In the movie most of the action takes place in town of Bottle Neck and mostly in the Last Chance Saloon.
For appearances' sake a sheriff is appointed and they pick the town drunk Wash (played by Charles Winninger) to choose one. Tom Destry is send for because he is the son of the famous marshall for whom Wash was once a deputy.
The fears of the Bottle Neck establishment abate with the arrival of Tom, which is unnecessary once they get to know him. In fact the barroom crowd bursts into laughter when he orders a glass of milk instead of beer and says he doesn't need guns. He is handed a broom, with the comment that for the cleaning up he is likely to do in Bottle Neck this is the only equipment he will need. Ofcourse we get to meet a different Destry when it's needed.

Destry rides again was a winner on all counts - at the box office and as a milestone in the careers of Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart. The film is a comedy, drama, farce, a good western and a musical to boot. Dietrich was given three songs and one of them, "The Boys in the Back Room", became one of her most celebrated numbers. Casting Stewart opposite her was a master stroke. In the opinion of the late movie critic Bosley Crother, "it was a masterpiece of underplaying in a deliberately sardonic vein, the freshest, most offbeat characterization that this popular actor ever played.
Stewart's Tom Destry is indeed a droll piece of work. He is an incongruously amiable man in a very wild west, a strangely misplaced pacifist, who is first spotted by the townspeople as he steps out of a stagecoach holding a parasol and a birdcage. He happens to be holding them for a young lady who next steps out of the coach, but it is a bizarre introduction to the new deputy sheriff, made the more so when he tells his new boss that he doesn't carry guns because he doesn't believe in them. When asked what he believes in he replies, "Law and order". And therein lies the strength of the man. As subtly played by Stewart he is both appealing and persuasive - a well-carved notch in a steadily advancing career.
 
 

Universal, 1939

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