Annie Get Your Gun (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

I've said it before: the last quarter century has been a rough time for movie musicals. Unless it's an animated feature, musicals hardly ever get made. Broadway still thrives on musicals, of course, but the movie-going public no longer seem to tolerate people getting up singing and dancing. More's the pity. But it wasn't always so. The fifties and sixties saw the movie musical come of age, and "Annie Get Your Gun" from 1950 was one of the most popular of its kind.

Based on the stage hit produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein, with songs by Irving Berlin, "Annie Get Your Gun" is, as you know, the story of Annie Oakley (1860-1926), sharp-shooting star of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. The real-life Annie was said to have been able to hit the thin edge of a playing card at thirty paces, shoot a dime out of the air, and hit the end of a cigarette held in a person's lips. She gained fame when she won a shooting match with a popular marksman named Frank Butler. Subsequently, she and Butler were married and joined the Wild West show, remaining with it for seventeen years. Butler, by the way, became Annie's personal manager.

The first movie portrayal of Miss Oakley's life came in director George Stevens' 1935 film, "Annie Oakley," starring Barbara Stanwyck. The stage musical followed a few years later, going on to 1,147 Broadway performances. Ethel Merman did the title role first and then Mary Martin. So when MGM got the movie rights, which one did they choose for their leading lady? Judy Garland, naturally. But no, you won't find Ms. Garland here, either, except in the DVD's outtakes. Shortly after Ms. Garland began the production, she had a breakdown and was forced to abandon the project. So stage and screen comedienne Betty Hutton was brought in. She does a commendable job. More recently, Bernadette Peters and Susan Lucci have performed the role in Broadway revivals, Ms. Lucci introducing the film on this disc.

As we might expect from Broadway and Hollywood, the story plays fast and loose with the facts, but, then, the plot really doesn't matter. It begins with Annie's shooting contest with Butler, their ensuing rivalry, their romance, and Wild Bill's financial troubles. Ms. Hutton plays Annie in broadly comic fashion, generating about as much enthusiasm for the part as one could muster. She's mostly loud and boisterous, but her very earthiness brings a charm and vitality to the part. As Frank Butler, veteran baritone Howard Keel is smooth and agreeable, handsome and arrogant. For Annie it's love at first sight. For Butler it's nothing but disdain for the backwoods ragamuffin who dared to best him in public. Needless to say, their romance develops in rocky fits and starts. Playing against type, Louis Calhern and Edward Arnold, who usually portray the most sophisticated and elegant film characters, here play Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill, rival showmen who eventually merge their Wild West extravaganzas. Both actors are surprisingly effective.

But the story is definitely not the thing with "Annie Get Your Gun." It's all about the songs, and a couple of them have become standards. The big tune is "There's No Business Like Show Business," which Ms. Merman went on to make her trademark. It's such a big show-stopper, it's reprised two more times before the end of the film. Then there's "Colonial Buffalo Bill," "Doin' What Comes Naturally," "The Girl That I Marry," "You Can't Get A Man With A Gun," "They Say It's Wonderful," "My Defenses Are Down," "I'm An Indian Too," "I Got the Sun in the Morning," and "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)."