Film review: Calamity Jane (1953)

 This is the Doris Day movie where she sings "Just blowed in from the Windy City" as well as lesbian anthem (if it isn't, it should be) "Secret love".  Not to be confused with Annie Get Your Gun, which was a 1950 Bettie Hutton feature where she plays a very similar character and they sing "Anything you can do, I can do better", which also stars the improbably deep-voiced Howard Keel (who was a non-singer in Day of the Triffids, but is otherwise fairly unmemorable).  I struggled to enjoy this one just because it was so cartoonish, and I didn't really like the main characters (particularly the two men, Bill Hickock (Keel) and Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin, who are quite nasty to our plucky heroine (who, let's face it, is pretty annoying).  The basic plot is that the owner of the theater in Deadwood accidentally hires male actor Francis Fryer instead of a female (Frances) actor he thought he was getting, and after a failed attempt to pass him off as female (what with Calamity's outfits, there's a definite cross-dressing theme in this one), 

the audience is about to desert him when Calamity offers to go and recruit the famous actress Adelaid Adams whose cigarette card all them men compete for.  She accidentally confuses Adams's assistant Katie Brown for the real thing (Chicago is beneath her, let alone Deadwood), and Katie, wanting her own career, goes along with it.  Then follows a sequence where, after this deception is uncovered, Calamity persuades the town to accept Katie and they fall for her, and then Katie comes to live in Calamity's shack so she can teach her how to be ladylike.  

Then the Lieutenant (whose life Calamity has saved [from the injuns - this film does not have a progressive view of them, numerous of whom Calamity has bumped off], the ingrate) pursues Katie and breaks Calamity's heart.  It's jolly enough in its way, and most of the cast seem to be Broadway actors, and Katie (Allyn Ann McLerie) and Doris Day show enviable acrobatic ability in some dance numbers, but it's about suitable for a Saturday afternoon showing on BBC 2 in the Xmas holidays.  At least Day's hair isn't as frumpy as it would subsequently be.