“Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, it’s only a day away!”
Famed cartoon strip character, star of radio and Broadway, Little Orphan Annie came to the big screen with an adaptation of the musical Annie.
The eternally sunshiney and incurably mischievous girl had been in movies as early as 1918, and her 1930’s – 40’s radio show was the biggest thing to hit kidsville in ages, but the moppet had been off the pop culture radar for a while before this lavish feature.
Curly redhead Annie lives in a Depression-era orphanage run by the cruel Miss Hannigan.
Annie escapes, is returned, and thanks to a local promotion, gets to be temporarily adopted by billionaire Daddy Warbucks.
The young girl warms his heart, but Miss Hannigan recruits two partners-in-crime who pretend to be Annie’s real parents.
It’s up to Warbucks, his mystical valet Punjab, dog pal Sandy and the plucky young heroine to foil Hannigan’s plot and make the world safe for orphans everywhere.
In true Broadway tradition, the action, the drama and the comedy are interwoven with frequent song and dance routines, including the orphanage ditty Hard-Knock Life and the a cappella theme, Tomorrow.
Costing over $40 million, this lavish screen version of the Broadway blockbuster had nothing going for it, and as a result, it went nowhere.
An inflated, over-produced behemoth of a show, it substituted production values for entertainment.
Furthermore, it employed a director (John Huston) whose work on the film indicated that he had never directed a musical before, and also that he had no feeling for the genre whatsoever.
A catalogue of squandered opportunities, it wasted the considerable talents of the unmusical Albert Finney (miscast as Daddy Warbucks), Carol Burnett (as Miss Hannigan), Bernadette Peters (as Lily), Tim Curry (as Rooster), and especially Ann Reinking as Grace.
Newcomer Aileen Quinn played the coveted central role with a commendable lack of precocity, and it was hardly her fault that the production surrounding her just sat there like a piece of very expensive upholstered furniture.
The producer of this wasted opportunity was Ray Stark, and despite box office grosses of $60 million, Annie barely earned enough to cover its expensive budget.
The studio bet its bottom dollar (figuratively) that the sun would come out for a 1995 direct-to-video sequel, Annie: A Royal Adventure!
Annie
Aileen Quinn
Daddy Warbucks
Albert Finney
Miss Hannigan
Carol Burnett
Grace Farrell
Ann Reinking
Rooster Hannigan
Tim Curry
Lilly
Bernadette Peters
Punjab
Geoffrey Holder
Asp
Roger Minami
Molly
Toni Ann Gisondi
Pepper
Rosanne Sorrentino
Tessie
Lara Berk
Kate
April Lerman
Duffy
Robin Ignico
July
Lucie Stewart
FDR
Edward Herrmann
You May Also Like
Miller's Crossing (1990) Albert Finney chews his tongue and locks his jaw as Leo, an Irish mobster who controls…
Man Called Horse, A (1970) English Lord John Morgan (Richard Harris) is hunting in the Dakotas in 1825 when he is…
Hombre (1967) Paul Newman appeared in quite a few Western films, and here he stars as the white…
Alfie (1966) "I think if you were to spend all your time with birds, you'd begin to feel…
Annie Get Your Gun (1950) This Technicolor outdoor song and dance extravaganza is a flashy film version of the Broadway hit…
Mod Fuck Explosion (1994) In this anarchic, low-budget fever dream of a film, a violent feud erupts between two subcultural…
*Batteries Not Included (1987) The presence of distinguished real-life husband and wife Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy makes this saccharine-sodden…
Alice In Wonderland (1951) Having acquired the rights to the Tenniel drawings in the 1930s, Walt Disney hoped to star…
