Category: Directed by George Marshall

Destry Rides Again (1939, George Marshall)

There are a lot of great shots in Destry Rides Again, with director Marshall finding a lot of raw human emotion in a comedic Western; it starts with opening titles, which are a long tracking shot introducing the setting—the town of Bottleneck. The tracking shot is at night (cinematographer Hal Mohr’s black and white photography is gorgeous and never more than in low light or night exteriors, it’s just glorious) and the town is hopping with drunk cowboys shooting off their pistols in glee as they file in and out of the single saloon. Brian Donlevy owns the saloon, Marlene Dietrich is the headlining star, though we don’t find out about Donlevy right away. Initially, he’s just a guy losing at cards.

Only he’s got an ace in the hole—Dietrich. After she does her first song, she heads upstairs to help out, introducing some of the the supporting cast on her way. Marshall’s really big on continuous movement, whether a shot or between them, and Dietrich quickly establishes drunk Charles Winninger, devoted fan Mischa Auer, and town mayor Samuel S. Hinds.

Turns out Donlevy and Dietrich aren’t just a couple, they’re a criminally enterprising couple—they’re cheating ranchers out of their land to set up a toll road for cattle (when they cheat yet another victim, it’s hard not to just think, well, it’s capitalism)—and eventually sheriff Joe King’s going to have to do something about it.

Now King is just a regular sheriff, not a mythic Old West sheriff, though Winninger used to be deputy to one those—name of Destry—something he can’t stop talking about. At least when he’s conscious. If only they could get someone like Destry again.

Good thing there’s a Destry Jr. out there, James Stewart, who Winninger calls in Donlevy goes too far.

It takes twenty minutes before Stewart shows up (Dietrich is top-billed so character name in the title doesn’t matter here) and he’s not what anyone’s expecting. Not Winninger, not Donlevy or Dietrich, not new-to-town rancher Jack Carson… or his sister, Irene Harvey. Stewart’s an amiable fellow who tries to deescalate situations instead of shooting things up, speaking in Old West dad jokes.

Destry’s got a lot of things going for it—Marshall, Stewart, Dietrich, Winninger, Donlevy, all the other actors (especially Auer and Una Merkel)—so maybe all things—but the script is something spectacularly spectacular. Felix Jackson, Gertrude Purcell, and Henry Myers only have seventy-six minutes (starting when Stewart shows up—that first twenty mnutes is continuous action set in a night); they do a lot with it. There are full subplots for Winninger, Auer and Merkel (they’re a married couple), Dietrich (separate from Donlevy and Stewart; she’s got arcs with both of them too), and also Carson. Tom Fadden gets sort of half a subplot to himself before son Dickie Jones takes it over. Plus minor subplots for Harvey, Lillian Yarbo, and….

Everyone. Basically everyone who doesn’t die right away gets at least a minor subplot for the film to keep running to give the film its verisimilitude. It’s a short film with a limited setting (they leave town—and presumably back lot—once to go to a ranch), it’s got three big musical numbers, and the arcs for Dietrich and Stewart, Stewart and Winninger, and Stewart and Donlevy are all rather complex but they still make time for the background. Turns out to be particularly important for the twist in the finale.

Because the script is phenomenal. All of the great moments (save probably that opening title tracking shot) come through thanks to the script. Getting Stewart and Dietrich into the room in the right way, getting Stewart and Harvey their brief moments, a subplot change in the Dietrich’s style, the way Marshall holds on Donlevy’s bravado until the layers become visible—ditto Dietrich—there are a lot of great scenes.

But nothing compares to the deus ex machina. All of a sudden Marshall slows Destry down and zooms in hard on Stewart and demands an entirely different moment. The film—again thanks to the script and Stewart, Dietrich, and Winninger’s performances—all of a sudden needs Stewart to show a precise depth he’d only ever implied implying before. It’s classic movie magic in that way the ingredients all have to be right for the film to succeed so well and it’s breathtaking good. Marshall maybe seems a little lost during some of the musical numbers—he’s focusing on Dietrich whether he should be or not—but otherwise his direction is outstanding.

Destry is an exceptionally subtle yet often uproarious comedy, an always sultry and always sincere morality play, and an exciting action movie. It’s truly wonderful and rather charmingly casual about it.

A Millionaire for Christy (1951, George Marshall)

A Millionaire for Christy exemplifies why the screwball comedy doesn’t work outside its era without a lot of tinkering. I can’t even think of a good example of one working outside the 1930s right now, but I’m pretty sure there have been some. Maybe even recently. But Christy adapts a regular screwball comedy script for the filmmaking techniques of 1950. It shoots on location, which gives the scenes a sense of reality, which doesn’t belong. These scenes give the characters a whole lot of weight–their problems become very real, instead of celluloid. The other problem with the film in terms of attempting to remake Bringing Up Baby, only without the budget or the script, is the first act. For a ninety minute movie, Christy has a thirty minute first act. For those thirty minutes, it pretends its it’s directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn and it is not. At the thirty-minute mark, Eleanor Parker and Fred MacMurray finally get to start acting and the film takes a visible turn for the better (much better).

A screwball comedy requires the audience to acknowledge the artifice, so even after Christy stops pretending to be Bringing Up Baby, it still has those genuine shooting locations working against it. The film recovers for a couple reasons–three, actually. Parker, MacMurray, and Richard Carlson. Parker and MacMurray have real chemistry and Parker’s excellent once her character has more depth than reluctant gold-digger. MacMurray’s performance is pretty superficial, except in the romantic scenes with Parker, which pull the whole film together. Carlson, as MacMurray’s fiancee’s jilted boyfriend, is fantastic throughout, even during that lame first thirty. When he and Parker team up to break up MacMurray’s engagement, there’s plenty for him to do. There’s a standout scene with he and Parker getting drunk. Carlson not having done more comedies is unfortunate for the genre.

George Marshall, who did lots of films and lots of good ones (he directed Destry Rides Again), suffocates under the location shooting. There’s a lot of standard screwball comedy moments-and Marshall turns them into material for a dark film noir about a man kidnapping a woman in broad daylight, assaulting photographers–the scenes aren’t funny, they’re disturbing. Certain scenes are meant to be done with that aforementioned artifice. Without it, the scenes play wrong.

Given that long first act, the resolution is really hurried, but it is where some of Christy‘s more original moments play out, if only because there’s only three minutes to finish the picture. Another affecting part of the film is Carlson’s psychiatrist’s real concern for poor people with mental illnesses. It’s a serious subject and when it comes up during Carlson’s fantastic drunk sense, it fosters a resentment of the film for being superfluous, not just this one, but the medium in general. It’s off-putting and it’s hard for the scene to recover after it… and when it does, it’s only because of Carlson and Parker’s acting.

Also, the title is a bit of a misdirection. Parker’s Christabel is only called Christy once in the whole film, but it also suggests it’s a search for a millionaire, the other side of Seven Chances perhaps. But still, it’s worthwhile for Parker, Carlson, and MacMurray when he’s with Parker–not to mention as an example of location shooting’s effect on filmic storytelling.