Annie
“Why any kid would want to be an orphan is beyond me.”
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.”
Though the movie didn’t perform as well as Columbia Pictures had hoped,
the studio bet its bottom dollar (figuratively) that the sun would come
out for a 1995 direct-to-video sequel, Annie: A Royal Adventure!
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