Originally posted August 11, 2008. Last updated September 2, 2018.
Annie Get Your Gun (cast/soundtrack)Irving Berlin (composer) |
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Opened on Broadway: May 16, 1946 Cast Album Released: July 8, 1946 Soundtrack Charted: June 10, 1950
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Review: “Irving Berlin came from the old school of Broadway songwriters who did not write songs specifically for characters and plot points, but rather as independent numbers in shows that were more revues than book musicals per se.” WR-C However, when Jerome Kern died suddenly, Berlin was able to adapt and develop Dorothy and Herbert Fields’ Annie Oakley musical “in the spirit of integrated musicals that producers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had established with Oklahoma! only three years before.” WR-C “Berlin’s songs for Annie Get Your Gun were all about character and plot, from the bawdy Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly, in which Annie affirms the value of a common-sense barnyard education, to the witty Anything You Can Do, which illuminates her final confrontation and reconciliation with love interest Frank Butler. Ordinarily, that should have meant that the songs were less easy to extract for the hit parade, but in fact Berlin’s score produced more chart hits through cover versions than any Broadway score before or since.” WR-C “Oklahoma! had also established the popularity of original cast albums, and only ten days after the…Broadway opening, star Ethel Merman was in a recording studio with other members of the stage production to record 12 songs from the show…For reasons not yet explained, second leads Betty Ann Nyman and Kenny Bowers were not present, and for the recording of their duet Who Do You Love, I Hope?, they were replaced by Robert Lenn and Kathleen Carnes.” WR-C “Merman and her co-star Ray Middleton were Broadway veterans of the pre-microphone era, experts at projecting their voices from the footlights to the rear balcony, and their stage styles carried over to the recording.” WR-C “Merman, of course, possessed a clarion voice that was never better represented than in songs like ‘Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly’ and I Got the Sun in the Morning, while Middleton’s sonorous baritone informed The Girl That I Marry and My Defenses Are Down. And when the two got together on They Say It’s Wonderful and especially ‘Anything You Can Do,’ the belting reached near-bellow status.” WR-C “But that isn’t to say the songs, crafted for the performers, didn’t support their interpretations. Berlin wrote simply and directly, his jokes broad, his emotions direct, and the singers hit his meanings as surely as they did his notes. The result was exactly what a cast album should be, an accurate representation of the music of a show. And since this show was a landmark in Broadway history, that made the cast album an important contribution to musical history as well as an aural delight.” WR-C Four years after the musical, Annie Get Your Gun was turned into a movie. A third of the songs were dropped, but ten remained, including ‘Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,’ There’s No Business Like Show Business, and ‘Anything You Can Do.’ WR-S MGM initially planned for Judy Garland, its biggest musical star, to step into Ethel Merman’s shoes. However, “her erratic behavior caused her to be suspended from the studio and the production to be shut down until Hutton was borrowed from Paramount.” WR-S “Betty Hutton brought her usual energy and effervescence to her portrayal, and Howard Keel, in his first major movie role, gave her strong support. The result was one of the biggest box-office hits of 1950.” WR-S
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