This was Doris Day's answer to "Anne Get Your Gun", which she had hoped to star in, but was contracted to the wrong studio. Although both the real Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley are icons of womanly expertise with the supposedly manly skill of sharpshooting in the Wild West, their personalities and lives couldn't have been more different. Annie was actually an Ohioan Quaker. She married young and forever. Her only connection with the Wild West was her participation in touring Wild West shows. Calamity was a true independent frontier woman in the Wild West. When she began scouting for the US Army, she began wearing male attire. In addition, she exhibited the common manly traits of hard drinking, fearlessness, swearing and fabricating or embellishing some of her daring exploits. Her love life is shadowy and she sometimes served as a prostitute. It's clear she thought more of Bill Hickok than any other man, but he was newly remarried during the time she knew him.
In the first act of the film, Doris gives us a songful dramatization of the essential features of Calamity's personality. As in the film. most men seem to have accepted the real Calamity as an equal or better in her manly skills. Then, things get purely fanciful, as she becomes embroiled in two scandals involving a famous Broadway star Adelaid Adams. First, Adelaid's effeminate male agent(Dick Wesson) is forced by circumstances to dress in drag and assume Adelaid's identity on stage. Then, Adelaid's maid, Katie, who claims to be Adelaid, is brought by Calamity to Deadwood. Everyone is furious when her deceit is discovered on stage. But, miraculously, she quickly learns to put on a good performance, with Calamity's backing. Then, everyone loves her for her spunk. Calamity's relationship with Katie, as with Bill Hickok, continues to be a roller-coaster ride.
A few reviewers read lots of lesbian overtones into this performance, especially the relationship between Calamity and Katie. It was even suggested that Calamity's "Secret Love" refers to Katie. Yes, Calamity got a clear invitational signal from that passerby in Chicago, but Calamity seemed perplexed. I don't buy Calamity and Katie as a lesbian couple. Katie's moving in with Calamity in her rustic cabin served the function of teaching Calamity how to be feminine, so that Bill Hickok or whoever could think of her as marriage material. She even gets Calamity to don a beautiful dress some of the time. In the finale, Calamity is transformed into a traditional-looking bride. Thus, one gets the clear impression that the contemporary message of this film was for Rosie the Riveter, who had taken on traditional male jobs during the last world war, to return to her traditional feminine roles, if she wanted to land the man of their dreams.
I don't want to further compare this film with "Anne Get Your Gun", except to say that they were both great musicals, with a corny story line that bore only superficial resemblance to the reality of the icons they supposedly represented. I like Betty Hutton as well as Doris, and Howard Keel was a great singing companion for both, if his character bore no resemblance to the man he supposedly portrayed. In both films, it's not hard to tell that he had experience doing "Oklahoma" on Broadway.
Besides these 2 musicals, there were a number of basically non-musical films also released in the early '50s that featured feisty women of bygone eras in roles traditionally reserved for men. This includes Jane Russell as an outlaw leader in "Montana Belle", Maureen O'Hara as a pirate captain in "Against All Flags", and Maureen again , as the 'town boss' in "Comanche Territory". I found all of these entertaining.
In the first act of the film, Doris gives us a songful dramatization of the essential features of Calamity's personality. As in the film. most men seem to have accepted the real Calamity as an equal or better in her manly skills. Then, things get purely fanciful, as she becomes embroiled in two scandals involving a famous Broadway star Adelaid Adams. First, Adelaid's effeminate male agent(Dick Wesson) is forced by circumstances to dress in drag and assume Adelaid's identity on stage. Then, Adelaid's maid, Katie, who claims to be Adelaid, is brought by Calamity to Deadwood. Everyone is furious when her deceit is discovered on stage. But, miraculously, she quickly learns to put on a good performance, with Calamity's backing. Then, everyone loves her for her spunk. Calamity's relationship with Katie, as with Bill Hickok, continues to be a roller-coaster ride.
A few reviewers read lots of lesbian overtones into this performance, especially the relationship between Calamity and Katie. It was even suggested that Calamity's "Secret Love" refers to Katie. Yes, Calamity got a clear invitational signal from that passerby in Chicago, but Calamity seemed perplexed. I don't buy Calamity and Katie as a lesbian couple. Katie's moving in with Calamity in her rustic cabin served the function of teaching Calamity how to be feminine, so that Bill Hickok or whoever could think of her as marriage material. She even gets Calamity to don a beautiful dress some of the time. In the finale, Calamity is transformed into a traditional-looking bride. Thus, one gets the clear impression that the contemporary message of this film was for Rosie the Riveter, who had taken on traditional male jobs during the last world war, to return to her traditional feminine roles, if she wanted to land the man of their dreams.
I don't want to further compare this film with "Anne Get Your Gun", except to say that they were both great musicals, with a corny story line that bore only superficial resemblance to the reality of the icons they supposedly represented. I like Betty Hutton as well as Doris, and Howard Keel was a great singing companion for both, if his character bore no resemblance to the man he supposedly portrayed. In both films, it's not hard to tell that he had experience doing "Oklahoma" on Broadway.
Besides these 2 musicals, there were a number of basically non-musical films also released in the early '50s that featured feisty women of bygone eras in roles traditionally reserved for men. This includes Jane Russell as an outlaw leader in "Montana Belle", Maureen O'Hara as a pirate captain in "Against All Flags", and Maureen again , as the 'town boss' in "Comanche Territory". I found all of these entertaining.