''Annie Oakley'' is a 1935 American

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

film directed by

George Stevens George Cooper Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, film producer, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Obituary ''Variety Obituaries, Variety'', March 12, 1975, page 79. Films he produced were nomi ...

and starring

Barbara Stanwyck Barbara Stanwyck (; born Ruby Catherine Stevens; July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress, model and dancer. A stage, film, and television star, during her 60-year professional career she was known for her strong, realistic sc ...

Preston Foster Preston Stratton Foster (August 24, 1900 – July 14, 1970), was an American actor of stage, film, radio, and television, whose career spanned nearly four decades. He also had a career as a vocalist. Early life Born in Ocean City, New Jersey ...

Melvyn Douglas Melvyn Douglas (born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg, April 5, 1901 – August 4, 1981) was an American actor. Douglas came to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man, perhaps best typified by his performance in the romantic comedy ''Ninotchka ...

and

Moroni Olsen Moroni Olsen (June 27, 1889November 22, 1954) was an American actor. Life and career Olsen was born in Ogden, Utah to Latter-day Saint parents Edward Arenholt Olsen and Martha ( Hoverholst) Olsen, who named him after the Moroni found in the ...

. The film is based on the life of

Annie Oakley Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Oakley developed hunting skills as a child to provide for her impoverished family in western ...

Plot

In late 1800s,

, a young woman from the

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

backwoods, delivers six dozen

quail Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New Wor ...

that she has shot to the owner of the general store. He sends them to the MacIvor Hotel in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, where the mayor is holding a large banquet in honor of Toby Walker, the "greatest shot in the whole world." Toby is particular about what he eats, and hotel owner James MacIvor bought Annie's quail because she shoots the quail cleanly through the head, leaving no

buckshot A shotgun shell, shotshell or simply shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) cartridges used specifically in shotguns, and is typically loaded with numerous small, pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, fired throu ...

elsewhere. At the banquet, Jeff Hogarth signs Toby to a contract, making him part of the ''Buffalo Bill's Wild West'' show. James challenges Toby to a shooting contest to take place the next morning. James arranges for "Andy" Oakley to compete against Walker, only to be shocked when Annie appears. The match ends in a draw, so they proceed to sudden death. The two sharpshooters continue hitting their targets. Following a comment from her mother, Annie deliberately misses her next shot. Walker is a gracious, though unsuspecting winner; Hogarth knows exactly what happened. Annieoakleytitle

When the Oakleys return home, Annie promises to reimburse all those who had bet on her. Jeff follows and tells Annie that he never bet the money that she had given him. He also invites her to join the ''Wild West'' show. Annie, having developed a crush on Toby, accepts. Jeff introduces her to

Buffalo Bill William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846January 10, 1917), known as "Buffalo Bill", was an American soldier, Bison hunting, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa, Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but ...

and the other members of the show. When Toby overhears Buffalo Bill telling Jeff that he might have to fire Annie because she lacks showmanship, he teaches her some shooting tricks. At the first show,

Sitting Bull Sitting Bull ( lkt, Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake ; December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against United States government policies. He was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock I ...

is in the audience.

Ned Buntline Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr. (March 20, 1821 – July 16, 1886), known by his pseudonym Ned Buntline, was an American publisher, journalist, and writer. Early life and military service Judson was born on March 20, 1821, in Harpersfield, New Yo ...

, Buffalo Bill's publicist, tries to enlist Sitting Bull for the show, but Sitting Bull is bored with the acts until he sees Annie shoot five targets thrown in the air. He is impressed and changes his mind to join the show. A romance blossoms between Annie and Toby despite Jeff's attempts to win her affections. They also become good friends with Sitting Bull. One day, a man with a grudge tries to shoot Sitting Bull. Toby grabs the man's gun just as it fires, saving Sitting Bull's life although his eyes are affected by the closeness of the shot. While Annie's fortunes rise, Toby's decline. He hides his injury but accidentally shoots Annie in the hand and is dismissed from the show. Annie is heartbroken but Jeff and Wild Bill try to keep Toby away from her. However, during a chance meeting, Annie is told by a woman accompanying Toby that she has only brought bad luck to Toby. Although Toby tries to stop the woman, Annie feels that what she says is true and unhappily retreats. After a triumphant tour of Europe, the show plays in New York City, where Sitting Bull spots Toby and reunites him with Annie.

Cast

Barbara Stanwyck in Annie Oakley trailer

as Toby Walker *

as Jeff Hogarth *

as Col. William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody *

Pert Kelton Pert or PERT may refer to: Ships * - see List of United States Navy ships: P * , a World War II corvette, originally HMS ''Nepeta'' * ''Pert'' (sidewheeler), a 19th-century steamboat that operated in British Columbia, Canada Statistics * PER ...

as Vera Delmar *

Andy Clyde Andrew Allan Clyde (March 25, 1892 – May 18, 1967) was a Scottish-born American film and television actor whose career spanned more than four decades. In 1921 he broke into silent films as a Mack Sennett comic, debuting in ''On a Summer ...

as James MacIvor *

Chief Thunderbird Richard Davis Thunderbird (August 6, 1866 – April 6, 1946) was a Native American actor of Cheyenne descent known as Chief Thunderbird. He appeared in twenty films but was credited only in major films such as ''Wild West Days'' (1937), ''For ...

Dick Elliott Richard Damon Elliott (April 30, 1886 – December 22, 1961) was an American character actor who played in over 240 films from the 1930s until the time of his death. Early years Elliott was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Career Elliott p ...

as Major Ned Buntline (uncredited) *

Theodore Lorch Theodore "Ted" Lorch (September 29, 1873 – November 12, 1947) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 140 films between 1908 and 1947. Biography Born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1873, Lorch appeared in several Three Stooges ...

as Wild West Show Announcer (uncredited) * Margaret Armstrong as Mrs. Oakley *

Delmar Watson David Delmar Watson (July 1, 1926 – October 26, 2008) was an American child actor and news photographer.Nelson, Valerie J"Delmar Watson, child actor turned news photographer, dies at 82" ''Los Angeles Times''. October 28, 2008.Andres, Holly J.F ...

as Wesley Oakley * Adeline Craig as Susan Oakley * Richard Alexander as

Crown Prince Wilhelm Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia (Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst; 6 May 1882 – 20 July 1951) was the eldest child of the last ''Kaiser'', the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, and his consort Augusta Victoria of Schles ...

(uncredited) *

Brandon Hurst Brandon Hurst (30 November 1866 – 15 July 1947) was an English stage and film actor. Early life Born in London, England, Hurst studied philology in his youth and began performing in theater in the 1880s. Before he began acting professionall ...

as Doctor (uncredited) *

Philo McCullough Philo McCullough (June 16, 1893 – June 5, 1981) was an American actor. He appeared in more than 250 films between 1914 and 1969. He was born in San Bernardino, California, and died in Burbank, California. McCullough's film debut came in 1 ...

as Officer (uncredited) * Robert McKenzie as Sheriff Bixby (uncredited) *

Blue Washington Edgar Hughes "Blue" Washington (12 February 1898 – 15 September 1970) was an American actor and baseball player who played in the Negro leagues from 1915 to 1920 as a pitcher and first baseman. Baseball career Washington started his baseba ...

as Cook (uncredited)

Production

The film was the first

for both Stevens and Stanwyck. While based on the real life of Annie Oakley, it took some liberties with the historical details. The film focuses primarily on Oakley's love affair with Toby Walker (representing Oakley's real-life husband Frank E. Butler) rather than on her career as an exhibition sharpshooter. It also does not depict how Butler, himself a skilled marksman, willingly ceded the spotlight to Oakley in the ''Wild West'' shows. Several of the film's scenes, such as those in which Oakley deliberately loses a shooting match and Oakley and Walker are reunited by

, were likely concocted to appeal to contemporary audience tastes and expectations. The working title for the film was "Shooting Star."

Reception

The film was released less than ten years after the death of the real-life Oakley. It returned a profit of $48,000. Andre Sennwald of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called the film a "gaudy and pungent motion picture, smacking healthily of that obscure commodity known as

tanbark Tanbark is the bark of certain species of trees, traditionally used for tanning hides into leather. The words "tannin", "tanning", "tan," and " tawny" are derived from the Medieval Latin ''tannare'', "to convert into leather." Bark mills are ...

" and wrote: "Barbara Stanwyck is splendid in the title role; this is her most striking performance in a long time. Preston Foster plays persuasively, too, in the unrealized Toby Walker role, and

is excellently bluff as Buffalo Bill. Chief Thunderbird, though, is the star of the picture. One scene, by the way, ought to give you a start. That is when the

Kaiser ''Kaiser'' is the German word for "emperor" (female Kaiserin). In general, the German title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (''König''). In English, the (untranslated) word ''Kaiser'' is mainly ap ...

, then only a Prince, gallantly holds a cigarette in his mouth for Annie to shoot at. What might have been the course of history, you find yourself wondering, if Annie had missed." Decades later,

Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...

called Stanwyck "consistently fresh and believable" and wrote that Stevens "makes some of the points about race he made later in ''

Giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: '' gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...

''... but here they're lighter and better. They seem to grow casually out of the American material; the movie feels almost improvised."

References

External links

* * * * {{George Stevens 1935 films 1930s historical romance films American Western (genre) films 1930s biographical films American biographical films American black-and-white films Circus films Films set in the 1880s Films set in Ohio RKO Pictures films Films directed by George Stevens Cultural depictions of Annie Oakley Cultural depictions of Buffalo Bill Films produced by Cliff Reid 1935 Western (genre) films American historical romance films 1930s American films ca:Annie Oakley