Calamity Jane ***** (1953, Doris Day, Howard Keel, Allyn Ann McLerie) – Classic Movie Review 3345

Director David Butler’s 1953 classic Golden Age musical Calamity Jane stars Doris Day as the titular gun-toting, whip-cracking Wild West whirlwind, along with Howard Keel as Wild Bill Hickok. Sammy Fain’s haunting, show-stopping romantic number ‘Secret Love’ won a Best Song Oscar, and Day sings it quite beautifully.

‘Secret Love’ was a number 1 hit for Day in the US and in the UK. James O’Hanlon’s screenplay teases an alleged romance between the Wild West heroine and Wild Bill Hickok, though history suggests that they were no more than acquaintances.

This sparkling musical Western could arguably be Day’s finest hour in the movies as the exuberant, boyish, buckskinned Indian scout Calamity Jane, who is finally tamed by Keel’s rich, boomingly baritoned Wild Bill Hickok.

Is it really Day’s finest hour in the movies? What also about Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Pajama Game (1957) and Pillow Talk (1959)?

The stars and the score (‘Secret Love’, ‘The Black Hills of Dakota’, ‘I Just Blew in from the Windy City’, ‘The Deadwood Stage’, ‘I Can Do Without You’, ‘It’s Harry I’m Planning to Marry’, and ‘A Woman’s Touch’) are the real deal. And this is a superlative show, so all aboard the stage to Deadwood, Dakota Territory!

Also in the cast are Allyn Ann McLerie (1926–2018) as Katie Brown, Philip Carey as Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin, Dick Wesson as Francis Fryer, Paul Harvey as Henry Miller, Gale Robbins as Adelaid Adams, Chubby Johnson as Rattlesnake, and Tom London as Prospector.

The musical numbers are staged and directed by Jack Donohue, who a year later directed Day in the film musical Lucky Me (1954).

The film  was also Oscar nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture (Ray Heindorf) and Best Sound, Recording (William A Mueller).

A 1961 stage musical followed using the songs and screenplay.

Jane claimed after Hickok’s death that she had been his lover, wife and the mother of his child, but she was considered her a teller of tall tales, though when she died decades after Hickok, friends buried her beside him at her request.

However, the character in the film can be read as lesbian, and the film was screened at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 2006. The boyish Jane is shown as a strong, independent woman who shares a house with another woman, the two of them painting ‘Calam and Katie’ in a heart on its door. Out magazine described ‘Secret Love’ as the first gay anthem.

The film’s songs are included in the album but some of the songs were re-recorded rather than taken from the soundtrack. The score, with music by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, includes: ‘The Deadwood Stage’, ‘Hive Full of Honey”, “I Can Do Without You”, “It’s Harry I’m Planning to Marry”, “The Windy City”, “Keep It Under Your Hat”, “Higher Than a Hawk”, “A Woman’s Touch”, “The Black Hills of Dakota”, and ‘Secret Love’.

Calamity Jane is directed by David Butler, runs 101 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by James O’Hanlon, is shot in Technicolor by Wilfrid Cline, is produced by William Jacobs, is scored by Ray Heindorf, has music and lyrics by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, and is choreographed by Jack Donohue.

Warner Bros Pictures’ Calamity Jane returns to cinemas across the UK and Ireland from 8 April 2016, screening in a new digital print featuring sing-a-long subtitles. Audiences can get a new experience of the Old West as they join in with the musical numbers and take in the Technicolor scenery.

Day also sang an Oscar-winning song in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), ‘Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)’.

Doris Day (1922–2019).

RIP the adorable Hollywood legend Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff, who died on 13 May 2019, aged 97.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3345

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/