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VOICE Journal of the Alex Film Society Vol. 14, No. 2 April 26, 2008, 2 pm & 8 pm 04/08 of theTHEATRE George Sidney’s AnnieAnnie GetGet YourYour GunGun Annie: From Darke County To Silver Screen Unlike the stormy, competitive relationship between the pair in By Miles Kreuger the musical, Annie and Frank wed in 1876, when she was just es, Virginia, there really sixteen, and the two remained was an Annie Oakley. happily married for the next fifty YAlthough her life has years. At first, Frank went on evolved over the years into touring, while Annie stayed at near legend, Phoebe Ann Moses home to continue her education; was born on August 13, 1860, but in 1882, when his partner on a small Quaker farm in became ill, Annie joined the act rural Darke County, Ohio. After and took the stage name Oakley her father’s premature death, to commemorate the place where Annie (as she was known) soon they had first met. learned to shoot his muzzle- loading rifle so skillfully that The couple joined the celebrated she could kill grouse, quail, and “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” show rabbits with a single shot. in 1885. Annie, petite, attractive, and surprisingly shy, soon Twice a week, her stepfather became the star of the show. She would tote the girl’s quarry would shoot a cigarette from to town, where shopkeeper Frank’s mouth or hit a dime in Charles Katzenberger would his fingers. In rifle competition, exchange it for groceries. she hit 943 out of 1000 glass Katzenberger, in turn, sold the balls tossed into the air. Her The Little Sure Shot, Annie Oakley (1899) game to hotels in nearby cities, appearance at Queen Victoria’s where diners were delighted not Golden Jubilee in 1887 brought to find buckshot in their food. her international acclaim. During a tour through Europe in 1889, she was When Annie traveled to Cincinnati to visit a sister, showered with medals and gifts from the bedazzled Jack Frost, manager of the Bevis Hotel, arranged European royalty. a shooting match between Annie and a dashing Irishman, Frank Butler, one of a trio of vaudeville Following the 1901 season, Annie was severely marksmen appearing at a local theatre. The match, injured in a train wreck and temporarily lost the use which Annie won, took place in a patch of countryside of her shooting hand. After a partial recovery, she called Oakley. Continued on Page 2 Annie Get Your Gun ................................... 1 Short Subjects ............................................. 6 Feature Credits ............................................ 4 Photo Gallery ............................................... 7 Photo Gallery .............................................. 5 Society News ............................................... 8 Perspective: George Crittenden .............. 6 Calendar ........................................................ 8 ANNIE OAKLEY Cont’d from page 1 returned to Buffalo Bill, toured to begin work, but three days Although Judy and the cast did in the melodrama “The Western later collapsed on Park Avenue. record the entire score, and a few Girl,” and lived a comparatively He died on November 11th. scenes were shot under the direction private life until her death on of Busby Berkeley, it quickly became November 3, 1926. Frank followed To replace Kern, a songwriter of apparent that she was neither her less than a month later. equal stature was required. Dick physically nor emotionally up to and Oscar suggested Irving Berlin, the challenge of the role. Under As the hottest stage who always wrote his own lyrics. the skilled direction of George musical since Dorothy agreed simply to co-author Sidney, who replaced Berkeley, Betty the book with Herbert. Because Hutton, borrowed from Paramount, “Oklahoma!.” Berlin felt that their script inspired gave the best performance of her “Annie Get Your him to compose his finest stage career. Closer to Annie’s real age Gun” was sold to score, he insisted that he and the than the earlier stars, Hutton truly M-G-M as an Arthur siblings should have equal royalties suggests a spunky, backwoods and billing, even though he had urchin, who matures into a wise, Freed production to been offered a larger share. assured woman of the world. star Judy Garland There is no better demonstration The film was staged and edited with of Berlin’s protean talents than such vigor that when this writer Annie appeared before the primitive Annie’s collection of love, character, cut school to see the first New Edison Kinetoscope movie camera comedy, and production numbers, York screening on the morning of on November 1, 1894 and in all spun in a vernacular, bucolic Wednesday, May 17, 1950, at the 1935 became the subject of a idiom, hardly natural to someone Loew’s State, the entire audience romanticized RKO film biography born in Russia and raised on the spontaneously broke into applause starring Barbara Stanwyck, with lower east side of Manhattan. after every musical number, as if Preston Foster as Frank, his name they were watching a stage play. curiously changed to Toby Walker. Starring Ethel Merman and Ray This phenomenon has been repeated Middleton, “Annie Get Your at every screening I have seen The film’s story was co-written by Gun” opened to rave reviews on since that day and is likely to be Joseph Fields, soon to become a May 16, 1946, at the Imperial repeated today. With almost all of major Broadway playwright (“My Theatre, where it continued the Broadway songs retained, the Sister Eileen,” “Junior Miss,” “The to run for 1,147 performances film of Annie Get Your Gun is a Doughgirls”) in partnership with and finally closed February 12, prime example of studio-system Jerome Chodorov, who not long ago 1949. Mary Martin helmed the film-making at its finest. recalled that Fields once suggested national tour that began in 1947. to his younger sister Dorothy that © 2008 by Miles Kreuger the saga of Annie Oakley might As the hottest stage musical since March 26, 2008 make an exciting musical. “Oklahoma!,” Annie was sold Los Angeles to M-G-M as an Arthur Freed A major lyricist since the late production to star Judy Garland, 1920’s, and the co-author with with 6’4” Howard Keel, fresh her brother of four hit Broadway from his triumphant London musicals, Dorothy envisioned that engagement in “Oklahoma!,” Ethel Merman would be the perfect in his first American film. The Annie in a lavish stage musical. screenplay by Oscar-winning (for Rodgers and Hammerstein instantly The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer) agreed to produce the show and Sidney Sheldon skillfully followed suggested Jerome Kern, whom the Broadway original, but opened Rodgers idolized, as composer. up the scenes to provide excellent Kern arrived in New York from frames for the Berlin songs. Hollywood on November 2, 1945, Miles Kreuger and his Hirschfeld honor. www.AlexFilmSociety.org – – Vol. 14, No. April 6, 008 ^ AnnieAnnie GetGet YourYour GunGun 6 Judy Garland’s troubles were clearly evident in early wardrobe tests. After two months of work, Garland was suspended and soon ended her career at M-G-M. Only two production numbers were completed with Garland: “Doin’ What Comes Naturally” and “I’m an Indian Too” and these were released to the public for the first time in the 1990s in That’s Entertainment III (M-G-M). for more information, contact: Miles Kreuger, President The Institute of the American Musical, Inc 121 North Detroit Street Betty Hutton Los Angeles, California 90036-2915 Vol. 14, No. April 6, 008 – – VOICE of the THEATRE George Sidney’s ^ Annie Get Your Gun Cast 6 Betty Hutton .................................... Annie Oakley Technicolor – 1950 – 107 minutes Howard Keel .................................... Frank Butler An M-G-M Production Louis Calhern ................................... Col. Buffalo Bill Cody J. Carrol Naish ................................. Chief Sitting Bull Print Courtesy of Warner Bros Classics Edward Arnold................................. Pawnee Bill Keenan Wynn .................................. Charlie Davenport Directed By ....................................... George Sidney Benay Venuta .................................. Dolly Tate Book Written By ............................. Dorothy Fields & Herbert Fields Clinton Sundberg ........................... Foster Wilson Screenplay By .................................. Sidney Sheldon Produced By ..................................... Arthur Freed Dorothy Abbott ............................... Carriage Woman* Stage Production By ...................... Oscar Hammerstein II Bette Arlen ....................................... Carriage Woman* Richard Rodgers Evelyn Beresford ............................. Queen Victoria* Associate Producer ....................... Roger Edens* Eleanor Brown ................................. Minnie Oakley* Bridget Carr ..................................... Carriage Woman* André Charlot .................................. French President Loubet* Director Of Photography .............. Charles Rosher Mae Clarke ....................................... Mrs. Adams, Party Guest* Technicolor Color Consultants ... James Gooch & Henri Jaffa Diane Dick ........................................ Nellie Oakley* Edited By ........................................... James E. Newcom Helen Dickson.................................. Sour-Faced Wife* Montage .......................................... Peter Ballbusch* Phil Dunham .................................... Cynical Man* Art Directors .................................... Cedric Gibbons & Paul Groesse Edward Earle ...................................