Calamity Jane (1953) -

A silly little musical that is somehow both a riff on the legend of Calamity Jane and a vehicle for Doris Day. Day, never much known for her ability as a character actress, goes all out in the title role, twitching and snarling and "mispronunciating" words and speechifyin' like a polecat with a toothache. Or something like that. The narrative scenario is fairly simple: The saloon in Deadwood needs a female headliner and Day's Calamity jaunts to Chicago to retrieve a pretty actress. Katie, the girl she returns to Deadwood, however, is an actress's maid, with great dreams of a life on the stage but little talent. Calamity defends Katie's right to dream and the two end up sharing Calamity's run down shack, which they "prettify" with "A Woman's Touch." Some run-of-the-mill romantic intrigue manifests once Calamity gets pretty and it seems that the course of true love threatens to ruin Calamity and Katie's friendship. Ultimately, the right girl matches with the right boy, Katie and Calamity reestablish their friendship, and the whole thing ends in a double-wedding. The end. The whole thing is a nearly negligible mid50s musical diversion but for two things: 1) Doris Day's formidable charm and 2) the undeniably queer relationship between Calamity and Katie. Calamity's the butch and Katie's the femme and the narrative depends upon their mutual connection, despite the heterosexualizing alibis of the male paramours (Howard Keel's Buffalo Bill and Philip Cary's Lieutenant). Allyn McLerie (known previously to me mostly as Mr Carlson's devoted wife Carmen on WKRP in Cincinnati) makes it clear that she prioritizes her relationship with Calamity above all others. Their first scene -- in which Day's Calamity stares and comments upon Katie's/McLerie's exposed flesh with unapologetic fascination and awe, in which McLerie's Katie mistakes Day/Calamity for a man and relaxes with flirtatious fascination once she discovers that Calamity's a woman -- is perhaps the most delightful distillation of lesbian pleasure I know in a musical from this era. The potential for queer readings are run throughout this film, from the dolled up dame who flirts with Calamity on the streets of Chicago to the dandyish Lieutenant to the drag/travesty number by the mildly effeminate performer who first takes the stage in Deadwood. Yet the most powerful evocation of the narrative's queerness comes in the musical's final number when Doris Day sings the Oscar-winning song, "Secret Love" -- one of the most poignant and palpably queer ballads I know. Yeah yeah, the ladies get married off to the men in the end -- but note how the moment of true reconciliation and emotional actualization comes when Calamity stops Katie's stagecoach from leaving Deadwood. The romantic, emotional and erotic core of this silly little musical is invested in the Katie/Calamity relationship and the pleasures of it are delightful. (A butch/femme romance complete with a shared musical interlude in which the two women revel in each other's company, titled -- of all things -- "A Woman's Touch". The lyrics of the song may be an ode to conventional feminine domesticity but the notion of the number: two women setting up a household together while singing to one another about the pleasures of "A Woman's Touch" --- delicious oblique lesbian pleasures if you ask me.) It's not a remarkable film, but the lesbian possibilities implicit in its narrative scenario remain a curious delight.