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Destry Rides AgainRating:
Release Date: 06 May, 2003 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (16 total) |
Destry Rides Again Reviews
Dietrich in a surprising role that revitalized her career
Wonderful stuff from two unlikely leads. Jimmy Stewart plays Tom Destry, a deputy sheriff who is quiet and reserved, and doesn't believe in gunplay, even in this wild, wild western town of Bottleneck. Marlene Dietrich plays Frenchy, the barroom belle who's in cahoots with the town swindler until she is won over by Stewart. She dies in his arms at the end, taking a bullet meant for him.
Dietrich's career was on the skids when she took this unlikely rough-around-the-edges role, and the success of the film made her a star again. When she sings "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have," the answer is obvious - and has nothing to do with booze. Stewart is excellent as the unassuming, soft-smiling deputy - a man with "personality" who is always being reminded of a story he once heard or knew. The bit parts are played to the hilt, to great effect. The picture is excellently paced and great fun to watch.
Destry Rides Again
James Stewart plays Tom Destry, son of a gun-toting hombre who made tame a fair piece of the wild west until some galoot up and shot him in the back. We meet Destry on a stagecoach, riding to the wild town of Bottleneck, to help his pap's old friend maintain peace and order. Junior is cut from different cloth, though, and unlike his famous father he doesn't believe in violence. Doesn't even carry a gun most of the time. Not an obvious recipe for success, not to mention survival, when the boys down at the Last Chance saloon catch wind of it.
Originality didn't get DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939) placed on the National Film Registry in 1996. Max Brand's story had provided plot fodder for a Tom Mix vehicle seven years earlier. I don't think it was immortalized for its sophisticated and witty humor, either. The comedy here, and there's a lot of it, is of the broad, guffaw brand, most of which survives reasonably well. With the likes of New York born Allan Jenkins and foreign-dialect specialist Mischa Auer in the under-cast you can probably toss out authenticity, as well.
What does work remarkably well is James Stewart as the laid-back, drawling frontier peace-nik who, inevitably, proves to be extremely proficient with the very weapons he shuns. So proficient, in fact, that he is able to coax seven bullets out of the six-shooter that he uses to destroy a sign over the Last Chance. Vital for this one, though, is Marlene Dietrich as Frenchy, a dance hall bad girl who, again inevitably, proves to have some good girl in her underneath all that face paint, when the chips are down and the serious lead is flying.
If the story is a little creaky and you smile, a little-bitty smile, when you ought to be laughing out loud, at least you'll have the treat of watching a good cast work their way through a reliable plot. Stewart and Dietrich have a good chemistry going, and the scenes with them are worth your time and the price of admission. As usual, westerns, even those on the National Film Registry, are the poor relations of film. That being the case, the print quality is acceptably unexceptional. I've seen worse, but this jewel in the crown hasn't been buffed or cleaned for representation. And, of course, there are no extras.
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