Frenchy (Destry Rides Again)

Frenchy is the deuteragonist of the 1939 comedy film Destry Rides Again. She's a well-known/beloved singer in the Last Chance Saloon, as well as Kent (the saloon's owner)'s former partner-in-gambling turned lover and protector of Tom Destry Jr..
She was portrayed by the late Marlene Dietrich.
== Biography ==
The film opens with the saloon's owner, Kent, setting up a rancher/farmer named Lem Claggett in a poker game. Kent deals himself out of the next hand after losing, wanders around on the upper interior hallway of the saloon, and throws a half-eaten apple at the back of the bartender's head, signaling him to notify his star attraction to join him upstairs. Saloon singer and hostess/bad girl Frenchy responds to Kent by winking at him. She's singing the rousing Western number "Little Joe the Wrangler".
Afterwards, Frenchy demonstrates how she only answers to Kent, by throwing a glass of whiskey into the a Russian emigre's face after he appreciatively slaps her fanny. She then pushes aside another boisterous dancer, and moves across the room to town drunk and banjo-player Washington Dimsdale. After being recruited upstairs, Kent asks Frenchy for some help, and some luck of hers. Claggett boasts about his winning luck, and Frenchy offers sandwiches and hot coffee to the players in the upstairs cardroom as they gamble during the next deal for all or nothing. Knowing he has a unbeatable hand of three aces, Claggett bets his 3,000 acre ranch and 1,500 head of cattle worth at least $10,000. Suddenly, Frenchy deliberately spills a cup of hot coffee into his lap, so they could switch the cards. Claggett is victimized by Kent's professional cohorts, knocked out, and dragged from the room. Kent congratulates Frenchy for executing their land-grabbing scheme. Claggett complains to Sheriff Keogh on how he was cheated out of his money, ranch and cattle from a card game, and Keogh tries to stand up for him by storming upstairs to confront the saloon owner only to get shot and killed. Meanwhile, Frenchy conspired with Mayor Slade during a partnerless game of checkers. Frenchy's black maid Clara is scared of all the gun violence in Bottleneck, but Frenchy herself is use to it. When Frenchy is called to the stage for her next number, she seductively and cynically chirps about the saloon customers before singer her next song. With Keogh dead, someone else had to fill in as the new sheriff. Kent arranged for the corrupt mayor Judge Slade to nominate/appoint Dimsdale to be the new sheriff, assuming he'd be a useless, incompetent drunk. However, Dimsdale would take his new position seriously, reform himself by ditching liquor, and shock the townspeople by sobering up and reveal he was hiring and importing the great Tom Destry's son as deputy to clean up the town.
In another card game, Boris plays poker with Frenchy, she bets thirty bucks against his pants just as the Pioneer Stage Coach Line arrives in town, but Destry makes a bad first impression on the town due to his soft-spoken nature and "sign of weakness". Boris gets tempted by Frenchy, only to lose his pants to Frenchy's two Aces, to which she immediately demands that his pants be stripped from him. Boris flees in his long johns after being humiliated in the card game. Dimsdale introduces Tom to Kent, Slade, Frenchy: "the real boss of Bottleneck." She looks up at the tall lanky deputy, and Kent approaches to assert his dominance and provoke a fight by demanding his gun, surprised that Destry doesn't even like to wear a gun. To challenge and mock him even further in front of the laughing crowd, Frenchy hands Tom a broom and a wooden bucket full of water with the comment that he can use those things to clean up Bottleneck. Just then, angry wife Lily Belle Callahan storms in, angry that her husband lost his trousers to Frenchy in a poker card game and accuses Frenchy of cheating. Then the two would engage in a very rough female catfight that lasts almost two minutes before Destry breaks/cleans it up and cools off their heated argument by pouring a bucket of water on them. Frenchy then takes out her anger on Destry, punching, kicking and clawing at him, then grabbing a six-shooter to aim at him. Everyone in the saloon runs for the exit. In addition, when she tosses bar glasses, steins and bottles at him, he calls for Kent to rescue him, or ducks behind a raised chair. Frenchy then rides on his shoulders as if he was a bucking bronco, leading Destry to plead with her for reason (and law and order). Dimsdale still couldn't believe just how placid Destry was as his deputy and berates him, even threatening to fire him for being unable to fight back against Kent and Frenchy, let alone a real threat.
Destry questions a bunch of cowboys about the mysterious disappearance of the late Sheriff Keogh. Meanwhile, they are alerted by Eli Whitney Claggett that the Claggett farm family is under siege from Kent and his gang. At the ranch, Claggett affirms that Kent's claims to their hard-earned farm are unfounded, due to Frenchy's involvement. Initially, Sheriff Keogh tried to uphold the law, but couldn't do anything. Destry insists that the piece of paper that deeds Claggett's property to Kent must be respected. But his next strategy is to visit Frenchy and "get better acquainted with the enemy". On "official business" later that afternoon at Frenchy's home, Destry is introduced as "the waterman" to Frenchy on a visit to "get neighborly." In an amiable, subtle confrontation, he first apologizes for not knowin' she was the real boss of Bottleneck, and then insinuates that her reputation as a chanteuse is tarnished by rumors. Then Frenchy gets annoyed and she kicks him out, having a severe shouting match as he leaves. Destry pretends to be naive, eliciting from her the fact that Keogh was 'taken care of.' He startles her at the door when he suggests that her excessive makeup may hide real loveliness under her tough facade. After he leaves, Frenchy touches her face as if feeling it for the first time, looks into a wall mirror, and reflects on what he has just told her.
Later on, Frenchy would get a change of heart about Destry and start to admire him, as shown when she refuses to tell Kent about their conversation, and is threatened by him in turn. Outside the saloon for "fresh air," she approaches Destry and is complimented by him. She offers him urgent advice and a superstitious good-luck charm.
Not to long afterwards, she goes onstage earing a cowgirl/bolero outfit to sing another saloon song. Afterwards, Destry baits and tricks Kent into thinking that he knows where Sheriff Keogh's body is.
Category:Movie Heroes
Category:Live Action Heroes
Category:Western Heroes
Category:Female
Category:In Love
Category:Redeemed Villains
Category:Freedom Fighters
Category:Feminists
Category:Pawn of the Villain
Category:Deceased
Category:Apprentice of Villain