DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939) B/W 94m dir: George Marshall

w/Marlene Dietrich, James Stewart, Mischa Auer, Charles Winninger, Brian Donlevy, Allen Jenkins, Warren Hymer, Una Merkel, Irene Hervey, Tom Fadden, Billy Gilbert, Jack Carson

A free-wheeling comic western with Stewart in double jeopardy --- fighting six-gun justice with his own brand of no-gun peacekeeping and fending off the advances of Frenchie, a sexy saloon gal played by Dietrich. She makes a beautiful foil for Stewart's strong, silent lawman in this rip-roaring western.

From The Movie Guide: "Dietrich's career was in free fall prior to this movie. She had left the protective wing of her directorial mentor Josef von Sternberg in 1935, and most of her subsequent movies were not popular. After appearing in ANGEL, an uncommon failure for Ernst Lubitsch, Dietrich was considered 'box office poison' by exhibitors. For three years, she made no films of consequence, and when Paramount dropped her contract in 1937, she was considered washed up. She fled to Europe believing that American film audiences were through with her. Then she got a transatlantic call in the middle of the night from producer Joe Pasternak who wanted her for his new film at Universal --- a western! One of the screen's most glamorous women, renowned for romances, melodramas, and sophisticated comedy, playing a saloon hussy in a crude oater? But Dietrich took it and she was appropriately bawdy, tempestuous, and wicked but with a heart of gold. The public responded and her star shot up again, higher than before.

"Under the sure directorial hand of genre veteran Marshall, DESTRY RIDES AGAIN is a well-paced western that seamlessly combines humor, romance, suspense and action. Stewart's performance is rendered in his usual low-key manner and provides the perfect counterpoint to Dietrich's bold and brassy character. All the great character actors in this film are superb as well. DESTRY was filmed three times following the publication of the Max Brand novel in 1930, first as a Tom Mix standard in 1932, again in the 1939 Dietrich/Stewart classic, and in 1954 as a routine western with Audie Murphy."