Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley (1860-1926) is a legendary figure in the mythology of the American West, despite the fact that she was born, raised, and lived east of the Mississippi, only coming to prominence as the real Wild West was fading into history. Originally airing on PBS's American Experience series, filmmaker Riva Freifeld's Annie Oakley aims to distinguish the fact from the legend. Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey) spent a good deal of her miserable, poverty-stricken childhood being shuttled between the county poor farm and an abusive foster home; perhaps in order to escape her oppressive environment, she could often be found in the woods, honing her natural sharp shooting abilities. After she bested marksman Frank Butler in a shooting contest, the latter—who sensed that Oakley's skills and wholesome good looks could have a wide popular appeal—eventually became Oakley's manager and husband. Although she first performed in variety and vaudeville houses, the bawdy acts might have offended Oakley's Quaker modesty; in any case, her big break came when she received an offer to perform in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a roiling spectacle combining cowboys and Indians, wild animals, faked stagecoach robberies, and other mini-dramas. Sitting Bull dubbed Annie "little sure shot," and through the show she met crowned heads of Europe and saw her exploits wildly exaggerated in newspaper accounts and dime store novels. However, when a newspaper printed a false charge of larceny and drug abuse, Oakley embarked on a prolonged and ultimately successful effort to clear her name. Combining testimony from historians with rare newsreel footage, the documentary examines Oakley's role as an early feminist icon who fired the American imagination (movies hastened the end of the live spectacles, but Oakley stayed in the public eye, encouraging women to learn the use of firearms for self-protection). A colorful, informative film that hits the bull's-eye for both public and academic collections, this is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (S. Rees)