Famous singer Adelaid Adams (Gale Robbins) is in Chicago, about to be brought to town by Calamity Jane (Day). Wild Bill Hickok (Keel) laughs at the idea and tells Calamity that the night Adams steps on stage, he will come to the opening dressed as a Sioux squaw lugging a papoose.
Calamity travels to Chicago, where Adams is giving a farewell performance (just before heading to Europe. Disenchanted with the ‘primitive’ Chicago, Adelaide gives the costumes to her maid, Katie Brown (Allyn McLerie), who dreams of becoming a singer. Katie tries on one of the dresses and starts to sing. When Calamity walks in, she mistakes Katie for Adelaid, and the former poses as Adelaid so that she could fulfill her dream. Soon a special friendship develops between the feminine femme and the butch one (Day, sans makeup, wearing chaps and boots, with her hair pulled back).
Cast
Doris Day as Calamity Jane
Howard Keel as Wild Bill Hickok
Allyn Ann McLerie as Katie Brown
Philip Carey as Lt. Daniel Gilmartin
Dick Wesson as Francis Fryer
Paul Harvey as Henry Miller
Chubby Johnson as Rattlesnake
Gale Robbins as Adelaid Adams