I don’t think this Western is that well known today but back in the day it seemed to have been successful enough to spawn a remake and other adaptations. It stars James Stewart and certainly makes for a different kind of Western as he plays a lawman who tries his best to be a pacifist. Together with the musical sequences featuring Marlene Dietrich, that makes this interesting enough and entertaining enough to be worth watching in my book.

The town of Bottleneck is a hive of crime and corruption, led by saloon owner Kent. During a poker game, he cheats a local man out of his ranch with the help of Frenchy, the saloon’s star showgirl. The town’s sheriff goes to confront Kent and is killed. The crooked mayor immediately appoints the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale, to be the new sheriff. Unexpectedly, Dimsdale takes his new job seriously and calls for Tom Destry Jr., the son of a famous lawman he used to work with, to come serve as his deputy. When he arrives, Destry appears to be affable and something of a buffoon, going along as the townsfolk makes fun of him. Kent is reassured when he finds out that Destry doesn’t even carry a gun. However he is actually an experienced sheriff who uses humor to defuse tense situations and a skilled gunfighter when he needs to be. He tries to use his intelligence to defuse situations and charms Frenchy. Quickly determining that the previous sheriff was murdered, he starts an official investigation.

We all know the trope of the protagonist who looks like a bumbling fool but is secretly hypercompetent. This film plays the trope to the hilt, even having Frenchy hand Destry a bucket and a mop to clean up the town with. James Stewart never once struck me as being a plausible action hero but his friendly, disarming persona works great as he dissembles and distracts using stories of the people he knows and takes the long way around to get to the point. His plans aren’t actually that clever but I suppose it’s the surprise that makes them so effective. The musical numbers by Dietrich are all ribald, crude affairs but match the setting perfectly and are rather entertaining. The rest of the supporting characters are memorable too, including Dimsdale the town drunkard, and Boris Callahan, the Russian who is the second husband of a local woman. It’s obvious to me that this film is especially beloved because of all these strong performances.

The best part is the nuanced form of pacifism Destry practices. In the end, this is still the Wild West and the rule of law is enforced by the barrel of a gun. Destry can afford to be so casual because he knows how good he really is with a gun if it really comes down to it. His personal philosophy isn’t that violence is to be avoided at all costs. It’s that once the fighting starts, people on both sides get killed. He repeats the story of how his own father was killed by someone shooting him in the back and how that can happen no matter how good you are. So his approach is rooted in being practical and developed through personal experience. It’s better thought out and more intelligent than I’d expected.

That’s not enough to consider this a great film but it is worth watching. Dietrich was a little past her prime when she appeared here and she didn’t seem to mind portraying a cheap tramp. The catfight between her and another woman goes on for surprisingly long and apparently caused censorship problems. Most of all, it’s refreshing to watch a cowboy movie that doesn’t play to the usual tropes.