Partita d'azzardo

According to her grandson Peter Riva, who was interviewed for the Icons Radio Hour, Marlene Dietrich's fight scene was unchoreographed. She and Una Merkel agreed to do it impromptu with the only rule being no closed fists. They used feet, pulled hair, and Marlene had bruises for weeks afterwards, but the director got everything in one take.

Tom Destry (James Stewart) makes the typical movie actor mistake of shooting his pistol at something by jerking the pistol and firing the gun at the target at the same time. In reality, if a shooter did that he would be moving the pistol off line and would miss every time, because the motion of the hand would impart a vector onto the bullet that would make it miss. Also, shooting that way is incredibly inaccurate. A real shooter would level the pistol at the target and then pull the trigger. Audie Murphy, a trained marksman, shot his pistols correctly in the remake Storia di Tom Destry (1954).

Featured in AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to James Stewart (1980)