The opening of Calamity Jane suggests the movie is going to be a stinker, with a song consisting of the lyrics: Whip crack away, whip crack away, whip crack away, interspersed with whistling and singers going "dumb dumb de dumb, dumb de dumb, de dumb dumb dumb dumb," and then two actors repeating these exciting lines: The Deadwood stage!, the Deadwood stage!, (chorus) the Deadwood stage! as we watch a stagecoach going across a barren landscape. (I tried to write "DUM" but the IMDb spell checker kept changing it to "DUMB." I didn't think spell checkers were supposed to editorialize.)
We then see a very butch Doris Day (or pretending to be butch) riding shotgun on a stagecoach making mechanical motions like a marionette. She starts singing the tune and the passengers inside the coach join in. Trouble is, the words are kinda goofy and the melody annoying. This is not looking like first-rate music. The further along this song goes, the worse it gets.
Day's over the top acting is atrocious, and reminds me of a puppet from the Howdy Doody Show. When they get to town and she starts singing and talking some more, it just gets worse. OK, she's a tomboy, a woman trying to out macho the men, I get it, but she way overdoes it. And you are stuck watching this cloying performance for more than an hour before she finally mellows out a bit for a few minutes of the movie. If it weren't for her great looks and super singing, she wouldn't have gotten away with it.
I've watched it at least twice now, but there are only two memorable songs, Whip Crack Away and Secret Love. I went back into it and was surprised by how much forgettable music there is. Secret Love is a classic, but the lyrics don't really fit with the story line, and the music is inconsistent with the rest of the faux cowboy tunes, so I assume it was written before the movie, and was looking for a home.
The good part is there actually is a plot, (a formulaic mix and match romance plot) and the rest of the acting is good. But Day's performance is so bad and much of the music is so mediocre that there is little to recommend this musical. It could have been pretty good if Day's acting had been more nuanced and interesting, instead of a mechanical caricature. And how many times do we have to endure the same, "Give me a sarsaparilla!" joke? (Actually, in those days sarsaparilla was alcoholic, like beer.)
I do love musicals, and don't expect them to be too realistic, but I don't like them to get too silly, either. I have seen Doris Day movies that I have enjoyed. Day demonstrated she could really act in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, not to mention sing.
I have read that Calamity Jane, 1953, was a knock off of Annie Get Your Gun, 1950. In addition to better music, Annie had the fine director George Sidney, who had experience directing many solid musicals, including the first Western movie musical, The Harvey Girls. David Butler did not have this finesse, and the result, in my opinion, is an awkward film lacking style.
Calamity Jane is not quite the stinker the opening scene suggests, and it is not awful. There are probably worse musicals out there, but I have never encountered one, and if I did, I wouldn't watch it. I find this corny movie so annoying that I think it's actually worth avoiding.
There are much better musicals out there. If you want to see Doris Day in one, watch The Pajama Game. Music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross includes: Hey There, Hernando's Hideaway, Steam Heat, and plenty of other memorable numbers.
We then see a very butch Doris Day (or pretending to be butch) riding shotgun on a stagecoach making mechanical motions like a marionette. She starts singing the tune and the passengers inside the coach join in. Trouble is, the words are kinda goofy and the melody annoying. This is not looking like first-rate music. The further along this song goes, the worse it gets.
Day's over the top acting is atrocious, and reminds me of a puppet from the Howdy Doody Show. When they get to town and she starts singing and talking some more, it just gets worse. OK, she's a tomboy, a woman trying to out macho the men, I get it, but she way overdoes it. And you are stuck watching this cloying performance for more than an hour before she finally mellows out a bit for a few minutes of the movie. If it weren't for her great looks and super singing, she wouldn't have gotten away with it.
I've watched it at least twice now, but there are only two memorable songs, Whip Crack Away and Secret Love. I went back into it and was surprised by how much forgettable music there is. Secret Love is a classic, but the lyrics don't really fit with the story line, and the music is inconsistent with the rest of the faux cowboy tunes, so I assume it was written before the movie, and was looking for a home.
The good part is there actually is a plot, (a formulaic mix and match romance plot) and the rest of the acting is good. But Day's performance is so bad and much of the music is so mediocre that there is little to recommend this musical. It could have been pretty good if Day's acting had been more nuanced and interesting, instead of a mechanical caricature. And how many times do we have to endure the same, "Give me a sarsaparilla!" joke? (Actually, in those days sarsaparilla was alcoholic, like beer.)
I do love musicals, and don't expect them to be too realistic, but I don't like them to get too silly, either. I have seen Doris Day movies that I have enjoyed. Day demonstrated she could really act in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, not to mention sing.
I have read that Calamity Jane, 1953, was a knock off of Annie Get Your Gun, 1950. In addition to better music, Annie had the fine director George Sidney, who had experience directing many solid musicals, including the first Western movie musical, The Harvey Girls. David Butler did not have this finesse, and the result, in my opinion, is an awkward film lacking style.
Calamity Jane is not quite the stinker the opening scene suggests, and it is not awful. There are probably worse musicals out there, but I have never encountered one, and if I did, I wouldn't watch it. I find this corny movie so annoying that I think it's actually worth avoiding.
There are much better musicals out there. If you want to see Doris Day in one, watch The Pajama Game. Music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross includes: Hey There, Hernando's Hideaway, Steam Heat, and plenty of other memorable numbers.