Annie

A precocious orphan (Aileen Quinn) thaws the heart of a millionaire (Albert Finney) only to attract the attention of an orphanage manager (Carol Burnett) and her scheming brother (Tim Curry).

Annie doesn’t seem like a John Huston movie. The director was 75 years old when filming began and hadn’t made a single musical in his forty years behind the camera. Yet, watching the film you can still see his influence, if only in Albert Finney’s Daddy Warbucks character. Finney’s Warbucks is easily the film’s highlight, as he gets all the good lines and plays the role, more or less, as an imitation of Huston himself.

The rest of the film is passable. The sets and production are top notch and the songs are catchy enough not to drag the film to a halt. Aileen Quinn, an unknown selected from a nationwide talent search, stumbles early in an awkward scene involving some street hoods, but she grows on you by the film’s end. Carol Burnett and Tim Curry are fine, but you get the sense that Huston didn’t really know how to use them.

Annie isn’t a great film, but it’s not an awful one either. That said, given that the producers paid almost 10 million dollars in 1978 for the film rights, it’s something of a disappointment.