The Movie That Didn't Shoot Straight
This weekend's review: Annie Oakley.
There were several reasons why I was primed to enjoy Annie Oakley. Not only did it feature an interesting real life woman, there was a good chance the movie would be a Western. Alas, the actual movie didn’t turn out to be all that interesting.
While the movie is theoretically a biography of Annie Oakley’s life, it’s more like one specific section of her life. We get nothing about her childhood; instead, the movie opens with Annie (Barbara Stanwyck) being renowned in her small town for being a crack shot, which she mostly uses to hunt for food and to earn a little extra money by shooting and sending quail to a fancy(ish) hotel. When city slicker and sharpshooter Toby Walker (Preston Foster) arrives in said hotel and starts bragging about his accomplishments, the hotel owner/manager, MacIvor (Andy Clyde) arranges a shooting competition between Walker and Annie, although he’s unaware Annie is a woman. Annie, smitten with Walker, throws the competition to protect his reputation, but makes enough of an impression that Jeff Hogarth (Melvyn Douglas), one of the operators of Buffalo Bill’s (Moroni Olsen) wild west show, winds up hiring both of them. While the two of them present a rivalry to the public, they’re in a relationship of sorts in private. At least until a series of incidents occur that damage Walker’s reputation…
As my summary suggests, this movie is a typical love story with historical trappings. Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill are fascinating people, but we barely get to know anything about them in this movie. We never find out why Annie’s such a good shot (it’s not a big deal, but a one line explanation would be nice), nor is it clear why she’s so respected by the people of her town. Meanwhile, the biggest thing we learn about Buffalo Bill is that he doesn’t actually like his trademark long hair. If you didn’t know these were real people, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a pure Hollywood invention, especially since it follows so many of the tropes. About the only saving grace is that Annie’s not one of the people who turns against Walker thanks to the inevitable big misunderstanding. Besides that, I spent a lot of the movie feeling like I’d seen it all before, which is disappointing.
There are other elements that bug me too. Walker spends so much of the early going being arrogant that I never quite believed his transition to being nice, which is bad when he’s supposed to be the love interest. We actually don’t see all that much shooting from Annie, or at least we don’t get to see her be a showman in her own right, despite that being set up as a plot point/conflict. Worst of all, at least from a modern perspective, is the way Native Americans are portrayed, especially Sitting Bull (Chief Thunderbird). Bull is clearly one of the good guys (this is made particularly obvious during the finale), but he’s just as often the butt of jokes, like rushing in to fight with the Indians not realizing its part of Bill’s show, or being confounded by a fold-out bed. While I did my best to just consider this a product of the times, it did feel rather awkward, especially since it looked like Bull would play a more important role than he actually did. Though you could say the same about a lot of the characters, really.
I probably wouldn’t recommend this movie. It doesn’t have enough material to really qualify as a Western, it doesn’t fully feel like a drama or a romance either, and Annie Oakley comes off as dull, which is sort of an impressive feat. I’d suggest trying to find some other movie on the subject; there’s a musical out there that I recall being fairly entertaining…
There were several reasons why I was primed to enjoy Annie Oakley. Not only did it feature an interesting real life woman, there was a good chance the movie would be a Western. Alas, the actual movie didn’t turn out to be all that interesting.
While the movie is theoretically a biography of Annie Oakley’s life, it’s more like one specific section of her life. We get nothing about her childhood; instead, the movie opens with Annie (Barbara Stanwyck) being renowned in her small town for being a crack shot, which she mostly uses to hunt for food and to earn a little extra money by shooting and sending quail to a fancy(ish) hotel. When city slicker and sharpshooter Toby Walker (Preston Foster) arrives in said hotel and starts bragging about his accomplishments, the hotel owner/manager, MacIvor (Andy Clyde) arranges a shooting competition between Walker and Annie, although he’s unaware Annie is a woman. Annie, smitten with Walker, throws the competition to protect his reputation, but makes enough of an impression that Jeff Hogarth (Melvyn Douglas), one of the operators of Buffalo Bill’s (Moroni Olsen) wild west show, winds up hiring both of them. While the two of them present a rivalry to the public, they’re in a relationship of sorts in private. At least until a series of incidents occur that damage Walker’s reputation…
As my summary suggests, this movie is a typical love story with historical trappings. Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill are fascinating people, but we barely get to know anything about them in this movie. We never find out why Annie’s such a good shot (it’s not a big deal, but a one line explanation would be nice), nor is it clear why she’s so respected by the people of her town. Meanwhile, the biggest thing we learn about Buffalo Bill is that he doesn’t actually like his trademark long hair. If you didn’t know these were real people, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a pure Hollywood invention, especially since it follows so many of the tropes. About the only saving grace is that Annie’s not one of the people who turns against Walker thanks to the inevitable big misunderstanding. Besides that, I spent a lot of the movie feeling like I’d seen it all before, which is disappointing.
There are other elements that bug me too. Walker spends so much of the early going being arrogant that I never quite believed his transition to being nice, which is bad when he’s supposed to be the love interest. We actually don’t see all that much shooting from Annie, or at least we don’t get to see her be a showman in her own right, despite that being set up as a plot point/conflict. Worst of all, at least from a modern perspective, is the way Native Americans are portrayed, especially Sitting Bull (Chief Thunderbird). Bull is clearly one of the good guys (this is made particularly obvious during the finale), but he’s just as often the butt of jokes, like rushing in to fight with the Indians not realizing its part of Bill’s show, or being confounded by a fold-out bed. While I did my best to just consider this a product of the times, it did feel rather awkward, especially since it looked like Bull would play a more important role than he actually did. Though you could say the same about a lot of the characters, really.
I probably wouldn’t recommend this movie. It doesn’t have enough material to really qualify as a Western, it doesn’t fully feel like a drama or a romance either, and Annie Oakley comes off as dull, which is sort of an impressive feat. I’d suggest trying to find some other movie on the subject; there’s a musical out there that I recall being fairly entertaining…