The Return of ‘Annie Get Your Gun’

The 1950 movie version of Irving Berlin’s spunky musical “Annie Get Your Gun” has been something of an orphan for the past three decades. Due to legal problems, it hasn’t been seen on TV or in theaters since 1973 and has never been available on video and DVD.

The difficulties were finally ironed out earlier this year and “Annie Get Your Gun” is back in a big way.

Tonight, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is presenting a 50th anniversary screening of the film, which stars Betty Hutton and Howard Keel. Director George Sidney, screenwriter Sidney Sheldon and Keel are scheduled to appear at the sold-out event.

Then on Nov. 14, Warner Home Video is releasing a special-edition video ($20) and DVD ($25), complete with outtakes and other assorted goodies. That same day, Turner Classic Movies Music/Rhino Movie Music will release the soundtrack on CD.

Based on the 1946 Broadway hit starring Ethel Merman, with music by Berlin and a book by Dorothy and Herbert Fields, “Annie Get Your Gun” stars the brassy Hutton as famed sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Keel plays her rival and beau, the hunky Frank Butler. Louis Calhern co-stars as Colonel Buffalo Bill, and J. Carrol Naish, who was Irish, plays the famed Indian Chief Sitting Bull.

“Annie Get Your Gun” was one of the highest-grossing musicals produced by MGM and won the Oscar for best scoring of a musical. Songs include such standards as “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Anything You Can Do” and “My Defenses Are Down.”

The movie went into limbo after the original copyright between MGM and Berlin and the Fields ended.

“Because there were so many principals and parties involved, it took a long time for everyone to come to the table to make a business arrangement that was suitable for everyone,” says George Feltenstein, senior vice president of marketing for Turner Entertainment Co. “We kept trying, and every time we would get close, somebody would have an issue that precluded it from happening.”

Feltenstein believes the success of the current Broadway revival of “Annie Got Your Gun” paved the way for the film’s problems to be untangled. “I think [the Berlin and Fields’ estates] achieved what they wanted in terms of getting a revival. This [movie] would be just icing on the cake, as it were. We were able to get everyone to come to an agreement.”

MGM had restored and preserved the Technicolor film in 1996. “We had a beautiful new negative and new sound ready and raring to go as soon as we got the green light,” Feltenstein said.

From the outset, the film was plagued with problems. Originally, Busby Berkeley was assigned to direct, with Judy Garland starring as Annie, Keel as Butler and Frank Morgan as Buffalo Bill. Garland recorded all of the songs for the film (all of which will be included on the coming CD) and shot two numbers, “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” and “I’m an Indian,” which appear on the video and DVD. But Garland became sick and was fired from the film. Morgan shot one scene and then died of a heart attack.

“On the second day of shooting, a horse slipped on stage with me and broke my ankle,” Keel recalls. “They had to shoot around me, and poor Judy was just exhausted. She just fell apart. I thought they would give her a rest and put her back on the job and they just dropped her. I think it is the only tacky thing I saw MGM do [while under contract there]. I was out for about three months and they brought Betty Hutton in.”

When “Annie” started up again, director George Sidney (“Anchors Aweigh,” “The Harvey Girls”) took over the reigns. He recalls that several actresses were in the running to play the title role, but he wanted Hutton, who was one of the top musical stars at Paramount.

“I had never met Betty Hutton,” Sidney says. “I had only seen her. I said [to MGM], ‘I’d like that girl to do it. I’d like to talk to her.’ They brought her over. The only thing I can say about my relationship with Betty was that she and I had the greatest nonsexual relationship between a director and a star. We had a ball. It was just wonderful. We had so much fun.”

Sheldon, the best-selling novelist of such books as “The Other Side of Midnight” and “Bloodline,” was working on another project at MGM when he got a call from producer Arthur Freed to do the screenplay for “Annie.” The studio sent him to New York to see Ethel Merman do it on Broadway and then to Chicago to see Mary Martin in the touring company.

Like Sidney and Keel, Sheldon is thrilled that “Annie Get Your Gun” is back in circulation. He recalls the machinations he went through about six years ago to show it to his wife and daughter, who had never seen it. After several calls to MGM, Sheldon was allowed to screen the movie at his house--provided a guard accompany the print. “A policeman came with the film and stayed there while we ran it,” Sheldon says.

Feltenstein feels that “Annie” holds up extremely well. “This is a movie that moves just like a bat out of hell and has great pacing to it,” he says. “It has a freshness to it that if you showed it to young kids, they wouldn’t know it’s an old movie. It’s in color and it moves and it’s fun and it’s a period piece. Costume pieces don’t date. George Sidney was such a versatile and wonderful director.”

The one aspect of the film that does date it is the politically incorrect characterization of Native Americans that was common for films at that time. Feltenstein, though, doesn’t anticipate any complaints.

“The way I look at it, who is the person [Annie] loves the most in the movie?” he says. “It’s Sitting Bull. I think this movie is more complementary to Native American than any of the John Wayne westerns.”