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." 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
- Audie Murphy as Tom Destry, Jr., the new deputy
- Mari Blanchard as Brandy, the saloon singer
- Lyle Bettger as Phil Decker, mob boss
- Thomas Mitchell as Reginald T. "Rags" Barnaby, new sheriff
- Lori Nelson as Martha Phillips
- Alan Hale, Jr. as Jack Larson
- Wallace Ford as Doc Curtis
- Mary Wickes as Bessie Mae Curtis
- George Wallace as Curly Adams
- Edgar Buchanan as The Honorable Hiram J. Sellers, Mayor
- Mitchell Lawrence as The Professor
References
External links
- Destry at the Internet Movie Database
- Destry at the TCM Movie Database
- Destry at Audie Murphy Memorial Site
