Destry Rides Again (1939) | |
Plot Synopsis (continued)
In the saloon, the misunderstood, henpecked Russian Boris, who is often mistakenly called Callahan by his boarding house manager/wife Lily Belle Callahan (Una Merkel) (the former Mrs. Callahan), plays poker with Frenchy:
She bets thirty bucks against his pants just as the Pioneer Stage Coach Line arrives in town. In parallel sequences, the film cuts back and forth between the poker game in the saloon and the grand entrance of the stagecoach on the Main street. After Wash Dimsdale has tidied up the sheriff's office, he alerts the townspeople in the saloon that the town's new, tough lawman is arriving: "Kent, you'd better prepare yourself. You're gonna need a man." Wash expects a fearsome gun-shooter and quickly identifies headstrong Jack as his new deputy after he assaults the stagedriver (Bud McClure) for deliberately making the trip a rough ride. After a misidentification, the sheriff turns and is dismayed to be introduced to the real Destry. The soft-spoken, gawky, mild-mannered deputy steps from the stagecoach holding a frilly parasol and a birdcage for Jack's sister Janice Tyndall (Irene Hervey) as she steps out. Upon his arrival, he is the object of ridicule and laughter:
When tempted by her, Boris loses his pants to Frenchy's two Aces - she immediately demands that his pants be stripped from him:
Dimsdale is embarrassed and mortified by his new assistant's first impression of weakness:
Destry shrugs and tells a homespun story about how first impressions are foolish to judge a person by. As they walk inside the saloon, Boris flees in his long johns after being humiliated in the card game. Dimsdale introduces Tom to Kent, Slade, and to Frenchy: "the real boss of Bottleneck." She looks up at the tall lanky deputy and makes a cliched reaction: "How's the weather up there?" He retorts smartly: "You can do better than that." Kent approaches to assert his dominance and provoke a fight by demanding his gun, and is baffled that the soft-spoken wimp doesn't even like to wear a gun. Destry is also teased for ordering milk at the bar:
To challenge and mock him even further in front of the laughing crowd, Frenchy hands Tom a broom and a wooden bucket full of water with the comment that he can use those things to clean up Bottleneck: "I can see now how you cleaned up Tombstone. You can start right here - and don't forget the corners." While everyone is still laughing at Destry's gentle ways, angry wife Lily Belle Callahan storms her way in. In contrast to Destry, she is upset that her Russian "lummox" of a husband has lost his trousers to Frenchy in a poker card game and accuses Frenchy of cheating:
They engage in the roughest female catfight in film history. The unladylike, wild, free-for-all western brawl in the saloon (choreographed without stunt stand-ins) lasts almost two minutes, and includes scuffling, hair-pulling, dress-tearing, punching, wrestling, scratching, kicking and rolling on the floor. Peace-maker Destry breaks (or cleans) it up and cools off their heated argument by pouring a bucket of water on them. Feeling publically humiliated by him, Frenchy vengefully continues the fight with Destry, punching, kicking and clawing at him, then grabbing a six-shooter to aim at him. Everyone in the saloon stampedes for the exit. Further, when she tosses bar glasses, steins and bottles at him, he calls "Uncle" for Kent to rescue him, or ducks behind a raised chair. Hot-tempered, she rides on his shoulders as if he was a bucking bronco. He pleads with the furious saloon queen for reason (and law and order): "Hey, can't we talk this over?...Now wait a minute, lady." As he escapes one flying object after another and backs out from the wrecked saloon, he narrowly avoids being hit with another chair by ducking. He tells her that his 'welcome' at Bottleneck hasn't been exactly friendly: "You sure have a knack of makin' a stranger feel right at home, ma'am. Nice knowin' ya." Excitedly frustrated and distressed, Dimsdale is dubious about his appointment of the placid Destry to be his deputy and berates his impotent assistant: "I never thought I'd live to see the day that Tom Destry's son would be the laughing-stock of the whole town....Why, you won't be able to stick your nose out of a door without everybody a-hootin' at ya." He threatens to fire Destry: "You're leavin' on the next coach." The sheriff asks: "How ya gonna face anybody after what you took from Kent and Frenchy?...I expected you to be like your Pa, comin' up blastin' behind shootin' irons. And what happened? You didn't have any. Why?" With conviction, Destry talks about restoring order to the town in a new way - without guns. Philosophically, he believes that guns are not the answer to end lawlessness - his father was gunned down in Tombstone in the back even when armed with his weapons. Tom is resolved to stay and persuades the dubious Sheriff to swear him in as deputy and give him a badge:
The Sheriff presents Tom with a deputy's badge, cautioning: "Don't let anybody see it." Kent and his men surround Claggett's farm, forcibly attempting with gunfire to take what they had crookedly won. As the Sheriff makes his rounds with his deputy, he points out a blood-soaked, bullet-holed porch post with a tale of the Wild West to encourage his assistant to carry a gun or leave town. Unimpressed by the monument or the reasoning of the story, a laconic Tom stubbornly responds with one of his own folksy, pedagogical anecdotes/stories which compares himself to a stamp:
Rowdy, "playful" cowboys ride through town shooting their pistols into the air. "No-gun Destry" quietly confronts the men with his drawl and borrows one set of guns from them: "Aside from being nice ornaments, a fellow can have a whole lot of harmless amusement out of these here toys." To their astonishment during spectacular target practice, the 'castrated' westerner demonstrates his dazzling six-shooter skills by shooting ornamental knobs off a distant storefront street sign - and then authoritatively confiscates the weapons from the over-awed reveller (Harry Cording): "Now the next time you fellows start any of this here promiscuous shootin' around the streets, you're gonna land in jail - do you understand?" Destry questions the mysterious disappearance of the late Sheriff Keogh: "He forgets his rabbits, he forgets all these papers." In the meantime, they are alerted by young son Eli Whitney Claggett (Dickie Jones) that the Claggett farm family is under siege from Kent and his gang. At the ranch, Claggett affirms that Kent's claims to their hard-earned farm are unfounded, due to Frenchy's involvement: "But I told you what that woman did to me. The game was as crooked as a hog's tail." Initially, Sheriff Keogh tried to uphold the law, according to Dimsdale: "He couldn't do nothin' about it. Everybody knows that he left town sudden." Destry insists that the piece of paper that deeds Claggett's property to Kent must be respected. But his next strategy is to visit Frenchy and "get better acquainted with the enemy...it's poker and coffee that's preying on my mind right now." On "official business" later that afternoon at Frenchy's home, Destry is introduced as "the waterman" to Frenchy on a visit to "get neighborly." In an amiable, subtle confrontation, he first apologizes "for not knowin' who's the real boss of Bottleneck," and then insinuates that her reputation as a chanteuse is tarnished by rumors - while they are served coffee for breakfast:
Enraged, she throws him out - they have a severe shouting match as he departs. He pretends to be naive, eliciting from her the fact that Keogh was 'taken care of.' He startles her at the door when he suggests that her excessive makeup may hide real loveliness under her tough facade:
After he leaves, she touches her face as if feeling it for the first time, looks into a wall mirror, and reflects on what he has just told her. She wipes the lipstick from her mouth with the back of her hand, and then cleans it with her feather boa. As the scene dissolves, a connection is established between Frenchy and the newly-arrived Janice, who is also looking in a mirror and applying makeup with a new chamois skin - a novel method that other towns-ladies are eager to try:
The ladies are also curious about her opinion of Destry: "Oh I know little about him. Apparently very nice and certainly different from the rest of the men you meet out in this country." The bartender, who is boarding in Mrs. Callahan's place, interrupts and calls to his landlady from a doorway where he has modestly wrapped himself in a curtain - Boris has robbed him of his pants:
With a menacing shot-gun, Lily Belle catches her husband fleeing out of one of the boarding house windows, wearing the bartender's oversized pants: "You misfit Cossack you - take off them pants!" The unlucky gambler pleads with her: "All I want to do is to be a cowboy and wear my own pants." She returns the pants to a demure Loupgerou as a commotion from outside brings everyone to the street. The dispossessed Claggetts have moved into town, displaced by Kent's villany and Destry's reinforcement. Cattleman Jack Tyndall agrees with their assessment of the corrupt saloon owner: "That man Kent's got ahold of every ranch in the valley and he wants to charge two bits for every head of cattle going through." Fiesty Lily Belle is fed up with talk: "It's time the decent people of this town joined up and got rid of them hoodlums." Contemptuous, Tyndall is frustrated with the ineffectual Sheriff and deputy who won't use their fists or guns:
Finally, Destry stands up against taking the law into one's own hands, with another yarn:
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