Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Now,I'm the first one to abhor overacting (there is one particular leading lady that I can't watch anymore) but I think Betty Hutton is the perfect Annie Oakley. I'm not interested in comparing her to anyone else;Betty is in the finished product and that's it.Most of the other reviews indicate that "Annie Get Your Gun" is remembered,and newly appreciated,with joy and affection.That's what entertainment is all about.Every song bounces off the screen and I love all of them.'There's No Business Like Show Business' is thrilling and Betty responds to the men with both vulnerability and unbridled enthusiasm.By the time 'They Say It's Wonderful' comes along we are ready for romance and I relish the way Betty positively purrs in response to Howard Keel's masculine charm (the whisper in her voice is exactly right for this lovely duet).Betty Hutton may have been a force to be reckoned with,on and off screen but she deserves recognition as a truly unique talent,never more so than with her ebullient interpretation of Annie Oakley.

Hutton is embarrassing, but presumably this is due to the direction by George Sidney. Sidney had a number of successes, including this one, but they definitely belong to a bygone era. Hutton's prancing gymnastics and gyrations in this show make me want to look away, except for the horseback performance. Was that by Betty ? Howard Keel, always rather wooden, was much better in Calamity Jane and Seven Brides. This musical is carried by the truly memorable songs, but in the others there are also other attractions. Only the bits by Busby Berkeley have some extra originality and distinction in Annie GYG.

This movie, based on fact and, simultaneously, Annie Oakley's biography, is outstanding and heart-warming. Though it was in the tradition of musicals from the king of motion pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in addition to the musical numbers such as "Doin What Comes Nat'rally", and "The Girl That I Marry", and "There's No Business Like Show Business", the acting was superb. J. Carroll Naish was excellent as Sitting Bull, the tall and imposing Louis Calhern was convincing as Buffalo Bill, and the almost incomparable Howard Keel was his large self with his melodious voice, and thus was splendid as Frank Butler, whom Annie Oakley married in real life. Just as Annie Oakley "stole the show" in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, so Betty Hutton "stole the show" in this movie about the sharp-shooter herself. Hutton caused the populace to sense well what was Annie Oakley's character. Hutton had no trouble falling into the role, since in real life the actress herself was prone to temper tantrums. It was definitely her signature movie. She played two roles, the illiterate backwards country girl to someone who became sparkling all over the country and over much of Europe. On an unrelated note and yet also on a related note, the movie communicates the fact that anyone from anywhere and from any type of subculture can make of himself or herself anything he or she desires if the person puts the mind to it. The Technicolor was very beautiful and the scenes were beautiful. But again, Betty Hutton did for certain steal the show. Magnificent movie!

The TRUE STORY: It was a day of mixed blessings for Phoebe Mozee when she first met up with Bill Cody, proprietor of a Wild West Show. On the one hand, she found everlasting fame as the star of his show. On the other hand, Cody continually borrowed money from her or deferred her salary as, due to his mismanagement, the Wild West Show plunged from one financial crisis to another. Mozee and her husband, a former sharpshooter named Frank Butler who gave up his own career to manage hers, made many attempts to break with Cody. Finally Fate took a hand: Phoebe Mozee was critically injured when Cody's special train was wrecked. She lingered on for many years, a pitiful pain- wracked shadow, until Death eventually released her in 1926. Her husband, Frank Butler, who had lovingly cared for her during her lengthy illness, and who had often declared he couldn't live without her, indeed died of grief a few days later.That, my friends, is but a flimsy precis of the true story of Annie Oakley. But it seems to me, as a writer, that anyone who couldn't weave a vividly moving play and film out of these elements, has no business writing at all! But here, instead of the real Annie Oakley and the real Buffalo Bill, we are handed a lot of raucous, garish and/or cloying clichés. The characters of Oakley and Cody are as far removed from real life as possible. I can only conclude that the writers deliberately decided to make it easy for themselves by presenting characters that were in all respects exactly opposite to the truth. The real Buffalo Bill, so beset with his own importance and glorification, was a faker and fraud on such a large scale that he managed to create a legend, despite his own breathtaking incompetence. The real Annie was demure and unassertive, uneducated yet eager to learn, unsophisticated but no fool, reticent rather than garrulous, even when poor always extremely neat and tidy in appearance, possessing a quiet assurance in her skill as a sure- shot. (Well, almost sure. One day she shot at 5,000 glass balls, tossed into the air. She missed 228 times).NOTES: The film commenced under Busby Berkeley's direction with Judy Garland in the title role and Frank Morgan as Buffalo Bill. The film closed down after Garland became ill (she had already recorded all the songs). Betty Hutton was borrowed from Paramount to replace Garland. Frank Morgan died on 18 September 1949. Louis Calhern was then brought in and shooting recommenced under George Sidney. Garland version shooting from 7 March to 21 May 1949. Hutton version shooting from 10 October to 16 December 1949, with one day of re-takes on 6 February 1950. The stage musical opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre on 16 May 1946 and ran a phenomenal 1,147 performances. Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton starred. Dolores Gray starred in the London production which did even better, running 1,304 performances.Negative cost: $3,768,785, including $1,877,528 spent on the abandoned Judy Garland version. Initial domestic gross, only $4,650,000, although placing the film equal third at the U.S./Canadian box-office for 1950, still meant that Metro was up for a whopping loss of around $3,000,000. Fortunately, overseas rentals plus a domestic re-issue in 1956-57 increased the studio's total gross return to $8,010,000.Although Conrad Salinger's orchestrations made a major contribution to the score, only Adolph Deutsch and Roger Edens were awarded the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. (Music co- coordinator Lela Simone deserved recognition too). Annie defeated Cinderella, I'll Get By, Three Little Words and West Point Story. Number 3 at U.K. ticket windows, number 7 in Australia.COMMENT: A disappointment. Too long, too talky, too loud. Betty Hutton plays the title role in a stridently raucous manner; Howard Keel, in his first American film, is a tuneful but colorless Frank Butler; and the support players tend to act with all stops out. The script would be improved by considerable trimming. It seems to go on and on, shuffling long-windedly from one dreary anti-climax to the next. The direction and other production credits are so smooth all the vitality has gone right out of them. The production numbers are staged in a dull and uninteresting fashion. Only the songs remain — and a great deal of their appeal has been whittled away by loud and cumbersome orchestrations. Maybe I'm a bit hard on this movie. I'd love to see it again. But in all the thirty-plus years that I subscribed to Turner Classic Movies, "Annie Get Your Gun" was never scheduled.