Introduction
Welcome to my corner! Last week, I shared my thoughts on the films In the Heat of the Night and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. This week, I'm sharing my thoughts on the film Annie Get Your Gun.
As I said in last week's column, for the month of February, the TCM TV channel is paying homage to the Oscar's, with their 31 Days of Oscar. All of the movies played from February 1 to March 3 will either by Oscar nominees of winners.
Enjoy!
Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun is a 1950 American musical Technicolor comedy film loosely based on the life of sharpshooter Annie Oakley. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and a screenplay by Sidney Sheldon based on the 1946 stage musical of the same name, was directed by George Sidney.
Despite several production and casting problems (Judy Garland was fired from the lead role after a month of filming in which she clashed with the director and repeatedly showed up late or not al all), the film won the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture and received three other nominations, including Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Film Editing.
Plot: The musical tale of Annie Oakley (Betty Hutton) moves from stage to screen in this rollicking film adaptation. Renowned in the Wild West as a sharpshooter, Annie meets her match, both romantically and professionally, in the form of fellow ace gunslinger Frank Butler (Howard Keel). While Annie and Frank are performing as part of the famous traveling show headlined by the legendary Buffalo Bill (Louis Calhern), the two compete and flirt, with plenty of ups and downs along the way.
Acting: The acting was fine overall. Betty Hutton who played Annie was a little annoying in some scenes where she was acting over the top, in my opinion. Luckily it didn't happen too often to ruin the movie altogether.
Apparently Judy Garland was originally supposed to play Annie but was fired for many reasons, including clashing with the director and showing up late for filming or not showing up at all. I found it funny that she was originally going to play Annie because while I was watching the movie, I thought to myself that Annie would have been a good role for Judy Garland.
Howard Keel played Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun. You may remember him from last week's column. He also played Adam Pontipee, the eldest brother in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I didn't know he was also in this movie, but I'm not complaining. It was also his film debut (credited)! That's pretty impressive!
Technical Aspects: This movie won an Oscar for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. I wouldn't say I disliked the soundtrack, but compared to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers from last week, I enjoyed it less. Let's just say I'm not buying the soundtrack for this one. However, it was interesting to learn that the songs "There's No Business Like Show Business" and "Anything You Can Do" came from this movie. I didn't know that. I always wondered where they originated.
Themes: The themes of this movie are love, competition and gender roles.
I guess we're revisiting gender roles again this week. Annie was a nonconformist from the beginning, shooting and being good with a gun. In social norms, especially of the time, women weren't generally seen as being good with a gun. In fact, multiple times in the movie when Annie is introduced as a sharpshooter, the bystanders laugh as if it's a joke. A gun is no tool for a woman; they think sewing needles would suit a woman better. Well, Annie proves them all wrong!
The gender roles also affect Annie and Frank's relationship. Frank seems to be insecure about Annie being better than him with a gun. This is clear when Buffalo Bill wants to showcase Annie's skills to bring in more money, which makes her the star. This makes Frank mad, and so he leaves. What a baby! Of course, that's where the competition themes are most obvious.
Frank can't stand losing to Annie. At first, Annie wasn't competitive with Frank; she was just trying to win the first competition for the money, and then she was trying to learn the ropes from him. She never tried to usurp Frank's position. The real competition started after Frank abandoned the show. And, Annie was still clearly superior. After all her accomplishments, when they're finally reunited, they still fight over inferiority complexes. At the end, they only agreed to work together after Annie intentionally lost their second shoot-off to make Frank happy. I personally didn't like this story choice.
Evaluation: Out of all the movies on TCM's schedule that I'm recording for watching purposes, I wanted to watch Annie Get Your Gun this week because when I was in high school, one of the school plays we put on was Annie Play Will Do. In said play, the characters are putting on a play in less than 24 hours, half of them rehearse the play Annie and the other half rehearse Annie Get Your Gun. Fun ensues! I thought it would be fun to revisit Annie Get Your Gun, so I did!
I liked the movie fine overall, although I probably wouldn't watch it again. The songs were okay, the acting was fine for the most part, and the movie was filmed beautifully.
I kind of feel like the movie was slow to start, lagged in the middle and was way too quick to end. Movies were made a bit differently back then, but I've always hated rushed endings. To have all the conflicts fixed and then immediately end, the movie just doesn't sit well with me. I need some calm after the storm before the movie ends, you know?
That's it for this week! What were your thoughts? Feel free to share them with us! You can call us, email us, visit us at the office, leave us a comment or message on Facebook, or even mail us something. Keep the comments, suggestions, questions, submissions, etc. coming our way! We'd love to hear from you!
