A Film Canon

 

 

This classic parody presents the Old West as a world in which women reign supreme, explicating men as so many variations on the plea: "All I want to do is be a cowboy and wear my own pants!" From this perspective, the mission of new sheriff's deputy Tom Destry (James Stewart) is to restore gendered order to the town of Bottleneck, which is run by a corrupt triumvirate of mayor, saloon-owner turned real-estate developer and, above all, saloon singer Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich), who cements the other two, partly by anaesthetising and distracting the local male population. Most of the comedy stems from Destry's realisation that he can't directly confront Frenchy, if only because direct confrontation - whether physical or verbal - is firmly, and subversively, construed as the province of the feminine, men preferring to gossip and shoot each other in the back. Instead, Destry takes an ambling, circuitous route that, narratively, clarifies his entire cleansing of the town in terms of his relationship with Frenchy and, stylistically, finds expression in his laconic, ponderous register, as evinced both in his taste for illustrative anecdotes, and his characteristic, drawn-out 'Uh-huh...', which quickly deflates any masculinist pretensions. That said, parts of the film play more like a demythologisation than a parody, as the humour touches on various forms of barbarity - a transition epitomised by the constant laughter of the saloon crowd, which has a distinctly aggressive subtext, punctuating the film like gunshots, or the abrasive presence of a studio audience.