TCM BREAKFAST CLUB SCREENING Calamity Jane I 1953 Directed by David Butler
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TCM BREAKFAST CLUB SCREENING Calamity Jane I 1953 Directed by David Butler American cinema audiences hardly knew what had hit them with close similarities, Calamity Jane is good enough to stand in its the arrival of Doris Day in Calamity Jane (1953). Infectiously own right and Doris Day’s astonishing performance is what exuberant with a smile as wide as the Mississippi, the former makes it one of the best musicals of the 1950s. In actual fact, Doris Von Kapplehoff tears through the film like a blonde tornado, she had very badly wanted to play opposite Keel in Annie Get beginning with the opening number Whip Crack Away: “The Your Gun but agreement could not be reached with MGM to Deadwood stage is a-headin' on over the hills,” she bellows. allow this. “Where the injun arrows are thicker than porcupine quills". Resplendent in buckskin, this was a Doris Day light years True to her Germanic ancestry, the Ohio-born Day, 29, removed from the coy, virginal figure by which she would approached the part with a near-Teutonic attention to detail. become known in her movies of the early 60s. As TCM writer Having seen the first rushes, for example, she decided her voice David Humphrey reveals, the part of Calamity Jane remains her was too “girly” for such a tough character and duly brought it favourite out of all the 39 movies she made. down several registers. She did all her own stunts, too, which was quite a feat in what is an enormously athletic role. In one Warner Brothers’ Calamity Jane was made three years after sequence of uninterrupted takes, she jumps and flips over bars MGM’s Annie Get Your Gun (1950), starring Betty Hutton and with the agility of a circus performer. Nowadays of course the Howard Keel, and many see it as a straight rip-off of the earlier director would break up the choreography into a series of film, with its close storyline parallels and rambunctious score relatively easy steps, with clever cutting conveying the (Keel was the male lead in both productions). But despite the impression of a non-stop tour de force. TCM : SKY 319, VIRGIN TV 419 AND TOP UP TV ANYTIME TCMONLINE.CO.UK TCM 2: SKY 320 As with Annie Oakley, there really was a Calamity Jane, a Sammy Fain's and Paul Francis Webster's score for Calamity Jane formidable woman born Martha Jane Canary-Burke who became provides Doris with one of her best-known numbers, Secret Love, a legendary scout and Indian fighter. She knew and greatly which duly topped the US charts and won the Oscar for Best admired Wild Bill Hickok – the role taken by Keel in the movie – Song of 1953. In one of the film’s most tender moments, Jane and after his death in a poker game in 1876, she claimed to sings the song while walking through the countryside on a have been married to him and, furthermore, that he was the beautiful morning and realising that she loves Bill. It has since father of her child. Historians have pooh-poohed these claims become a gay anthem, and one wonders what the notoriously however, pointing out there are no records to prove the birth of a prim actress makes of that. child, and suggesting she made the whole thing up. The one thing that is certain about Jane is that she was a teller of very The great triumph of Calamity Jane is how it works on so many tall stories. levels – Western, musical, comedy, and romance. Something similar was later attempted in Cat Ballou (1965) but Jane Fonda But Hollywood never lets the facts stand in the way of a good was no Doris Day and no useful comparisons can be drawn story, and it is Jane’s supposed love affair with Hickok that lies at between the two. What is beyond doubt is that Calamity Jane is the heart of the movie. The action is set in Deadwood, Dakota emphatically Doris Day’s movie, one which confirms the Territory, where unashamed tomboy Jane proves herself the consummate entertainer in this vivacious young woman from equal of any of the men with whom she shares her days in this suburban Cincinnati. Both film and actress richly deserve their bleak outpost. She gets her chance to do something for the inclusion in the pantheon of American cinematic community when the saloonkeeper is rumbled after trying to excellence. pass off a man in drag as the attractive New York actress he promised to bring to this glamour-starved wilderness. "Calam" Further reading: Considering Doris Day by Tom Santopietro (St undertakes to go to "Chicagee" and bring back a famous actress Martin’s Press); Doris Day by Eric Braun (Orion); known throughout the country for her portrait on cigarette cards. Needless to say, it doesn’t go to plan and many mishaps lie ahead, but romance beckons for Wild Bill and the frenetic frontierswoman. ESCAPE TO A WORLD OF FILM THIS MAY WITH TCM In May, the 60th year of the Cannes Films Festival, TCM screens the UK Premiere of Bienvenue à Cannes, a fascinating documentary tracing the history of this star-studded event. Four memorable films that either collected the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, or earned nominations are also shown. Meanwhile Bank Holiday highlights include all-time family favourites Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1981) and Blazing Saddles (1974). May also marks the centenary of the births of three acting legends - Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne. TCM honours “Sir Larry” by showing two of his most memorable films, Clash of the Titans (1980) and The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), while Hepburn stars in a special screening of The Philadelphia Story (1940). On TCM 2 meanwhile, John Wayne Week features On The Wings of Eagles (1957) and How The West Was Won (1962) and Directed by John Ford (1971) profiles the director responsible for some of Wayne’s most outstanding work. www.cornerhouse.org.