Tag Archives: Betty Hutton

Annie Get Your Gun 1950

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Metro Goldwyn Mayer

Pull! It’s a Technicolor musical extravaganza, featuring Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show — which happily for us, traveled by train back in the day. Annie Oakley (played by Betty Hutton) and Frank Butler (played by Howard Keel) star as a pair of sharpshooters which is based on a true story.

According to Larry Jensen’s “Hollywood’s Railroads, Volume One”, MGM used their ex-Virginia & Truckee 4-4-0 #11 (The Reno) for studio train scenes. Unfortunately, the editors saw fit to only give a glimpse (see above) of Reno’s TENDER with “Transcontinental & Western” script lettering – concentrating instead on a string of bright yellow coaches.

Other train scenes utilized a model train for the credits (see top) and lifted footage of Sierra Railroad #18 directly out of Dodge City 1939 (see bottom).

A well-lit broadside of ATSF #18 (Sierra #18) 2-8-0 Baldwin 1906 pedaling furiously along. Close ups of this engine were used as bridging shots in Annie Get Your Gun.

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The Greatest Show on Earth 1952

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Paramount Pictures

The circus traveled by rail as demonstrated in Cecil B. DeMille’s Technicolor masterpiece of 1952. Winning the Oscar for Best Picture, this is the film that made Charlton Heston a star.

For this review, I concentrated on circus scenes that had trains in the background. Some highlights include an Atlantic Coast Line (ACL) steam locomotive and caboose, a Pennsy GG-1 electric and a elaborately-detailed scale model of the two circus trains.

Our review begins 19 minutes into the movie as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus (RBandB&B) prepares to leave its Winter Quarters in Sarasota, Florida.

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It took hundreds, if not thousands of people to operate the circus. As wagons of equipment are loaded piggyback-style on the left, performers and support staff prepare to board the passenger train on the right.

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