Annie Oakley (1860-1926)born in dire poverty and without spending one day in a school room, became one of the great feminist icons of all time. Talk about taking a man on in his game and beating him. It was not press agent ballyhoo about her prowess as a rifle shot. This romanticized biographical film captures the essence of her character and her love for the guy she dethroned as shooting champion.<br /><br />In some spots of the film you can practically drop the songs that Irving Berlin was later to write for his hit show about Annie. But we get a different picture of Frank Butler than in Annie Get Your Gun. Butler is not even Butler, he's Toby Wheeler as played by Preston Foster. He's a kid from the mean streets of New York City who learned his sharpshooting in the shooting galleries on the Bowery. He doesn't near and endear himself to the westerners working at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. In fact they hate Foster so much that whatever qualms they had about Annie being a member of the female sex the crew gets over real fast.<br /><br />Barbara Stanwyck captures the real Annie if not in height in spirit. The real Ms. Oakley was barely five feet tall, but by all accounts she was a modest retiring type who never forgot where she came from. She was not as raucous as Ethel Merman on stage and later Betty Hutton on screen portrayed her. She let her shooting speak for her. <br /><br />Melvyn Douglas has the third lead as William F. Cody's business partner Jeff Hogarth. Melvyn usually lost the girl to bigger name players though he was always a gentleman as he is here. Personally I wish he had done better in this film especially.<br /><br />Annie Oakley is a nice film, not as well known as the musical later derived from her life, but still easy to take with good players at their best.