Destry Rides Again [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: George Marshall George Marshall

Overview

In this mix of action and humor, Destry (Stewart) returns to the wide-open town of Bottleneck which his late father once tamed. His challenge is to enforce the law using his belief in nonviolence. Now Kent (Donlevy) and his cronies have run wild, cheating at high-stakes poker, tempting working men away from their families, charging trail herds for passage, and forcing honest people off their land. Dietrich does a classic turn as Frenchie, a saloon girl as ready to brawl as to perform her memorably sexy and comic "See What the Boys in the Backroom Will Have" or the light-hearted "Little Joe," which is also sung by Wash Dimsdale (Winninger), who is an old friend of Destry's father, the town drunk, and now Destry's deputy. As Destry searches for the killer of the previous sheriff, he also braces Frenchie about her ethical failures in a couple of serious scenes that give depth and character to a film that is primarily action and humor. When Jack Carson amasses the good men in town for a final violent showdown against the villains and their henchmen, the plot takes a proto-feminist twist when the Frenchie challenges the good women of Bottleneck to march between both mobs armed with house and farm implements to take matters into their own hands. As the women resolve the town's conflict in a huge saloon brawl, Frenchie takes a bullet meant for Destry from Kent. In one of the final moments of the denouement, a boy and a girl happily reprise "Little Joe" in the bright sunlight, a touching reminder that the lives of Frenchie and Wash were part of the cost of a peaceful town. This film of course predates Stewart's tour in the Army Air Corps as part of a bombing crew during World War II. In this era, he played strong-willed, principled, but largely nonviolent roles. The tough westerners of "Winchester '73" and "The Far Country" remained in the future. The issues of women's roles and the challenge of nonviolence in a violent milieu, both respected contemporary subjects, are usually ignored in regard to this film. Made in the stellar Hollywood year of 1939, its memory has been overshadowed by the other great films of the same year, including John Ford's immortal "Stagecoach."

Product Details

Release Date:	04/14/2020
UPC:	0715515244411
Original Release:	1939
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:34:00
Sales rank:	9,961

Special Features

New 4k digital restoration by Universal Pictures in collaboration with The Film Foundation, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith; New interview wiht DOnald Dewey, author of James Stewart: A Biography; Illustrated audio excerpts from a 1973 oral-history interview with Director George Marshall conducted by the American Film Institute; Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1945, featuring actors James Stewart and Joan Blondell; Plus: An essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Marlene Dietrich	Frenchy
James Stewart	Tom Destry
Charles Winninger	`Wash' Dimsdale
Brian Donlevy	Kent
Allen Jenkins	Bugs Watson
Warren Hymer	Gyp Watson
Irene Hervey	Janice Tyndall
Una Merkel	Lily Belle Callahan
Tom Fadden	Lem Claggett
Mischa Auer	Boris Callahan
Jack Carson	Jack Tyndall
Samuel S. Hinds	Judge Slade
Lillian Yarbo	Clara
Edmund MacDonald	Rockwell
Billy Gilbert	Loupqerou, the Bartender
Virginia Brissac	Sophie Claggett
Ann Todd	Claggett Girl,Claggett Girl
Dick Jones	Eli Whitney Claggett,Claggett Boy
Carmen D'Antonio	Dancer
Joseph King	Sheriff Keogh
Harry Cording	Rowdy
Minerva Urecal	Mrs. DeWitt
Bob McKenzie	Doctor
Billy Bletcher	Pianist
Lloyd Ingraham	Turner, the Express Agent
Bill Cody Jr.	Small Boy
Loren B. Brown	Juggler
Harold De Garro	Juggler
Harry Tenbrook	Stage Driver
Bud McClure	Stage Driver
Alex Voloshin	Assistant Bartender
Chief John Big Tree	Indian
William Steele	Cowboy
Richard Alexander	Cowboy
Silver Tip Baker	Barfly
Ralph Bucko	Barfly
Philo McCullough	Bartender
Dora Clement	Woman
Irene Harvey	Actor
Frank Skinner	Composer

Technical Credits

Felix Jackson

Gertrude Purcell

Henry Myers

Max Brand

Henry Meyers

Felix Jackson	Screenwriter
Gertrude Purcell	Screenwriter
Henry Myers	Screenwriter
Joe Pasternak	Producer
Max Brand	Screenwriter
Bernard B. Brown	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Robert Pritchard	Sound Effects
Henry Meyers	Screenwriter
George Marshall	Director

Editorial Reviews

Destry Rides Again was a huge critical and box-office success in 1939, a year that had many critical and box-office successes and that is often considered to have produced more great films than any other year of the 20th century. Max Brand, the author of the source novel, is little remembered today, but in his era he was a prolific and popular writer who created such memorable screen successes as the Doctor Kildare series. Sadly, Brand was killed at the height of his career, while serving as a war correspondent in Italy during World War II. Brand's story was considerably changed for the screen, and as a result there are occasional inconsistencies of characterization for Destry, who sometimes seems a bit too inclined to fight for a pacifist. Yet, in Tom Destry, James Stewart creates one of the screen's most likable characters, and the film's success revived the career of Marlene Dietrich, who had been dumped from her studio contract by Paramount because of her temperamental behavior and perceived weak box-office appeal. The problem, though, proved to be not that audiences had tired of Dietrich but that they had tired of her in the melodramatic films that Paramount put her in. Free of Paramount, Dietrich found a broader range of work and once again became a bankable star.

All Movie Guide - Richard Gilliam