VividSimon Simply Perfect

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

mike48128 The chemistry between "Frenchy" (Marlene Dietrich) and "Destry" (Jimmy Stewart) is what binds this film together. While considered by most "critics" as a comic western, I disagree slightly due to the fact that several actors die of gunshot wounds. If you haven't seen it before, this might shock you, but being a cliché by today's standards, you can almost guess who will get shot next. This film was remade again, as "Destry" and a comic western "The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap" with Abbott and Costello, borrows the "women take over the town and stop the gun-fighting" idea from this 1939 classic. Marlene Dietrich, surprisingly, seems to have a thicker accent in the movie's first half. She sings two songs, one about Cowboy Joe, and her signature "See what the boys in the backroom will have". She doesn't carry a tune that well, but she knows how to belt it out, while dressed in provocative western "spangles". She and a rancher's wife (Una Merkle) have a "knock out and drag 'em out" catfight in the saloon with hair-pulling, kicking and screaming. She runs the saloon for the crooked "town boss", cheats a man out of his ranch, and loses her heart to Destry. He only straps on his guns at the very end when everything else fails and the sheriff is shot in the back. He otherwise tries to settle the town down with "rhyme and reason" whenever possible. Other funny scenes including a "Russian" who loses his pants at the poker table. A Director George Marshall classic.

inemjaso Destry Rides Again is a comedy western about a morally corrupt town that gets a new deputy sheriff, Destry, who hopes to instill a new order to the crooked town of Bottleneck. The town's saloon owner Kent and his singer girlfriend Frenchy essentially run the town and profit at the expense of other families by cheating residents out of their properties in poker games. Though Frenchy is a commanding, confident and feisty character; it is obvious that Destry's arrival causes her to feel differently about the business she and Kent had done. Destry's arrival is the most interesting part of the movie in my opinion, because his courtesy in carrying the parasol and pet bird for another woman causes him to appear 'weak' in the eyes of the mocking townspeople. Eventually, Destry, the adamant anti-gun advocate, shows off his gun slinging skills to a couple of rowdy drunk men and captures the awe of everyone in attendance. Destry and Frenchy both develop significantly over the course of the film to be dynamic catalysts for the film's conclusion. In regards to theme, this movie wrestles with the question: What is the law? and more importantly, What side is the law on? Destry quickly discovers that the mayor and Kent collude to hold real jurisdiction over Bottleneck while they put a sheriff in charge who is easy to manipulate. With his unconventional ways and cool demeanor, Destry succeeds in bringing the town of Bottleneck to justice.

Prismark10 This is a hybrid comedy western musical but to me it is rather dark as people are cheated out of their land, shot dead but it has a few laughs and the butt of the joke is James Stewart.He plays Tom Destry jr, the new deputy in Bottleneck, sent for by elderly family friend Dimsdale who has been appointed as sheriff as the last one was shot dead for asking too many awkward questions.Dimsdale worked under Destry's father who was a famous and feared lawman. Bottleneck is overrun by the likes of Kent (Brian Donleavy) a wicked landowner with a vicious mob who cheat people out of their land in a rigged game of cards. Kent is helped out here by Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich) the local saloon singer and good time girl. He also has the town mayor on his side.They initially find Destry to be a figure of fun, even a coward. He does not carry a gun for a start and seems to be an easy going country hick. They soon find out that Destry is here to enforce law and order and willing to use guile and cunning before he reaches for a gun.Stewart uses his easy charm for full effect, Dietrich is great as Frenchy but she is really a bad girl as she is in cahoots with Kent so you know she is never going to get it on properly with Destry despite the flirting. Her character and the film really did inspire Blazing Saddles.Still despite the levity it does lead to a violent showdown. The film did introduce a seamy side to westerns with glamorous sexy females rather than spunky tom boys. It just does not feel like a spoof to me or a comic western but it is enjoyable without being po-faced.

gavin6942 Kent, the unscrupulous boss of Bottleneck has Sheriff Keogh killed when he asks one too many questions about a rigged poker game that gives Kent a stranglehold over the local cattle rangers. The mayor, who is in cahoots with Kent appoints the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale, as the new sheriff assuming that he'll be easy to control.The film was James Stewart's first western (he would not return to the genre until 1950, with "Broken Arrow" and "Winchester 73"), and was also notable for a ferocious cat-fight between Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel, which apparently caused a mild censorship problem at the time of release. Stewart is strong here, and while good in any genre, he really seems at home in westerns.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 and had the baby surreptitiously aborted without telling Stewart. (This has nothing to do with the film itself, but what a juicy tidbit.) This is a great film in general, even if it has not aged as well as it maybe could have. I could not help but wonder while watching it if it was the inspirational for the "Andy Griffith Show" episode about the sheriff without a gun...