Destry (film)

Destry
Directed by George Marshall
Produced by Stanley Rubin
Written by Max Brand (novel Destry Rides Again)
Felix Jackson (story)
Starring Mari Blanchard
Audie Murphy
Lyle Bettger
Thomas Mitchell
Lori Nelson
Edgar Buchanan
Cinematography George Robinson
Edited by Ted J. Kent
Distributed by Universal-International
Release dates
  • December 1, 1954 (U.S.)
Running time
 95 min.
Country United States
Language English
Box office $1.5 million (US)[1]

Destry is a 1954 western starring Mari Blanchard, Audie Murphy, and Thomas Mitchell. The third 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, Halliwell's Film Guide calls it an "almost scene-for-scene remake."[2] 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 has been claimed. Destry suspects instead that the sheriff was murdered while trying to resolve a land dispute, and he sets about finding out how the sheriff died. Eventually, it becomes clear that Decker killed the sheriff in order to continue his plot to obtain all the land necessary to control and exploit the transit of cattle over those properties. After a gun battle in the saloon, Destry restores law and order to the town.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1955', Variety Weekly, January 25, 1956
  2. ↑ John Walker, ed. (1994). Halliwells Film Guide 10th edition. Harper Collins. p. 288. ISBN 0-00-638389-0.

External links