Destry (film)

Destry is a 1954 western starring Mari Blanchard, Audie Murphy, and Thomas Mitchell. The third and (as of 1998) final film version of Max Brand's Destry Rides Again, this 1954 version is closer to the 1939 Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart film version than it is to the Brand original. Indeed Halliwells film guide states "Almost scene-for-scene remake ...".^[1] George Marshall directed both versions.

Plot

The sheriff of a small town is shot and the crooked mayor, The Honorable Hiram J. Sellers (Edgar Buchanan), and leading crook, Phil Decker (Lyle Bettger), appoint a drunk, Reginald T. "Rags" Barnaby (Thomas Mitchell), to take the position hoping that he will be easily controlled by them. Rags announces he is to give up the drink and turns down Decker as deputy telling them he has someone else in mind, Tom Destry.

Destry (Audie Murphy) arrives on the stagecoach with great fanfare but Rags is disappointed to find out that he is a very young man and refuses to carry a gun. Destry finds out that the previous sheriff may not have died of a heart attack, as the town rumour states, while trying to resolve a land dispute over a ranch and sets about finding out how he died. This starts his quest to discover who murdered the previous town sheriff and this quest rolls together the various characters including Rags, the mayor, Decker, saloon girl Brandy (Mari Blanchard), and a young woman, Martha Phillips (Lori Nelson), who lives near town whom Destry met while riding the stagecoach into town.

The plot basically follows the same premise as the James Stewart version made years earlier.

Cast

As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified)

References

External links

• Destry at the Internet Movie Database
• Destry (film) at the TCM Movie Database