Cattle Annie and Little Britches | |
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Directed by | Lamont Johnson |
Written by | David Eyre Robert Ward |
Based on | Cattle Annie and Little Britches by Robert Ward |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Larry Pizer |
Edited by | William Haugse |
Music by | Sahn Berti Tom Slocum |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $534,816 |
Cattle Annie and Little Britches is a 1981 American Western film starring Burt Lancaster, John Savage, Rod Steiger, Diane Lane, and Amanda Plummer, based on the lives of two adolescent girls in late 19th-century Oklahoma Territory, who became infatuated with the Western outlaws they had read about in Ned Buntline's stories, and left their homes to join the criminals. It was scripted by David Eyre and Robert Ward from Ward's book, and directed by Lamont Johnson.
The outlaws the girls find are the demoralized remnants of the "Doolin-Dalton gang", led by an historically inaccurately aged Bill Doolin. Anna Emmaline McDoulet, or Cattle Annie, shames and inspires the men to become what she had imagined them to be. The younger sister (but historically not a relative) Jennie Stevens or Little Britches (Diane Lane) finds a father figure in Doolin, who in the story line coined her nickname "Little Britches". Doolin's efforts to live up to the girls' vision of him lead him to be carted off in a cage to an Oklahoma jail, where he waits to be hanged. With the help of the girls and the gang, Doolin escapes and rides off to safety with his men. The girls are triumphant, but they cannot escape Marshal Bill Tilghman and are sent back East to the reformatory in Framingham, Massachusetts.
During production, Lancaster collapsed from a bile duct blockage. According to his daughter, Joanna, who was on set, they returned to Los Angeles and an ambulance met them at the airport. It was 105 °F (41 °C) in temperature, and the ambulance broke down on the way to the hospital. "He got out and pushed,” she recalled. “I couldn’t get him to behave.” [1]
The film was favorably reviewed by the critic Pauline Kael in The New Yorker . "The cinematography [by Larry Pizer] is vivid … the colors are strikingly crisp and intense. The dialogue and most of the incidents have a neat, dry humor. It's a wonderful, partly true story … there are some wonderful performances. As Bill Doolin, Lancaster (who made the film before Atlantic City ) is a gent surrounded by louts — a charmer. When he talks to his gang, he uses the lithe movements and the rhythmic, courtly delivery that his Crimson Pirate had when he told his boys to gather round. In his scenes with Diane Lane, the child actor who appeared in New York in several of Andrei Serban's stage productions, and who single handedly made the film A Little Romance almost worth seeing, Lancaster has an easy tenderness that is never overdone. Lancaster looks happy in the movie and still looks tough: it's an unbeatable combination. Young Amanda Plummer gives a scarily brilliant performance". [2]
Variety Magazine called it "as cutesy and unmemorable as its title". The review criticizes the distanced visual style of director Lamont Johnson, and that as a result "the film washes over the viewer, with no images or moments sticking in the mind." [3] Tom Hutchinson of the Radio Times gave the film 3 out of 5 stars. [4] Matt Brunson of Film Frenzy reviewed the film in 2020, and rated it 2.5 out of 4. He wrote: "The film has been hailed in some quarters as a buried treasure, yet while it bears a certain measure of charm, it isn't quite as accomplished as its reputation might suggest." [5]
Cattle Annie and Little Britches was released for the first time on DVD and Blu-ray by KL Studio Classics on April 14, 2020. [6]
Burton Stephen Lancaster was an American actor. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in films and television series. He was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and he also won two BAFTA Awards and one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
Rodney Stephen Steiger was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. Ranked as "one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars", he is closely associated with the art of method acting, embodying the characters he played, which at times led to clashes with directors and co-stars. He starred as Marlon Brando's mobster brother Charley in On the Waterfront (1954), the title character Sol Nazerman in The Pawnbroker (1964) which won him the Silver Bear for Best Actor, and as police chief Bill Gillespie opposite Sidney Poitier in the film In the Heat of the Night (1967) which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Lee Ann Remick was an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film Days of Wine and Roses (1962) and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role in Wait Until Dark (1966). She also earned seven Emmy Award nominations.
Diane Keaton is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two Emmy Awards. She was honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 2007 and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017.
Diane Lane is an American actress. She made her motion picture debut in George Roy Hill's 1979 film A Little Romance. She had already been professionally acting on stage since the age of 6. Later she acted in the movies Streets of Fire (1984) and The Cotton Club (1984). Lane returned to acting to appear in The Big Town, Lady Beware and western miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989), for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. Lane earned further recognition for her role in A Walk on the Moon (1999), for which she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. This was followed by several film roles of varying degrees of success such as My Dog Skip, The Perfect Storm, The Glass House, and Hardball.
The Dalton Gang was a group of outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. It was also known as The Dalton Brothers because four of its members were brothers. The gang specialized in bank and train robberies. During an attempted double bank robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892, two of the brothers and two other gang members were killed; Emmett Dalton survived, was captured, and later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, although he later asserted that he never fired a shot during the robbery. He was paroled after serving 14 years in prison.
The Wild Bunch, also known as the Doolin–Dalton Gang, or the Oklahombres, were a gang of American outlaws based in the Indian Territory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were active in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Territory during the 1890s—robbing banks and stores, holding up trains, and killing lawmen. They were also known as The Oklahoma Long Riders because of the long dusters that they wore.
William Doolin was an American bandit outlaw and founder of the Wild Bunch, sometimes known as the Doolin-Dalton Gang. Like the earlier Dalton Gang alone, it specialized in robbing banks, trains, and stagecoaches in Arkansas, Kansas, Indiana, and Oklahoma during the 1890s.
Amanda Michael Plummer is an American actress. She is known for her work on stage and for her film roles, including Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), The Fisher King (1991), Pulp Fiction (1994), and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013). Plummer won a Tony Award in 1982 for her performance in Agnes of God. She most recently appeared in the third season of Star Trek: Picard (2023).
Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr. a.k.a. Ned Buntline, was an American publisher, journalist, and writer.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is a 1957 American Western film starring Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday, and loosely based on the actual event in 1881. The film was directed by John Sturges from a screenplay written by novelist Leon Uris. It was a remake of the 1939 film Frontier Marshall starring Randolph Scott and of John Ford's 1946 film My Darling Clementine.
Noah Lindsey Beery was an American actor often specializing in warm, friendly character roles similar to many portrayed by his Oscar-winning uncle, Wallace Beery. Unlike his more famous uncle, however, Beery Jr. seldom broke away from playing supporting roles. Active as an actor in films or television for well over half a century, he was best known for playing James Garner's character's father, Joseph "Rocky" Rockford, in the NBC television series The Rockford Files (1974–1980). His father, Noah Beery, enjoyed a similarly lengthy film career as an extremely prominent supporting actor in major films, although the elder Beery was also frequently a leading man during the silent film era.
Dan Clifton (1865–1896?), known as Dynamite Dan or Dynamite Dick, was an American Old West outlaw and member of the Doolin Gang.
William Matthew Tilghman Jr. was a career lawman, gunfighter, and politician in Kansas and Oklahoma during the late 19th century. Tilghman was a Dodge City city marshal in the early 1880s and played a role in the Kansas County Seat Wars. In 1889 he moved to Oklahoma where he acquired several properties during a series of land rushes. While serving as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Oklahoma, he gained recognition for capturing the notorious outlaw Bill Doolin and helping to track and kill the other members of Doolin's gang, which made him famous as one of Oklahoma's "Three Guardsmen".
Mail Order Bride is a 1964 American Western comedy film directed by Burt Kennedy and starring Buddy Ebsen, Keir Dullea and Lois Nettleton. The screenplay concerns an old man who pressures the wild son of a dead friend into marrying a mail-order bride in an attempt to settle him down.
The Pawnbroker is a 1964 American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sánchez and Morgan Freeman in his feature film debut. The screenplay was an adaptation by Morton S. Fine and David Friedkin from the 1961 novel of the same name by Edward Lewis Wallant.
Anna Emmaline McDoulet, known as Cattle Annie, was a young American outlaw in the American Old West, most associated with Jennie Stevens, or Little Britches. Their exploits are known in part through the fictional film Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981), directed by Lamont Johnson and starring Amanda Plummer in her film debut as Cattle Annie, with Diane Lane as Little Britches.
Little Britches was an outlaw in the American Old West associated with Cattle Annie. Their exploits are fictionalized in the 1981 film Cattle Annie and Little Britches, directed by Lamont Johnson and starring Diane Lane as Little Britches.
The Doolins of Oklahoma is a 1949 American Western film directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Randolph Scott, George Macready and Louise Allbritton. It was distributed by Columbia Pictures.