Nonureva Really Surprised!

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

JohnHowardReid Director: George Stevens. Screenplay: Joel Sayre, John Twist. Story: Joseph A. Anthony, Ewart Adamson. Photography: J. Roy Hunt, Harold Wenstrom. Film editor: Jack Hively. Art directors: Van Nest Polglase and Perry Ferguson. Music director: Alberto Colombo. Sound recording: P.J. Faulkner, John L. Cass. Associate producer: Cliff Reid. (Available on a superb Warner-Turner DVD).Copyright 15 November 1935 by RKO-Radio Pictures. U.S. release: 28 November 1935. 91 minutes. SYNOPSIS: A backwoods sharpshooter enters a contest against the world's best. She would have beaten him too, except that...COMMENT: This admirably glossy straight version of the Annie Oakley-Frank Butler story has both its admirers and detractors. As for me, I like it. True, it bears even less relationship to the real story than Annie Get Your Gun. Nonetheless, as pure entertainment this Annie is a winner. Aside from Melvyn Douglas who is forced to struggle valiantly as the other man, this version assembles a great cast, although, would you believe, in my opinion it's Chief Thunder Bird who actually walks away with the movie's top acting honors?

ksf-2 Annie O. opens with the townies sitting around, and Annie Oakley (Barbara Stanwyck) is one of em. They see the poster of Toby Walker, the "Greatest shot in the World"! Her buddies talk about what a good shot Annie is herself, so there's foreshadowing of a showdown of some sort. Willie Best is in here as a chef. Stanwyck had not yet been nominated for any of her FOUR Oscar nominations ( and a win for lifetime achievement!) but she HAD been in films for about five years already, so this is from her early years. There's Melvyn Douglas (TWO Oscars!) as Hogarth, who runs the Western show with Buffalo Bill Cody (Moroni Olsen). Oakley joins up with BB's show, and there's the usual, predictable conflicts. Jealousy from the men, the usual Hollywood story-fare. An entertaining watch, but no big thang. Interesting details in wikipedia.com. It shows that Oakley married first, then joined the Western show later, which if I recall correctly, was reversed in the film. Stanwyck would make three films with Preston Foster. Directed by George Stevens, for RKO. Stevens was nominated for eight Oscars, and won three of em, but the first would be another ten years away. Good old fashioned western fun, but I get the idea that about half of the film was souped up Hollywood style for the audience, to jazz it up. Of course, back then, it was pretty hard to research anything, so this film was probably the only knowledge most people had of Oakley.

vincentlynch-moonoi It's only recently that I fully began to appreciate the talents of Barbara Stanwyck. Her peak was a little before my time, but I remembered her well from "The Big Valley", where she was always billed as Miss Barbara Stanwyck.This film is both very good in terms of entertainment, and although liberties have been taken (particularly at the end of the film), they get the basic bio of Annie Oakley down reasonably well. And, you'll get a decent idea of what a Buffalo Bill Wild West Show was like. The details, well, of course, this is a movie bio.Barbara Stanwyck is great here! A class act all the way. Preston Foster, as the love interest, is never one of my favorites, but does quite nicely here. Melvyn Douglas, who also loves Annie, is very good in this part. Moroni Olsen, a wonderful actor, is terrific here as Buffalo Bill.This is a very enjoyable movie. Not one of the greats, but it's difficult not to just sit back and enjoy yourself.

smatysia A decent Thirties era melodrama loosely based on the life of Annie Oakley. I looked into Oakley a bit after seeing this film, and her life has been highly fictionalized. Oakley was a bit of a feminist for her day, and that did come through a little bit in the film. (Rational feminism, not the semi-nutty political feminism of recent decades) Barbara Stanwyck did a jam-up job playing the backwoods girl, and looked awesome doing it. (of course) Oakley, for all her talent, was a bit deficient in the hotness factor. But, hey this is a movie.The film heavily featured Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and I wonder a bit how close they were to accuracy on that. After all the show was still in living memory when this movie was filmed. No buffalo were shown, although they were alluded to once. I suppose they were very scarce in those days.Anyway, I liked the film more than I expected to. Check it out.