Destry Rides Again
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.63 You Save: $7.31 (49%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.75 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Destry Rides Again
Movie Review: Not a Western fan? You'll enjoy this too!
Summary: 5 Stars
Love this movie! Just the right amount of comedy to keep it interesting without turning it into a caricature. Others have mentioned the poor print quality -- it's a shame that a better one isn't available, but this film is so much fun, I'll take what I can get. I didn't find it distracting.Movie Review: wonderful
Summary: 5 Stars
They don't make them like this anymore. It is all about the personalities and not car chases explosions violence and sex.Movie Review: movie mad
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed this movie very much not a fan of merlene Dietrich but it was
a good movie with some comic relief.
Movie Review: Destry loads of fun
Summary: 4 Stars
I think the best word to describe this movie is fun. Destry Rides Again is a real treat. Made in 1939, this is both a traditional Hollywood western in some respects, and in others a great spoof of those movies. At heart, it's a comedy but despite this it also throws in the requisite western scenes. Often, however, there's a certain tongue in cheek quality to them. The story is pure western: the town of Bottleneck (great name!) is all but lawless. There's a nasty land baron trying to seize the necessary lands to complete his control of the area. Once his, he can charge others inflated prices to cross those lands. The town sheriff, trying to impose some law, is shot and killed, his body disposed of in such a way that it won't be found. The corrupt town mayor then appoints the town drunk as sheriff. Now there is no law in Bottleneck. But ... The town drunk sobers up.
He takes his bogus position seriously and therefore sends for Destry (Jimmy Stewart), the son of another famous lawman.
Destry arrives and the fun really gets going. He's not what anyone expects. He's calm, relatively mild-mannered, doesn't wear guns ... doesn't even like guns. And of course, this sets up the final scenes when (as we can expect) he finally is pushed to a point where he does put on guns (a similar situation to Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider).
In the meantime, the filmmakers and the audience have loads of fun, including a cat fight between an angry wife and the town floozy, Marlene Dietrich.
In Destry Rides Again, Jimmy Stewart is perfect - he is so Jimmy Stewart. His famous halting pattern of speech is used comedically to suggest a kind of slyness. It shows the awareness and intelligence behind his character's meek exterior so we know this quality is part of the character's act. As an audience, we realize there is more to him than the meek exterior we see.
Dietrich is also good, though the name Frenchy doesn't quite fit her German accent ... but I suppose that's quibbling.
Unlike some parodies that simply mock a style, films that choose to take a kind of "looking down the nose" approach, Destry Rides Again seems to love westerns and love using the style to have fun. And it works brilliantly. It's a movie that succeeds as a western and as a comedy. Ultimately, it is simply a lot of fun to watch.
Movie Review: Destry Rides Again
Summary: 4 Stars
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.