Review: Calamity Jane (1953)

Today I've decided to review one of the late, great Doris Day's films. So obviously I picked my favourite of her films 😃

Calamity Jane is a 1953 musical loosely (very loosely) based on the life of the historical Calamity Jane, involving a probably-fictitious romance with Wild Bill Hickok. It was adapted into a 1961 stage musical of the same name.

I only recognised the main two actors:
Doris Day (Jo in The Man Who Knew Too Much 1956) as Calamity Jane
Howard Keel (Adam Pontipee in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) as Wild Bill Hickok

A lot of musicals start with a memorable opening song. This is no exception: it starts with "The Deadwood Stage", which is both extremely memorable and pretty funny. Calamity's snippy remarks about different people always make me laugh, especially when she says someone stole his clothes from a washing line 😆

We're introduced to Calamity Jane herself, a not entirely honest braggart with a high opinion of herself; Wild Bill Hickok, "the man the sheriff watches" who isn't too impressed with Calamity; Danny Gilmartin, a lieutenant who Calamity thinks loves her; and Francis Fryer, an actor who (thanks to a misunderstanding about the spelling of his name) is believed to be a woman, and who reluctantly has to pretend to be a woman. Said pretense is, shall we say, unconvincing 😆 It sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Calamity bringing a woman she thinks is a famous actress to perform in Deadwood. Turns out the "famous actress" is actually the actress's maid, Katie Brown. Hilarity ensues, of course.

Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok
(I tried to find a better picture, but these ones made me laugh the most, so I decided to use them.)

Calamity and Katie
(I admit, I only chose this picture because of Katie's hat. I'm not entirely sure it's a hat and not a bird that decided to land on her head.)

The story is very silly, but it makes up for that by being genuinely funny and having catchy songs. My favourite song is probably "Just Blew in From the Windy City", for Calamity tap-dancing as much as for the song itself... and for the whole song being filmed with very few cuts. It must have taken so much practice and effort to get that right!

For years this musical has been one of my favourites. I definitely recommend it if you want plenty of laughs, and don't mind implausible plots!

Is it available online?: Yes, on ok.ru.

Rating: 8/10.