a 1954 American western film directed by George Marshall and starring Audie Murphy, Mari Blanchard, Lyle Bettger and Thomas Mitchell.
Marlene Dietrich was a German and American actress and singer.
"The Boys in the Back Room" is a song written by Frank Loesser, set to music by Frederick Hollaender and performed by Marlene Dietrich in the film Destry Rides Again (1939). It is often referred to as "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have". Her winking performance was a parody of her vampish roles in earlier films such as The Blue Angel (1930) and Blonde Venus (1932). The song became a standard part of her repertoire, second only to "Lili Marlene". She also sang a German version called "Gib doch den Männern am Stammtisch ihr Gift".
Destry Rides Again is a 1930 western novel by Max Brand. One of Brand's most famous works, it remained in print 70 years after its first publication. It is the story of Harrison Destry's quest for revenge against the 12 jurors whose personal malice leads them to wrongfully convict him of robbery.
Marlene Dietrich's recording career spanned sixty years, from 1928 until 1988. She introduced the songs "Falling in Love Again " and "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have". She first recorded her version of "Lili Marlene" in 1945.
Destry Rides Again is a 1932 American pre-Code Western movie starring Tom Mix and directed by Benjamin Stoloff. The film was based on a novel by Max Brand. The supporting cast includes Claudia Dell, ZaSu Pitts, and Francis Ford.
Felix Jackson was a German-born American screenwriter and film and television producer.
Tom Fadden was an American actor. He performed on the legitimate stage, vaudeville, in films and on television during his long career.
References
Notes
↑ Scheuer, P. K. (January 9, 1980). "Pasternak: The man who out-disneyed disney". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest162644291.
Jones, Ken D., Arthur F. McClure and Alfred E. Twomey. The Films of James Stewart. New York: Castle Books, 1970.
Pickard, Roy. Jimmy Stewart: A Life in Film. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. ISBN0-312-08828-0.
Prendergast, Tom and Sara, eds. "Stewart, James". International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4th edition. London: St. James Press, 2000. ISBN1-55862-450-3.
Prendergast, Tom and Sara, eds. "Stewart, James". St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, 5th edition. London: St. James Press, 2000. ISBN1-55862-529-1.
Quirk, Lawrence J. James Stewart: Behind the Scenes of a Wonderful Life. Montclair, New Jersey: Applause Books, 2000. ISBN978-1-55783-416-4.
Riva, Maria. Marlene Dietrich. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994. ISBN978-0-345-38645-8.
Robbins, Jhan. Everybody's Man: A Biography of Jimmy Stewart. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1985. ISBN0-399-12973-1.
Thomas, Tony. A Wonderful Life: The Films and Career of James Stewart. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1988. ISBN0-8065-1081-1.
Destry Rides Again essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN0826429777, pages 298-299
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