Directed by George Stevens, with a story by Joseph Fields and Ewart Adamson that was adapted by Joel Sayre and John Twist, this biographical Western drama about the famous sharpshooting woman features Barbara Stanwyck in the title role.
Preston Foster plays Toby Walker, another "hot shot" that's Annie's rival and "on again, off again" love interest. Melvyn Douglas plays Jeff Hogarth, their agent and business partner of "Buffalo Bill" Cody (Moroni Olsen), whose Wild West road show serves as the backdrop for most of the film's action. Chief Thunderbird plays Sitting Bull, another attraction of the show which brought authentic Western "culture" - trick shooting, horseback riding, cattle roping, cowboys & Indians, and other rodeo type action - to the Eastern United States and even the Kings & Queens of Europe et al.
Others in the cast include Pert Kelton as Vera Delmar, a former love interest of Walker's, Andy Clyde as Cincinnati hotel proprietor James MacIvor, where Annie was "discovered", and Delmar Watson, who appears briefly as Annie's little brother Wesley. Additionally, actors appearing uncredited include Willie Best as a cook, Iron Eyes Cody as Sitting Bull's interpreter, and Dick Elliott as Major Ned Buntline, one of the show's other talent agents.
The story is fictionalized: detailing the discovery of the backwoods teenage girl who could shoot flying pigeons in the head so as to not ruin them for consumption, her competition with sure shot world champion Frank Butler, dubbed Walker in the film, at MacIvor's (really Jack Frost's) hotel (ladies weren't supposed to be able to do the things that men could, back then; they weren't even allowed to enter a saloon), her signing with Buffalo Bill's traveling show, meeting Indian Chief Sitting Bull (who dubbed her "Watanya cicilia" or "Little Sure Shot"), and the chow's European tour.
Though this film doesn't have Annie and Toby marry (as she did Frank in real life, and in the musical Annie Get Your Gun (1950) with Betty Hutton and Howard Keel), it does end on a particularly happy note.
Preston Foster plays Toby Walker, another "hot shot" that's Annie's rival and "on again, off again" love interest. Melvyn Douglas plays Jeff Hogarth, their agent and business partner of "Buffalo Bill" Cody (Moroni Olsen), whose Wild West road show serves as the backdrop for most of the film's action. Chief Thunderbird plays Sitting Bull, another attraction of the show which brought authentic Western "culture" - trick shooting, horseback riding, cattle roping, cowboys & Indians, and other rodeo type action - to the Eastern United States and even the Kings & Queens of Europe et al.
Others in the cast include Pert Kelton as Vera Delmar, a former love interest of Walker's, Andy Clyde as Cincinnati hotel proprietor James MacIvor, where Annie was "discovered", and Delmar Watson, who appears briefly as Annie's little brother Wesley. Additionally, actors appearing uncredited include Willie Best as a cook, Iron Eyes Cody as Sitting Bull's interpreter, and Dick Elliott as Major Ned Buntline, one of the show's other talent agents.
The story is fictionalized: detailing the discovery of the backwoods teenage girl who could shoot flying pigeons in the head so as to not ruin them for consumption, her competition with sure shot world champion Frank Butler, dubbed Walker in the film, at MacIvor's (really Jack Frost's) hotel (ladies weren't supposed to be able to do the things that men could, back then; they weren't even allowed to enter a saloon), her signing with Buffalo Bill's traveling show, meeting Indian Chief Sitting Bull (who dubbed her "Watanya cicilia" or "Little Sure Shot"), and the chow's European tour.
Though this film doesn't have Annie and Toby marry (as she did Frank in real life, and in the musical Annie Get Your Gun (1950) with Betty Hutton and Howard Keel), it does end on a particularly happy note.