ANNIE GET YOUR GUN: Blu-ray (MGM, 1950) Warner Archive

A monumental, but troubled production, to seal the fate of Judy Garland’s career at MGM, while continuing to deprive the legendary, Ethel Merman of the role she made famous on the Broadway stage, Annie Get Your Gun (1950) – eventually directed by Metro alumni, George Sidney, made it to the screen with all the showmanship and class ‘A’ treatment the studio could muster, and, for the most part, with a winning ‘third’ choice of leading lady in bombastic Betty Hutton, proving you actually ‘can’ get a man with a gun! The rambunctious Hutton is an acquired taste – having made her bones at Paramount, but already considered something of has-been when the opportunity to play this crass, but comely sharp-shooter fell into her lap. Hutton had only one more memorably role after this, as the high-flying trapeze artist in Cecil DeMille’s all-star big top extravaganza, The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) before fading into obscurity. Indeed, the last act of Hutton’s life belies what a unique and underappreciated talent she was, suffering a breakdown after the 1967 death of her mother in a house fire, becoming chronically addicted to pills and sinking deeper and deeper into a depression that, arguably, never entirely lifted afterward. Penniless and barely coherent, Hutton – her talent dried up – survived a 1970 suicide attempt, before taking a job as a cook in a rectory in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Her infrequent appearances on talk shows, struggling to keep up with the conversation, rather perversely illustrated how far she had transgressed from those sunny days in Tinsel Town when the world was seemingly at her feet.  Personally, I choose not to remember Betty Hutton this way; rather, in pictures like Annie Get Your Gun, in which the full faculty of her over-wrought and stylized mannerisms is given the heft and breadth to explode across the screen. When Hutton, as the uncouth bumpkin belts out, “Folks are dumb where I come from…they ain’t had any learnin’. Still them’s happy as can be…doin’ what comes nat’ruly” we believe her hook, line and ‘singer’. And she is even more convincing, blonde tresses quaffed, and bedecked in a fiery red gown as the ever-so-slightly reformed silk purse hewn from a sow’s ear, going toe-to-toe with baritone, Howard Keel in the snappish and sexy, ‘Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better’.  “No, you can’t. Yes, I can. Yes, I can!”

Hutton’s gain. Judy Garland’s loss. Garland had been all set to appear in Annie Get Your Gun and had even shot several numbers before newly appointed production VP, Dore Schary pulled the plug on her participation – encouraging Garland to get therapy for her chronic addition to studio-sanctioned pills in order to keep her going. Fellow alumnus, June Allyson once astutely pointed out that if MGM could have, they would have starred Judy in every musical they were planning. Much in demand, but never feeling secure in her own talents, Garland’s last years at MGM were mired in chronic absences from the set and increasingly erratic behavior when she was working – all of it to eventually get her broomed from the front offices without so much as a heart-felt thanks for all the millions she had made them in her heyday. Yet, the surviving outtakes on Annie Get Your Gun reveal another Judy – one in very steep decline and wraith-thin to the point of looking obscenely unwell. Moreover, Judy’s greatest salvation – her voice – registers hoarse and heavy during her performance of ‘I’m an Indian Too’.  Even the ebullience she’s practicing in ‘Doin’ What Comes Nat’rally’ is strained. For an artist as seemingly, effortlessly talented as Judy, and more so, one on the cusp of a great comeback in Warner Bros. semi-biographical remake of A Star is Born (1954) just four years later, the Judy who might have been coerced to squeeze out another performance herein is just too overwrought with the cares of living up to her legacy to have made it any good – either for her, or the picture.

With Judy’s departure, and the picture already shooting, producer, Arthur Freed made the bittersweet decision to move forward with Hutton after briefly considering Betty Garrett. Many continue to poo-poo Freed’s decision to completely overlook Ethel Merman. Yet, in hindsight, Freed’s decision is sound. At 41, Merman – a dynamo on stage – could still fool an audience from a distance and play it ‘young’. In close-ups, on camera, not so much. But knowing Annie Get Your Gun ought to have gone to Garland leaves one with a distinctly vacant acceptance of Hutton in the part. While Hutton does everything right, and rises spectacularly to the occasion, she’s no Judy Garland! Even the antagonistic repartee between Hutton and co-star, Howard Keel – in his movie debut as Frank Butler, and, well on his way to a lucrative film career as Metro’s newly acquired singing sensation – seems tainted and lacking in on-screen chemistry. Keel was not the first to audition for the part. Broadway’s John Raitt seemed set for the role. Although Raitt delivered on the score, Freed noted he somehow lacked the screen presence and physical criteria to satisfy Metro’s long-standing edict about all leading men having to be handsome. At 6 ft. 4 inches, Keel met those standards head on. And when he sang, there was no one to touch him, his robust handling of ‘My Defenses are Down’ and ‘They Say It’s Wonderful’ are tour de forces that leap from the screen with the true charisma of a musical star and leading man of the first magnitude. Regrettably, behind the scenes, Keel and Hutton mixed like oil and water, with Keel believing Hutton’s only concern was for her own performance, rather than the movie’s success as a whole. To exacerbate matters further, Keel was to break an ankle while dismounting his horse, necessitating a complete reschedule to work around him. Evidently, none of this backstage drama hurt Keel’s rising star at Metro. He was paired with some of the studio’s most handsome leading ladies thereafter, including Esther Williams and Kathryn Grayson. In fact, three years later, Keel would be loaned out to Warner Bros. and duded-up in all-too-familiar western garb, this time as Wild Bill Hickock in Calamity Jane (1953) a splashy musical co-starring Doris Day, and a fairly transparent, if still highly enjoyable knock-off of Annie Get Your Gun, with far too many similarities to be just an insincere coincidence.  

Apart from Garland’s loss, Annie Get Your Gun was to deny two other MGM alumni their places in its history: director, Charles Walters, who learned of his ousting in Sidney’s favor from gossip maven, Hedda Hopper’s radio program, and actor, Frank Morgan as the original Buffalo Bill Cody. Walters’ dismissal is particularly perplexing. For here was a uniquely talented individual, to have begun life as an actor on Broadway in 1931 before an effortless segue into choreography in 1938, and then, graduating from stage to screen as a dance director at MGM. Befriending virtually every major musical star on the lot with his breezy demeanor and gentle instruction, Walters was given his first chance at a full-blown directing job by Freed for the glossy and gargantuan musical, Good News (1947) – a megahit for the studio, quickly followed by two others; 1948’s Easter Parade, and 1949’s The Barkley’s of Broadway. And Walters had just successfully completed work with Judy Garland on what ultimately was her farewell studio musical, Summer Stock (1950). As for Morgan, the beloved ‘wizard’ of Oz, memorable elsewhere in Metro’s pantheon as a great character actor, and primarily known for his comedic bumbling and elfin-like screen presence; he, unfortunately, died just as the picture began to shoot. His replacement, Louis Calhern, although a fine and stately actor of considerable comedic appeal, somehow lacks the warmth associated with Morgan in his prime. Calhern’s Bill is a grinning showman, but one absent of a soul – gleaming from ear to ear and parading about in fancy duds as though to be chronically posing for a new poster or photogravure to promote his traveling menagerie.

The history of the stage version bears honorable mention here; Irving Berlin approached by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein to write a completely ‘new’ score for their Broadway musical. At first, Berlin balked. Much, if not all, of his legendary success was owed to slick marketing, nee an endless regurgitation of songs written in the early teens and twenties, augmented by a few new pieces expressly penned for the ‘new’ shows. On Annie Get Your Gun Berlin would be required to write a full score with no substitutes. Armed with resolve, Berlin auditioned R&H with just two numbers and easily earned the honor to write the rest of the show – eighteen songs all told, many to survive the translation from page and stage to MGM’s big screen adaptation. And Arthur Freed, known for tinkering with original material, occasionally to the point where it, in no earthly way, resembled its source, on ‘Annie’ instead stayed remarkably faithful to its stagecraft – opening it up for the benefit of the camera, but otherwise following its already established trajectory. Originally budgeted at $1.5 million, of which $600,000 went to Berlin and co-composers, Dorothy and Herbert Fields, Annie Get Your Gun was actually a fairly cost-effective movie musical for MGM who had previously spent a lavish $2.3 million on another Berlin musical, Easter Parade, costarring Garland and Fred Astaire. After Garland’s departure from Annie Get Your Gun, the trades speculated Ethel Merman was a shoe-in to reprise the role she had made legendary on the stage – a rumor quashed by Arthur Freed, owing to Merman’s distinct dissatisfaction in general with Hollywood.

The Breen offices, Hollywood’s self-governing code of censorship, objected to a few of Berlin’s more loaded and earthy lyrics, hinting at a laissez faire morality. To appease Breen, Freed assigned composer/arranger, Roger Edens to ever so slightly ‘tweak’ the words into an opaque understanding of what was going on. Freed’s decision to resurrect Warner Bros. alumni, Busby Berkeley from the brink of his own oblivion was curious – especially in light of Garland’s casting as the two had never been able to work together without incident. Indeed, Berkeley’s demanding nature on the set of 1943’s Girl Crazy had caused Garland to suffer a bout of nervous exhaustion and collapse. Now, the two were poised again, either to make movie magic or mayhem on the set. Regrettably, the latter held true and Garland, already insecure about the part, sank deeper into a sort of creative despair from which her work completely suffered. Early recordings of the songs were decidedly not up to her usual standards. But now, on the screen for all to see, she appeared anemic and dull. Freed, usually known as a tactful man, and one of Judy’s greatest proponents, lost his cool. It was not his finest hour, and Judy, knowing she had let everyone down, doused a handful of Benzedrine’s before walking out of the darkened screening room, vowing never again to return. Indeed, she never did. Despite her studio suspension, Freed saw to it Metro covered all the expenses of her subsequent hospitalization, still praying for a total recovery and return to form. By the time Garland and Walters were removed from the production, Annie Get Your Gun had already cost MGM $1,877,528 with not a single strip of useable footage to show for the effort. The budget was reassessed at $3,707,481.  

At this juncture, Busby Berkeley was also fired from the production. Irving Berlin – no stranger to the inner workings of Hollywood - was coaxed by Arthur Freed to write one new song for the movie, ‘Let’s Go West Again’ – recorded by both Garland and Hutton, but ultimately cut before principal photography commenced. Now, Freed turned to his art director, Paul Groesse who endeavored to resurrect the glamor and excitement of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. In true Metro style, Groesse built a massive set with a 250-foot-long diorama depicting Monument Valley, augmented by papier mâché boulders and a grandstand housing 1,000 extras playing spectators. The scene also called for 175 cowboys and Indians, 135 horses, 25 painted wagons and a barrage of stunt personnel, performing some fairly daring exercises for the benefit of the Technicolor camera. For the show’s grand finale, set to the tune of Berlin’s iconic anthem ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’, director, George Sidney conceived of a spectacular concentric display of 800 riders swirling clockwise and counterclockwise around Hutton and Keel in the center ring, with cameras mounted on two newly constructed towers – the first, 500 ft. high, the second, rising 200 ft. into the air. From these vantages, and by employing several lenses, Sidney could create the illusion of an enormous ‘pull-back’ from a close-up on Hutton and Keel astride their white steeds.

With the full knowledge her initial arrival on the lot was not exactly being met with enthusiasm, Betty Hutton dug in her heels to make the best of an awkward situation. In short order, she succeeded in winning the respect and admiration of most of her peers by sheer dedication to her craft and willingness to take any and every piece of direction to heart to will the character as written.  However, decades later, Hutton clung to the opinion she had been socially shunned by most of the cast and crew – save Louis Calhern – and believed Metro’s management provided the final insult by not inviting her to the New York premiere. In Howard Keel’s biography, he called Hutton an ‘insecure scene stealer’, while Hutton’s bio countered Keel even more cruelly as a ‘green horn’ pulling focus away from her performance. Whatever the truth, the animosity between these two endured to their dying days. Hutton also recalled the day Judy Garland came back to visit the set, assaulting her in a barrage of explicative merely for being greeted warmly by her. Years later, while both were working the Vegas strip, Garland and Hutton reconciled. But Hutton, even if she forgave Garland, never entirely forgot this snub.

There are perhaps several reasons why Annie Get Your Gun is not as highly regarded today as some of MGM’s other musicals. For kick-starters, the picture retains its theatrical quality with all but the finale adhering to the performers depicted in center frame and facing the audience as they emote and sing their hearts out. Hutton’s forceful and vigorous reincarnation of Annie Oakley, the country bumpkin/sharp shooter, out to land Frank Butler, is hyperbolic hayseed, highly praised in its time, but now, just a tad grating on the nerves – especially decried by feminist scholars for the rather desperate way Annie chases after Frank. Hutton’s best moment in the picture is ‘I Got the Sun in the Morning’, in which her ole spark and bounce, cultivated at Paramount, returns with unabashed flourish. As outlined, Frank Butler is a fairly unappealing man – butch and brawny, for certain, but downright unkind, teetering on cruel towards Annie’s lovestruck advances. A needy woman chasing after a man unworthy of her…maybe. Who needs it? The last bit of modern-age negativity is owed the picture’s rather transparent discounting of Native Americans, basically portrayed as comic relief. I am not one who ascribes to the notion anything here veers into abject racial prejudice. Movies are a product of their time, and times and attitudes have decidedly changed – if not entirely to have matured – along the way. So, ‘Injun jokes’ of the squaw/papoose ilk – while quaint, were likely never considered anything more than harmless good humor in their own time. Recognizing their shortcomings today does not equate to a branding of those responsible for them as having evil intensions to deliberately or vindictively misrepresent Native culture.

Billed as ‘the biggest musical under the sun’, Annie Get Your Gun opens with the arrival of champion sharpshooter, Frank Butler, his personal manager, Charlie Davenport (Keenan Wynn) and Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show in Cincinnati. The troupe brings a spark of excitement to everyone except Foster Wilson (Clinton Sunberg), a prickly hotel proprietor housing its entertainers. Wilson is coaxed into a celebratory mood when backwoods sharp-shooter, Annie Oakley proves her mettle with a gun. Wilson arranges a contest between Annie and Frank. She falls for him instantly. Frank, alas, is not interested in this dirty little urchin. At the outset, the crowd heckles Annie. Yet, to everyone's astonishment, she outdraws the seasoned Frank Butler and wins the contest. Humiliated by his defeat, Frank refuses to entertain Buffalo Bill's notion Annie should join the show as his assistant. Star-struck by the offer, Annie persuades Frank to let her in the show. Together, they become its main attraction. Annie endeavors to prove to Frank she also can be a lady, as well as his competition. Too bad, just as romance begins to blossom, Buffalo Bill is faced with a downturn in their revenue and popularity. As his troubles stem from competitor, Pawnee Bill (Edward Arnold), Buffalo Bill decides to give Annie top-billing, a decision that irks Frank. After the show, Annie is introduced to Sitting Bull (J. Carrol Naish) who proudly adopts her as his daughter. Now, Annie receives a goodbye letter from Frank. While Buffalo Bill takes his show to Europe, Frank withdraws, then joins Pawnee Bill's traveling menagerie. Despite critical success in Europe, Buffalo Bill’s carnival continues to lose money. When he realizes his star is lovesick, Buffalo Bill returns to New York. Annie is eager to reunite with Frank until she discovers he has since been consorting – a lot – with lots of eager debutantes. Buffalo Bill attempts a merger of his show with Pawnee Bill’s by selling off Annie's valuable medals. Viewing her impressive assortment of accolades for marksmanship really sticks in Frank’s craw. The two quarrel again, leading to a staged ‘reunion’ competition. Only this time, Chief Sitting Bull persuades Annie to deliberately lose – the only real way to win her man for good. This strategy proves solid. Unaware she has thrown the competition, Frank elects he is the better shot and immediately proposes marriage. Even more predictably, Annie accepts.

When the dust had settled, MGM had another hit on their hands, Annie Get Your Gun earning in excess of $8,010,000 domestically. Yet, despite its popularity, the movie was pulled from distribution in 1973 over a legal harangue between its rights holder and the estate of Irving Berlin. It would remain MIA for nearly 30-years thereafter, until the 1998 Broadway revival generated renewed interest from the public to see the movie version again. The DVD release of Annie Get Your Gun in 2000 from Warner Home Video sported a sumptuous Technicolor restoration harvested from all but a few reels lost in the now infamous fire at George Eastman House in 1978. Perhaps owing to its decades of enforced hibernation, the surviving original 3-strip Technicolor negatives were in excellent shape, and given over to all the modern preservation methods to will them back to glorious eye-popping life. Now, some 21-years after that offering, the Warner Archive (WAC) has unfurled Annie Get Your Gun again – this time, on Blu-ray. And the results are, predictably, everything one could possibly hope for in hi-def. Colors are rich and robust – another Technicolor feast for the eyes, with deep and enveloping reds and oranges, cornflower yellows, vibrant greens, and flesh tones that sparkle with renewed vivacity. Contrast is ‘bang on’ perfect, as is the light smattering of film grain accurately represented herein. Age-related artifacts have been thoroughly eradicated for a sumptuously smooth and dreamy visual presentation. It’s perfect! The 2.0 DTS audio from original mono stems belies the fact these tracks are more than 70-years-old.  Dialogue is front and center, but there is considerable separation in the musical numbers. Really good stuff here. Special features are all ported over from the 2000 DVD and include actress, Susan Lucci’s intro/retrospective, as well as musical outtakes of Judy Garland and Betty Hutton, plus original ‘stereo’ mixed audio pre-recordings of various numbers, and, the movie’s theatrical reissue trailer. Bottom line: no cinephile can rightfully claim the right to be called such without owning a copy of Annie Get Your Gun. While not entirely as good as you remember it, Berlin’s beaut’ of a blush and bashful musical extravaganza is every bit worth your coin and time. Buy today. Treasure forever.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

3