Frenchie

Plot synopsis:
Frank Dawson is killed in the town of Bottleneck by his double-crossing partner Jack Lambert, leaving a young girl without a father. For the next 15 years, she lives in orphanages and works for the Fontaines, originally from Paris, earning her the nickname "Frenchie."
Now grown, she makes a fortune running a casino in New Orleans, then returns to Bottleneck to finally try to find her father's killer. She buys the casino the Scarlet Angel but learns that sheriff Tom Banning has cleaned up the town, forcing gamblers to go to nearby Chuckaluck, where the man in charge is Lambert.
Frenchie gets in touch with Lance Cole, a man who helped her in New Orleans, and asks him to come to Bottleneck to run the Scarlet Angel with her. Lambert's gambling interests are threatened, so he plans to ambush Cole's stage. Tom intervenes and prevents bloodshed.
Cole is in love with Frenchie and suspicious that Tom might be taking an interest in her. Tom's former fiancee, Diane, is jealous, too. She ended up marrying a rich banker, Clyde Gorman, only for his money. She and her husband rally the Bottleneck townspeople to get rid of these new gamblers in town.
Frenchie visits her father's grave, seen by Tom, who guesses correctly that she is Dawson's daughter. He rides to Chuckaluck to prevent trouble, but Lambert tries to shoot him.
The men of Bottleneck who want Frenchie gone head for the hills when she lies to them about a gold discovery there. Diane declares her love to Tom, who rejects her. Diane goes to the Scarlet Angel to confront Frenchie and lets it slip that her husband is Lambert's silent partner. The women get into a fight, which Tom breaks up.
Frenchie now knows the identities of the two men who murdered her dad. When she decides against vengeance, Cole figures she won't kill Gorman because that would make Diane a widow, free to be with Tom.
An unknown figure shoots Gorman in the back. Tom is accused and locked up in his own jail. Frenchie organizes a jailbreak, but Tom is suspicious because he thinks Frenchie could be setting him up to be gunned down by a posse.
Lambert draws and Tom kills him in self-defense. When things look bleak for him, Diane confesses that it was she who killed her husband. Tom assumes that Frenchie will leave town now, but Frenchie goes into a cell, closes the door and throws away the key, letting Tom know she's not going anywhere.

Tags: revenge, murder, violence

Review:
Frenchie's back in town.
"Frenchie" (1950) is based loosely on the western classic "Destry Rides Again" only this time featuring a woman as the heroine.
In her prime the shapely and gorgeous Shelley Winters as Frenchie Fontaine returns to her town and opens a saloon ,as a front, to avenge her fathers murder.
Besides the usual gun play there is an old fashioned saloon fight when Frenchie tangles with another woman which is a hoot.
Rounding out the cast of this technicolor co-feature are Joel McCrea, John Russell, Paul Kelly, Elsa Lanchester, John Emery and the ever dependable Marie Windsor..
One Brassy Lassie.
Although most film historians rate Frenchie as at least a partial remake of Destry Rides Again, you look on the film credits and you will see nary a mention of Max Brand and his western novel on which the famous James Stewart-Marlene Dietrich classic is based.
It gives someone by the name of Oscar Brodney credit for an 'original story and screenplay.
The estate of Max Brand could have sued.But other than the name of the town of Bottleneck and the name of Shelley Winters title character a whole lot has changed.
Joel McCrea is the Destry character renamed Tom Banning who cleaned up the bad elements in Bottleneck, but then left after his girlfriend Marie Windsor decided to marry John Emery the banker.
He's coming back now.But also coming to town is Shelley Winters who as a little girl saw her father murdered by his two partners, one of them Paul Kelly the other a silent partner.
She's the notorious Frenchie Fairmount of New Orleans, owner and operator of the most posh gambling palace in that town and she's now come to Bottleneck to take the trade from Paul Kelly who owns a rival palace in nearby Chuck-a-luck.
Winters arrives with able assistants Elsa Lanchester and John Russell.Separate things bring McCrea and Winters back to Bottleneck, but soon they find they've a lot in common.
McCrea has the Destry character down pretty good, albeit he's a little older than when Jimmy Stewart and later Audie Murphy played him.As for Shelley Winters, she's one brassy lassie and she holds her own in the chick fight that Destry is so famous for.
Her's is with Marie Windsor.One thing Frenchie does miss is the sure comedy touch of George Marshall from the 1939 version.
Still this one holds up quite nicely and McCrea and Winters and the rest of the cast do just fine..
Self-consciously cute and winking, but still fun....
Light western has New Orleans saloon queen Shelley Winters returning to her rustic hometown of Bottleneck to find the varmints who killed her father 15 years earlier--trouble is, she doesn't know who they are, and so opens a new saloon as a cover while she solves the mystery.
Friendly enough, yet awfully silly second-feature with a plot that doesn't quite hang together.
Still, Winters (with a devil in her eyes) fires off some fresh lines while utilizing her feminine wiles to charm the pants off the male residents.
Joel McCrea is a bit sleepy as the story-tellin', wood-whittlin' sheriff, but the supporting cast is solid, particularly Elsa Lanchester as gal-pal the Countess.
The Technicolor photography is bright and handsome, but the production (a jumbled mix of studio sets and location shots) is visually insecure.
Nothing at all to take seriously, but enjoyable while it lasts.
enjoyable fluff.
Despite a few gritty story elements, "Frenchie" is clearly a western that never takes itself all too seriously.
Because of this, although you may not love the film, it is enjoyable and fun.Frenchie (Shelly Winters) is a professional gambler and has just moved into a sleepy western town.
Soon after buying the dying local bar, she is able to make a huge success of it--turning it into a gambling parlor.
This irks some of the locals who want to keep the town clean and trouble-free, though they don't realize that she has ulterior motives.
It seems her father was murdered many years earlier and the trail has led to this and an adjacent town.
In the meantime, inexplicably romance blossoms between her and the Sheriff--a guy who wants to shut down the gambling establishment.
There's more to it than this (including a murder) but frankly none of it ever seemed very serious.
It was like the actors did it all with a wink in their eyes and by the end the viewer is left somewhat satisfied but not bowled over.Strengths of the film include some nice acting, a crazy girl-fight and an unusual plot.
The biggest deficit is the homespun comments that come flying from Joel McCrea.
If I never heard another "I knew a man once who...." comment from him, I'd be a happy man!.
Frenchie rides again....and again....and again.......
Until you get to see the catfight between the tough Shelley Winters in the title role and the lady-like Marie Windsor (cast against type), might think that this is a prequel to the classic western movie made twice already by Universal (best known for its Stewart/Dietrich 1939 version) and one that would be made again just a few years later under the name of "Destry".
Indeed, this is told through narration of Frenchie's perspective, so hence the title change.
There's no Tom Destry here, but he does appear with a different last name and not a newcomer to Bottle Neck.
Winters' voice is heard in the beginning vowing revenge on the men who killed her father years before (with a chubby little curly haired girl seen in representation of her younger self), and years later, she returns as the companion to eccentric countess Elsa Lanchaster whom she once co-owned a successful saloon in New Orleans with.
With the help of Lanchaster's pile of cash, Winters purchases Arthur Hunnicutt's saloon, and gets to meet the mastermind behind her father's death (Paul Kelly) whom she secretly intends to bring down.Joel McCrea plays Tom Banning, the new sheriff in town, and Destry representation here, coming back to find old flame Marie Windsor now unhappily married to crooked John Emery, and determined to shut Winters' saloon down.
This leads to the knock-down, drag out fight between Windsor and Winters, ending not with the famous bucket of water that Stewart threw on both women, but a clever substitution that ends quite differently than the Dietrich/Stewart fight in the 1939 remake.
Winters doesn't get to sing in this version, but is pretty formidable in many other ways, and quite good, reminding the audience of her past as a movie vixen before she became a much talked about character actress who used weight gain to her benefit.
The film is nice and colorful, filled with some great character performances (particularly Hunnicutt, Lanchaster and George Cleveland), but lacks the tense conclusion of the famous George Marshall film from just a decade before.
But any movie based on the original source needs a formidable leading lady, and Winters fits that bill, making her a perfect replacement for Dietrich and outshining Mari Blanchard who played Frenchie just four years later..
Not a remake but same characters as Destry Rides Again.
Frenchie is not a remake of "Destry Rides Again" One could think of it as a sequel since when it starts the town of Bottleneck is already cleaned up (Destry did it, remember?) But it would not make sense since Shelley Winters is Frenchy, the role that was played by Marlene Dietrich and the Dietrich Frenchy died in the first film.
So the conclusion is that the filmmakers used the same characters, with a different story.
Joel McCrea as Sheriff Tom Banning uses the same metaphors as James Stewart in the earlier film as he says he once had a friend that The script is witty and well built, the Technicolor is pleasing ,it is a shame there are no musical numbers like in "Destry Rides Again" and "Destry" (with Audie Murphy).
I saw this film when I was 8 years old with my father and did not like it because I thought there were few action scenes.
When I saw it again recently, I greatly enjoyed it.