Search - Various Artists :: Annie Get Your Gun: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Re-release of 1950 Film)

CD Less than DVD

Grandcosmo | Pasadena, CA | 03/14/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Anyone who says that Judy Garland would have been better than Betty Hutton in the role of Annie Oakley either didn't see the outtakes of Garland (looking wan and in a terrible fright wig) or saw something that wasn't there. At that time in her life Judy Garland would not have brought to the role anything approaching the energy and vitality that Hutton brings to it.That said, Garland does manage to do a better job on some of the ballads than Hutton ("They Say Its Wonderful", "Let's Go West Again"). What is amazing is that Hutton sounds as good as she does on the soundtrack because she recorded all of the songs in a single day! Overall though Betty Hutton is fantastic and her performance can't be judged on the soundtrack alone, unlike Garland she stayed in character and sang her numbers in the character's voice and that makes a big difference in the film. Hutton's greatness in the role is all on the screen.Overall the sound quality of the CD is not nearly as good as the DVD. I agree that the sound quality on Garland's numbers is generally clearer than on the Hutton numbers. Particularly Hutton's "You Can't Get A Man With A Gun" which sounds tinny and distant on the CD while in the film it is a showstopper (Robert Osborne on TCM said that when he saw the film in Seattle the audience broke into loud applause in the movie theater after that number).See the film for evidence of Hutton's wonderful performance."

Anything You Can Do, real time

Peter Shelley | Sydney, New South Wales Australia | 08/14/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Although considered by some to be the great Broadway musical, the controversy over the film version with Judy Garland being replaced by Betty Hutton and both vocals being available arguably adds a lot to the show's legacy, with two vocals of the same songs with practically the same arrangements and orchestrations. One may take umbrance at the accusations made against Garland in the producer's notes written by George Feltenstein, but the reasons for her replacement are here beside the point. Clearly the Garland vocals were thought to have some value, apart from being part of Garland's catalogue, otherwise they would have ended up being destroyed as were her production stills by MGM, Feltenstein advises. The value of Garland's vocals also goes against the myth that they were supposedly wretched.
What is obvious from the outset is that Garland is a better singer than Hutton, but in spite of Irving Berlin's fondness for Garland, one is still left with a doubt about her as Annie Oakley. It is said that besides her poor health, she was having trouble with characterisation, not helped by giving her Busby Berkelely as director. The shadow of Ethel Merman loomed largely over the role, something which added to Garland's well known insecurities, and in one sense Hutton's casting works better for the part. But as there are echoes of Merman in Hutton, so are there also echoes of Garland in Hutton, and Merman in Garland.
Naturally Hutton cannot compete with Garland on the ballads. Hutton is particularly bad on They Say It's Wonderful, which is left as the film's loveliest song, as Moonshine Lullaby and I Got Lost in his Arms were cut for the film. Garland here conveys a tenderness, with the trademark throb in her voice, which made her untouchable at MGM. Hutton's Let's Go West Again is passable but tellingly an outtake, and her faux breakdown in the reprise of The Girl That I Marry is evidence of the difference between performers - Hutton pushes her "vulnerabilty" whereas Garland waits and breaks on her last note, as if she will leave the camera to see her breakdown in her acting. In the livelier songs, Garland is also surprisingly better than Hutton. In Anything You Can Do, Garland is funnier, and even in I'm an Indian Too, which is thought of as Garland's weakest vocal, Hutton does not do better. There are a few touches that Hutton makes in Doin' What Comes Natur'lly, eg her hillbilly accent, her deliberate staccato phrasing, and her impression of "sister Sal" and her singing "off key" that Garland doesn't attempt, but this again can be attributed to Hutton's obviousness and Garland's reticent tactic. Apart from the Hutton/Garland tracks, it is good to hear Frank Morgan in the original recording of There's No Business Like Show Business, with Garland's counter vocal, and interesting to see how Howard Keel's The Girl That I Marry, the original unused and re-recorded with new arrangment, whilst his original My Defences are Down was kept.
Arthur Freed bought Annie Get Your Gun for Garland, envisioning it to be as landmark to her career as The Wizard of Oz and Meet Me in St Louis. Perhaps in better health and with a director more suited to her sensitivities, he may have been right, but it would have been a different Annie Oakley to Merman's, and certainly to Hutton's. Although Hutton had a success with the film, the legal blockage to it's continued screening, presumably by Berlin over his objections to Garland being replaced, did have an effect on her career. Perhaps one can see what happened to Garland as a kind of theatrical curse, for her removal from the film would ultimately lead to the end of her sustained film career, something which makes her vocals here doubly haunting."