Just as I thought, this is the earliest western I've reviewed on this blog. I thought wrong about it being a sequel, tho.
In an unspecified state and decade, the fictitious town of Bottleneck is a regular Dodge City, where men frequently fire guns in the air when celebrating -- and at each other when slightly provoked. It's an open secret that Mayor Slade (Samuel S. Hinds) is in the pocket of Kent (Brian Donlevy), who's been gathering land thru swindles and force; and Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich), whose wiles help beau Kent with crimes. When Bottleneck abruptly needs a new sheriff, Slade appoints former deputy turned town drunkard Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger). But Dimsdale, nostalgic for the late Sheriff Thomas Jefferson Destry, summons Tom Destry Jr. (James Stewart, playing a Jefferson twice in the same year) to be his deputy, hoping to turn things around.
Destry's first impression is quite disenchanting. Not only is he genteel and borderline effeminate for the setting (a sort Stewart still played 23 years later in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), in contrast to fellow newcomer Jack Tyndall (Jack Carson), but he prefers to go unarmed. He's not a pacifist or a coward, and he's certainly not a bad shot. He just has numerous anecdotes to demonstrate why he finds mere diplomacy more pragmatic, making arrests as necessary without threatening immediate execution. Of course, no one else has much confidence that that method will suffice in Bottleneck.
Unfortunately, the story doesn't very well convince the audience that Destry has the right idea. His reliance on due process makes for some slow justice, sometimes appearing to favor Kent. In the end, Destry resorts to digging out his old man's handguns.
As westerns go, DRA has a strong female presence. I'm not surprised Dietrich got top billing. She does the main singing. Frenchy's interactions with Destry are complicated, half hostile and half affectionate, almost mutually. Jack's sister Janice (Irene Hervey) also has eyes for Destry, but we don't learn nearly as much about her. In a more comic role is Una Merkel as Mrs. Callahan, who's always hard on her foreign second husband, Boris (Mischa Auer), but won't take kindly to anyone who humiliates him. Other women of note include Sophie Claggett (Virginia Brissac), in danger of losing her ranch home to Kent; and Clara (Lillian Yarbo), Frenchy's servant, not too badly depicted for a Black woman at the time. Toward the climax, every woman in town assembles to teach the bad boys a lesson -- about as "girl power" as the '30s get.
IMDb lists comedy among the genres, and there are certainly tickling elements. I put it ahead of Cat Ballou on that score. At the same time, I have to say it's a serious western first. There are a few tragic losses, and the ending carries itself quietly.
Either way, I found it enjoyable. DRA may not have sorted itself out completely, but it succeeds where it counts.
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