Calamity Jane

Calamity Jane is a movie that always seems to come up when lesbian subtext is being talked about, so I thought I ought to give it at least a mention here. Actually, the movie seems to me less specifically and strongly lesbian than it does just pervasively and giddily queer all round: has there ever been quite so much cross-dressing in one movie? Calamity dresses like a man, and gets winked at on the streets of Chicago by a girl who (presumably) thinks she is one. A male performer called Francis Fryer does a drag act at the Deadwood bar, for reasons I can't quite remember - and it takes the male audience a while to work out that "she" is actually a he. Even Wild Bill Hickok has to dress up like a squaw after he loses a bet with Calamity.

Everything gets 'straightened' out in the end, of course - but it's true that you could see at least a little hoyay in Calamity's initial admiring and protective attitude towards Katie, their duet 'A Woman's Touch' after moving in together, and - of course - the song 'Secret Love' that Doris belts out at the end, even if she is ostensibly singing about Bill.