US 95m Dir: George Marshall Key Cast: James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich
Even by 1939 Westerns were a long established genre and Destry Rides Again subverts many of the standard tropes.
An unscrupulous saloon owner has the town's sheriff killed and appoints the town drunk as his replacement, assuming he will be easy to control. Said drunk employs the son of the former sheriff, Destry (James Stewart), as his deputy who seeks to reform the town and deal the saloon owner, despite not wanting to use guns.
Destry is a very likeable James Stewart character (almost Mr. Smith in the Old West) who is a long way from the gun-toting sheriff we usually see in Westerns. He largely refuses to use guns at all and on the whole follows the law, even when it involves the saloon owner claiming a house he won in a poker game he cheated on because the paperwork says it is his.
Marlene Dietrich also stars in this, her first successful role for a while, as saloon singer Frenchy. It's a fairly stock character, a woman who lives off her sexuality but in actual fact is far more intelligent and sophisticated than appearances would suggest but Dietrich does a great job. There's also a couple of songs and in some ways parts of the film reminded me of The Blue Angel.
The film is usually regarded as a comedy Western and one of the first too. The thing is that there aren't a great deal of jokes and actually both Destry and the overarching plot are treated pretty seriously so personally I wouldn't call this a comedy. It did set a precedent for comic Westerns with many following in it's wake, including Blazing Saddles whose plot bears a striking similarity.
Certainly interesting in the way it flips many Western tropes and it contains two decent lead performances, though I felt like the the plot to defeat the villain was simplistic and a touch underwhelming.
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