Annie Get Your Gun (1950)

Director:

George Sidney

Writers:

Dorothy Fields (libretto "Annie Get Your Gun") and
Herbert Fields (libretto "Annie Get Your Gun") ...

Release Date:

17 May 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Comedy | Family | Musical | Romance | Western

Tagline:

"Annie Get Your Gun" is even greater as an M-G-M musical!

Plot:

The story of the great sharpshooter, Annie Oakley, who rises to fame while dealing with her love/professional rival, Frank Butler.

Plot Keywords:

Annie Oakley | Sharpshooter | Show Business | Racial Stereotype | England

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 2 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Betty Hutton	...	Annie Oakley
Howard Keel	...	Frank Butler
Louis Calhern	...	Col. Buffalo Bill Cody
J. Carrol Naish	...	Chief Sitting Bull
Edward Arnold	...	Pawnee Bill
Keenan Wynn	...	Charlie Davenport
Benay Venuta	...	Dolly Tate
Clinton Sundberg	...	Foster Wilson

Runtime:

107 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | France:U | UK:U | Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

After Judy Garland's firing from the picture, Betty Garrett was briefly considered as a replacement.

Goofs:

Continuity: Right before the song "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun", Annie sits down on a bench and opens her mouth wide for her first note; then in a closer shot she opens her mouth wide again, this time in sync with first note.

Quotes:

Annie Oakley: [calling after Frank as he's walking away] Hey, mister...? Don't you like girls?
Frank Butler: [not comprehendeding the question] Well... sure!
Annie Oakley: [realizing it herself] I'm a girl.
Frank Butler: [laughing condescendingly as he walks away] That's fine.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror XX (#21.4)" (2009)

Soundtrack:

COLONEL BUFFALO BILL

Annie Is Wonderful, Wonderful, So They Say

Despite the fact that Ethel Merman wasn't even considered by MGM to repeat her Broadway triumph and Judy Garland fell by the way side, Annie Get Your Gun is still as alive and as fresh as the day it debuted on Broadway and for 1147 performances starting in 1946. It was Irving Berlin's biggest stage success both quantitatively and qualitatively. It sure had the most hit songs coming out of it, maybe the most for any Broadway show.

Because they had Garland, so they thought at MGM, for box office, producer Arthur Freed felt they could go with an unknown for Frank Butler. Both John Raitt and Howard Keel tested for the role and Keel won the toss. Then Keel broke his ankle falling off a horse on the set and they shot closeups and around him, putting pressure on Judy Garland's fragile psyche. On top of that Frank Morgan who was playing Buffalo Bill died suddenly in the middle of the film. Most of it had to be reshot when Betty Hutton was borrowed from Paramount.

Annie Get Your Gun was the perfect musical to appeal to the Rosie the Riveter crowd who competed and won in a man's world during World War II. Those women who became feminist icons certainly identified with another feminist icon in Annie Oakley.

The real Annie Oakley was not as brassy as her character in Annie Get Your Gun. By all accounts Phoebe Annie Mosee, aka Annie Oakley was a quiet retiring woman when away from the spotlight. She let her skill with weaponry do her talking.

Irving Berlin wrote so many hits out of this film it's staggering. Ballads like They Say It's Wonderful and The Girl That I Marry were recorded by many artists down to the present. My Defenses are Down also sold quite a few platters back in the day.

But of course the theatrical profession got its anthem when Irving Berlin wrote There's No Business Like Show Business. There's a really fine recording of it that Bing Crosby, Dick Haymes and the Andrews Sisters did of it with the flipside being Anything You Can Do also another gem from this show.

Some songs didn't make the cut. A good one that Ethel Merman did called I Got Lost in His Arms is absent from this film, a pity. And Berlin wrote a song called Let's Go West Again which was to be done on the cattle boat by Hutton and the ensemble was cut. Al Jolson made a recording of it for Decca though.

Louis Calhern and Edward Arnold as Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill play a fine pair of frontier rogues. Calhern captured the character of the real later Cody quite well.

With feminist issues by now means settled, Annie Get Your Gun is maybe more relevant now than when it first came out.