7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Calamity Jane is as hard-riding, boastful, and handy with a gun as any man in Deadwood. One of Jane's boasts brings her to Chicago to recruit an actress for the Golden Garter stage. The lady appears to be a more feminine rival for the favors of Jane's male friends...including her friendly enemy, Wild Bill Hickok.
Starring: Doris Day, Howard Keel, Allyn Ann McLerie, Philip Carey, Dick WessonMusical | 100% |
Comedy | 44% |
Western | 22% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono (Spain)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
For anyone who watched HBO's Deadwood, the name "Calamity Jane" should conjure up an image of the foul-mouthed, mud-caked, perpetually hungover layabout portrayed by Robin Weigert, whose only trace of femininity showed in an occasional glimpse of sympathy for the other women in town. She knew and admired Keith Carradine's Wild Bill Hickok, but they weren't exactly the best of friends. This isn't that Calamity Jane. It isn't even that Deadwood. You won't find local tavern owner Al Swearingen cursing up a storm while scheming against his enemies and presiding over a stable of whores, although this 1953 film is just as politically incorrect, for entirely different reasons. No, this version of Calamity Jane (or "Calam", as everyone calls her) is strictly G-rated, even though the film predates the current MPAA system. She's played by Doris Day, she sings and dances (both beautifully), and Bill Hickok is one of her closest friends—and much more, as anyone who knows the tropes of romantic comedy can spot in an instant. Both the saloon and the town in which this version of Calamity tells her tall tales look much cleaner and well-kept than the one portrayed on cable TV half a century later. In fact, they look an awful lot like Hollywood soundstages straight from the formula "oaters" cranked out as B-pictures throughout the Forties and Fifties, right down to the generic Native Americans in feathers and war paint. Calamity Jane was Warner's response to MGM's successful 1950 musical, Annie Get Your Gun, loosely based on the life of Annie Oakley. Warner was savvy enough to hire Annie's male lead, Howard Keel, to star as Wild Bill Hickok in Calamity, and the film succeeded on the pairing of Keel and Doris Day, winning an Oscar for the song "Secret Love" by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, which became a hit recording for Day. She later said that Calamity Jane was her favorite of her screen roles.
Shot by Wilfred M. Cline, whose credits include everything from Lullaby of Broadway to The Tingler, Calamity Jane has been remastered by Warner's on-site facility, MPI, for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which features a rock-solid, fully resolved and detailed image. Colors are exceptionally vibrant and bright, so that, e.g., the transformation wrought on Jane's dusty wreck of a cabin during "A Woman's Touch" is particularly striking. Doris Day's pearly whites, brighter and shinier than any that could have existed on the Western frontier, gleam as she sings, and individual faces in the often raucous audience at the Golden Garter are readily discernible. Even in the obvious day-for-night sequences, detail remains impressive. The grain pattern is fine and film-like without any trace of artificial sharpening. With limited extras, all in standard definition, Warner has placed the 101-minute film on a BD-25, with an average bitrate of 21.93. The black pillarbox bars are a benefit, and the compressionist appears to have allocated bits appropriately to avoid any artifacts.
The film's original mono soundtrack has been encoded as lossless DTS-HD MA 1.0, and it sounds remarkably good: clean, clear, free of noise and distortion, with both dialogue and lyrics easily intelligible. The orchestra does not have the presence or dynamic range that one would experience with either a stereo or a multi-channel recording, but neither does it sound distant or tinny. For the era, this is a fine reproduction.
The newsreels and trailer have been ported over from Warner's 2005 DVD of Calamity Jane. The "Joe McDoakes" short and "Merrie Melody" have been added for Blu-ray.
Calamity Jane will not cure musical-haters of their allergy to the genre. It's a classic example that relies so heavily on musical theater conventions that you almost expect to catch a glimpse of a conductor beating time near the bottom of the frame. Anyone who cast Doris Day in a film understood her appeal as a singer. Even Alfred Hitchcock was savvy enough to have her sing "Que Sera Sera" in The Man Who Knew Too Much. Her portrayal of "Calam" may not be historically accurate (is anyone's?), but it's Ms. Day at her most winning. For fans, Warner's Blu-ray is highly recommended.
1953
1953
Warner Archive Collection
1946
1995
Warner Archive Collection
1950
Warner Archive Collection
1948
1982
70th Anniversary Edition
1952
1969
1966
Warner Archive Collection
1940
1964
1966
1945
1935
1934
Fox Studio Classics
1969
Warner Archive Collection
1957
Warner Archive Collection
1949
1955