When I Get Home, I'm Fixin' to Stay!
I originally planned on doing 5 films for this Star-Struck, including Annie Get Your Gun in the last position, but in my review it became more and more apparent I couldn't really list it as a greatest. Now there are certainly reasons to see it, being Keel's first lead role, having the wonderful sparring duet I Can Do Without You and I do give props to Betty Hutton for doing her best with a tumultuous casting. However, the metamessages of "ain't those injuns just so quaint and dumb" and " you can't expect your man to love you if you put your personal strengths ahead of his pride" plus the general backstage nastiness behind the production really sours my viewing. This story was done almost identically 3 years later in Calamity Jane, and better, so that is the only one I shall review. 'Nuff said.
Calamity Jane was written for Doris Day by the brothers Warner to appease their box-office sweetheart after she was passed over for the title role in AGYG. The movie is unabashedly similar to Annie from the basis on a historical female sharpshooter down to the appearance of Howard Keel. However, Calamity takes the nasty-minded edge off Annie's themes and gives them a much-appreciated softening. Here the "Injun" mentality is not as embarrassingly in-your-face, if only because their caricatures are largely brushed to the side as a casual fact of life outside the bigger storyline. The main focus is the love quadrangle with Day as Calamity, hopelessly smitten with Lt. Danny, a man everyone cannot help but notice has no interest whatsoever in Calamity. Both Danny and Calamity's old chum, Bill Hickok, fall for showgirl Katie Brown (Allyn McLerie) who comes to town looking for a chance at stardom. While there are still some disparaging references to "female thinking," Calamity vastly improves on Annie because that the obvious reason Calamity and Danny can't be together is not because she is too manly to be loved, but that Danny is a superficial douche. Sure, Howard Keel's character appreciates Calamity's makeovers, but he never asks her to give up any essential part of herself, and seems to fit best with her because of it.
I like Doris Day. I like her voice, her on-screen cheeriness and the game way she went for her character. Calamity isn't the glamorous role in the film you would expect a 50's starlet to be campaigning for, but it is the most interesting. Bill Hickok is the most agreeable of Keel's film characters. Often his charisma and charm must overcome his douchiness, the man you love in spite of yourself. But here more than anywhere else he is the guy you really want the girl to go for, the guy that we ask why there can't be more of, and it suits him. The supporting roles do well enough, I especially loved Dick Wesson doing his Francis Fryer routine. Because a movie can always use a good drag number to liven things up.
The numbers are all quite good- Secret Love being the big Oscar-winning hit and a huge success for Doris Day. The Deadwood Stage and The Windy City are catchy, although I will concede the one place Annie outperforms Calamity is in the feuding song: I Can do Without You, a bald copy of Anything You Can Do, cannot hold a patch on it's predecessor.
Calamity Jane can borderline on silly at times with its 50's era sensibilities, but that doesn't stop it from being an absolutely enjoyable film. For Howard Keel fans, I'd say this is his most likable character. And it's a Doris Day western. That kind of thing shore don't come 'round ev'ry day. : )
My Rating:
8/10 ********
