Mischa Auer – Movie Musings

A gun-shy sheriff needs to clean up this town in this delightfully funny semi-comedy Western

Director: George Marshall

Cast: Marlene Dietrich (Frenchy), James Stewart (Tom Destry Jnr), Mischa Auer (Boris), Charles Winninger (Washington Dimsdale), Brian Donlevy (Kent), Allen Jenkins (Gyp Watson), Warren Hymer (Bugs Watson), Irene Hervey (Janice Tyndall), Una Merkel (Lily Belle), Billy Gilbert (Loupgerou), Samuel S Hinds (Mayor Hiram J Slade), Jack Carson (Jack Tyndall)

There’s a new deputy sheriff in town! Son of a wild-shooting, hard-as-nails lawman, Tom Destry Jnr (James Stewart) is surely the man to bring justice to Bottleneck. Or at least that’s what everyone thinks until his carriage arrives and out steps an aw shucks slouching drawler, carrying a parasol, who loves a homespun yarn and – worst of all! – doesn’t see the point of carrying guns. Surely, he’ll be a push-over for Kent (Brian Donlevy), the corrupt saloon owner who runs the town? Guess again. Tom will soon change all sorts of minds, not least Kent’s gal, glamourous singer (and card sharp) the improbably accented Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich).

George Marshall’s Destry Rides Again is pretty much a delight from start to finish. It combines rich comedy and Western satire, with genuine sharp-shooting thrills, and showcases a host of actors at the top of their game. It’s crammed with excellent jokes, shrewd observations and some moments of truly affecting tragedy. It’s the finest film Marshall, otherwise a journeyman, directed with confidently handled, crowd-filled set pieces and a wonderful sense of pace.

It’s hard not to fall in love with a man who doesn’t care what people think of him but, when push comes to shove, could beat them all in a game of quick draw. It helps abundantly when he’s played by James Stewart at his most boyish and lovable. Tom is determined to prove the law can be done another way: that escalating things by pulling a firearm only leads to trouble (“You see if I have had a gun there, why, one of us might have got hurt – and it might have been me”). Tom is quick-witted and confident enough to face down crises without a gun – putting him years ahead of the townsfolk who judge everyone by their ability to hit a target.

In fact, Destry Rides Again in its opening hour really commits to the idea of Tom as an ahead-of-his-time pacifist, who thinks through events with the grace of a chess-master. We’re constantly encouraged to delight not only in his smarts – the incriminating traps he lays for all around him, the skilful way he defuses situations – but also respect for his cool and guts (you need to be damn sure of yourself to order a glass of milk in Kent’s no-holds-barred saloon).

Tom eventually of course has to give them a show – his pin-point accuracy with a pistol leaves the town gasping, and a group of would-be trouble-makers lamely muttering how sorry they are to have disturbed the peace – but he’s far too brave to need to prove himself. Real courage is not caring what people think of you, and real smartness is being happy for others to call you a knabby-pabby yellow-belly. After all, they’ll only underestimate you – and make it even more likely Tom’s methodical, law-following approach will yield the right results.

Marshall mines gallons of fish-out-of-water comedy from Tom’s willingness to look the fool. From his arrival at the town clutching the parasol of a fellow passenger – his shoot-first-and-second-think-third fellow passenger Tyndall (Jack Carson) is mistaken for him because he matches the bill of what the town expects – to his passion for whittling napkin rings and his calm aw shucks good humour when handed a mop and told to use that to “clean up this town”. But we are never left with a doubt that Tom is the bravest, smartest, toughest guy in the town – and that he doesn’t need to constantly proof it to himself and others.

It eventually sinks in as well to glamour madam, Frenchy. Marlene Dietrich had not only never appeared in a Western before, she’d been declared “box office poison” just a few months earlier. In the public mind she was associated with glamour, distance and von Sternberg majesty. All that was to change with Destry Rides Again, where she was lusty, earthy but still with a touch of class. Who would have imagined Sternberg’s muse engaging in a no-holds barred cat fight with Una Merkel’s domineering housewife (a brawl that trashes most of the bar)?

Dietrich is quite superb in the role of this enigmatic madam. Her distinctive singing is used liberally throughout the film. Which fits nicely with Frenchy’s role in the town as the glamourous distracting agent for the crimes of Kent (a smugly grinning Brian Donlevy). Not that she’s an innocent: she swipes cards from punters in crooked card games and knows full well Kent sends “out of town” anyone who crosses him. But there is something in Tom she finds intriguing, perhaps because he’s smarter, more interesting and different from any other an in this benighted outlaw stop-off.

It helps as well that there is a clear magnetic attraction between the two. Not to mention between Stewart and Dietrich – it’s no surprise, watching the film, to hear they had a passionate affair during its making. Stewart has never really felt sexier than here with Dietrich, while Stewart helps Dietrich feel warmer and more approachable than she ever did with Sternberg. The dance (literally at one point) between these two, captures in microcosm the struggle for the town’s soul: will Tom win them over, or will the gun-totting baddies?

Marshall doesn’t quite cap the film off as well as you might hope. Eventually, Tom is left no choice but to pick up his guns. The film does present a final shoot out quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen before – ending in a battle-of-the-sexes brawl in the saloon, shot with an immersive comedy. But it doesn’t change the fact that Destry Rides Again can’t in the end square its circle: Tom may preach stern words over violence, but when push comes to shove only guns solve problems.

But you forgive it because this film is a hugely entertaining delight. There are a multitude of delightful supporting roles. Best of all are Mischa Auer is extremely funny as a Russian would-be-deputy who (literally) doesn’t wear the trousers in his marriage and Charles Winninger as the town drunk turned sheriff, who has a secret heart of gold even if he can’t tuck his shirt in (there is a lovely, late, call-back to this mannerism in the film from Tom that is genuinely moving). Destry Rides Again manages to be both a sort of spoof, but also a very real genuine Western, with a near perfect mix of jokes and action. It doesn’t quite manage to deliver on its concept, but it does more than enough.

Carole Lombard and William Powell flirt, fight and buttel in My Man Godfrey

Director: Gregory La Cava

Cast: William Powell (Godfrey), Carole Lombard (Irene Bullock), Alice Brady (Angelica Bullock), Gail Patrick (Cornelia Bullock), Jean Dixon (Molly), Eugene Pallette (Alexander Bullock), Alan Mowbray (Tommy Gray), Mischa Auer (Carlo), Pat Flaherty (Mike)

My Man Godfrey is one of the most beloved of all screwball comedies. It’s also the only film in history to be nominated in every acting category and the directing and writing categories at the Oscars and still not get nominated for Best Picture (proving comedy was devalued even then). Today it still carries a heck of a comedic wallop, splicing this in with an ever more acute and profound social commentary. It’s a gem of Golden Era Hollywood.

With New York in the midst of the Great Depression, affluent socialites the Bullock sisters – snob Cornelia (Gail Patrick) and ditzy, scatter-brained Irene (Carole Lombard) – are in hunt for a “forgotten man” so they can claim victory in their scavenger hunt. In a rubbish dump – turned home for the unemployed – they find the well-spoken Godfrey (William Powell). Godfrey is having none of the condescension of Cornelia, but finds the honesty and kindness of Irene more touching agrees to help her win the prize – whereupon he promptly admonishes the upper-class crowd at the Waldorf for their lack of concern for the working man. Ashamed, Irene offers him the job of Bullock family butler, which Godfrey accepts. But as he navigates the eccentric family, is Godfrey also hiding secrets of his own, secrets that suggest he is much more than he seems?

My Man Godfrey is a very funny film, centre-piecing the fast-paced comedic delivery of the era, the script never going more than a minute without a killer line or brilliant piece of comedic business. It’s helped as well by the casting, with every actor being perfectly selected for their roles, and each of them bringing their absolute A-game. Not least the partnership of Powell and Lombard – divorced in real life but still close – who spark off each other wonderfully and keep the will-they-won’t-they question beautifully balanced throughout the whole film.

La Cava’s film – wonderfully directed with imagination and visual chutzpah – matches this up with an extremely neat, but not too preachy, line in social commentary. The self-obsessions and petty concerns of the Bullock family are frequently contrasted with the poverty and struggles of the working man, while the families’ lack of concern for the struggles of the vagrants and down-and-outs only a taxi ride away from their mansion home is striking. Godfrey frequently points up this lack of empathy in this ‘classless’ country (which is in fact defined by class), stressing he found more decency and kindness at the rubbish dump than he did in the palaces of the mighty.

Sure Godfrey’s secret may well be that he is from loaded stock himself – but has given it all up in shame and self-disgust – but that only makes him all the better an observer of the whims of the rich treading on the poor. In fact My Man Godfrey could well be the film for today. The scavenger hunt dinner – a brilliantly directed, frenetic scene that looks years ahead of its time in its technical accomplishment – really captures this. The guests haw and shout over each other, clutching with an ironic glee their examples of poverty (from everyday objects to a goat to, of course. the ‘forgotten’ man, who has as much value as the goat to them). We get more of it at the posh clubs and cocktail parties the Bullock frequent, the guests (while not cruel) being as blasé and oblivious of their fortune as they are of the suffering in the rest of the city.

But that makes this sound like a civics lessons, whereas the film is first-and-foremost a comedy. It has a terrific performance from William Powell as Godfrey. Powell makes the part a mix of Jeeves and Wooster: the intelligence and calm of Jeeves with the warmth and tendency for scrapes of Wooster. Powell is brilliant at balancing the wry observer quality of Godfrey, while never sacrificing his warmer, generous soul. And also brilliantly suggests his wonderful judgement of situations and characters, without ever making him smug or a know-it-all. It’s a quite exquisite performance of unflappility covering emotional depth.

Lombard sparks off him very well as Irene, allowed to frequently head further over the top as Powell grounds Godfrey in normality (Lombard was a famously electric performer, and the outtakes reel for the film frequently show her screwing up her fast-paced dialogue with copious swear-words). Today the more ditzy Irene sometimes comes across as a more tiresome, less believable character – she is so obviously a narrative construction rather than someone who could be real that it becomes harder to connect with her (or to imagine Godfrey might find her attractive). But Lombard’s energy and drive carries the film through and the film highlights her electric qualities in several show-stopping scenes.

The entire Bullock household is in fact spot in, with gorgeous performances. Alice Brady (Oscar-nominated) is the quintessential disapproving society mother, archly self-obsessed. Eugene Pallette is wonderfully funny as the exasperated father of the household, barely able to understand either his family or his investments. Gail Patrick is a delight as Irene’s manipulative sister, proud and selfish. Mischa Auer (Oscar nominated surely off the bag of his extraordinary gorilla impersonation) is very funny as Angelica’s “protégé”, a preening, talent-free musician and freeloader who spends most of his scenes eating. Jean Dixon is smart and sassy as the maid Molly. There isn’t a bum note in this ensemble.

La Cava directs all this with great skill, framing the action with a beautiful sense of composition, pace and style. You know you are in save hands with the opening scene that show the credits appearing like neon bill boards during a slow, continuous tracking shot along the New York riverside. With dialogue that glides beautifully from humour to pathos, and delivery that creates comic archetypes that feel like real people, it’s a film that gets nearly everything right – which is why it’s still a classic today.