Famed Western writer Max Brand contributed the novel, Destry Rides Again, but the film also owes its origins to Brand's serial "Twelve Peers", published in a pulp magazine.
In the original work, Harrison (or "Harry") Destry was not a pacifist.
As filmed in 1932, with Tom Mix in the starring role, the central character differed in that Destry did wear six-guns in that version.

The film was James Stewart's first western (he would not return to the genre until 1950, with Broken Arrow and Winchester 73).
The story featured a ferocious cat-fight between Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel, which apparently caused a mild censorship problem at the time of release.

The film also represented Dietrich's return to Hollywood after a string of flops at Paramount ("Angel", "The Scarlet Empress", "The Devil is a Woman") caused her, and a number of other stars, to be labelled "box office poison."
 While vacationing at Cap d'Antibes with her family, her mentor Josef von Sternberg and her lover Erich Maria Remarque, she received an offer from Joe Pasternak to come to Universal at half the salary she had been receiving for most of the 1930s.
 Pasternak had previously tried to sign Dietrich to Universal while she was still in Berlin.

Unsure of what to do she was advised by von Sternberg "I made you into a Goddess.
Now show them you have feet of clay."

According to writer/director Peter Bogdanovich, Marlene Dietrich told him during an aircraft flight that she and James Stewart had an affair during shooting and that she became pregnant but had a surreptitious abortion without telling Stewart.

Internationally, the film was released under the alternative titles Femme ou Démon in French and Arizona in Spanish.
Famed Western writer Max Brand contributed the novel, Destry Rides Again, but the film also owes its origins to Brand's serial "Twelve Peers", published in a pulp magazine. In the original work, Harrison (or "Harry") Destry was not a pacifist. As filmed in 1932, with Tom Mix in the starring role, the central character differed in that Destry did wear six-guns in that version.
The film was James Stewart's first western (he would not return to the genre until 1950, with Broken Arrow and Winchester 73). The story featured a ferocious cat-fight between Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel, which apparently caused a mild censorship problem at the time of release.
The film also represented Dietrich's return to Hollywood after a string of flops at Paramount ("Angel", "The Scarlet Empress", "The Devil is a Woman") caused her, and a number of other stars, to be labelled "box office poison."  While vacationing at Cap d'Antibes with her family, her mentor Josef von Sternberg and her lover Erich Maria Remarque, she received an offer from Joe Pasternak to come to Universal at half the salary she had been receiving for most of the 1930s.  Pasternak had previously tried to sign Dietrich to Universal while she was still in Berlin.
Unsure of what to do she was advised by von Sternberg "I made you into a Goddess. Now show them you have feet of clay."
According to writer/director Peter Bogdanovich, Marlene Dietrich told him during an aircraft flight that she and James Stewart had an affair during shooting and that she became pregnant but had a surreptitious abortion without telling Stewart.
Internationally, the film was released under the alternative titles Femme ou Démon in French and Arizona in Spanish.
Destry Rides Again