Wolff rating: GOOD
Plot summary: It's a western musical! Two gals, one a tomboy and the other an actress, compete for the affections of various men in the frontier Dakota town of Deadwood.
Biased, pithy comments: Western musicals are an acquired taste, kind of like sushi. You either can get over the goofiness of people in leather-fringed buckskins belting out Broadway numbers or you can't. If you can't, you'll definitely not be able to get over ``Calamity Jane.'' If you can, you're in luck---Day, Keel, and McLerie put on a fun show, if classic---essentially a farce of mistaken identity and mistaken love a la ``Twelfth Night.'' Day at first seems to be overacting, but after a while she grows on you, while Keel has a glorious bass and a some steady hands on his gun. The backprojected stagecoach scenes are retro-funny, but the painful Indian stereotypes are best left in the 50s.
Other Notes: Blondes in leather outfits with guns. . . .mmmmm. . . .what were we talking about? Movie cuts some of the chaff from the stage production, but unfortunately axes my favorite Calamity Jane song, ``Men!'' Won Oscar for best song---``Secret Love.'' Real-life Calamity Jane (Martha Cannary) had some of the same attributes and was indeed a brave scout, stagecoach protector, and fearsome shot, but this film rearranges those details to suit them and quietly ignores antying the least bit unsavory, like the fact that Jane was a brunette.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Doris Day, Howard Keel, Allyn Ann McLerie, Philip Carey.
Directed by: David Butler