Dixie

All of these reviews read like essays by high school kids competing with each other to gain the favor of their teacher who made them watch this movie, and then write an essay about how evil minstrelsy was. Extra credit for the most anti-minstrelsy.

From the synopsis I read of this movie (I haven't seen it, but I'd like to) it would appear it has almost nothing to do with the real Dan Emmett, or the real cultural environment of the country during the time period covered, so there's no point in looking to the movie for insight into minstrelsy. Instead, it appears the reviewers looked elsewhere on the web, and found the most biased, least informative stuff they could find on minstrelsy, and cut and pasted it into the reviews.

Folks, Minstrelsy was by far the most popular form of entertainment for a CENTURY in the US. Only the circus came close. Do you really think that minstrelsy was all about one thing, and it was always the same thing to the majority of the population for over a century? It is a shame that discussion of minstrelsy has been so suppressed that it has allowed these attitudes to grow up around it. Now there is a great deal of scholarly discussion, and the researchers have a sophisticated grasp of what was really going on. Most of this information hasn't trickled down to us yet.

Imagine if somebody said that all of rock music is about one thing - stealing from and making fun of blacks. Mick Jagger was aping black people to make fun of them. Some people might agree with that, but they would be wrong. Or if they said rap music is about one thing - hating whitey.

As wrong-headed as those assessments would be, it's 10 times worse about minstrelsy, which was a much bigger phenomena than rock and rap put together. Minstrelsy was about mockery, and mimicry. About admiration, and hate. it was whites pretending to be black, blacks pretending to be Chinese... there were many stock characters in minstrelsy, and everybody played everybody. Some of it was about hate and distrust, some of it was about finding a way to get along.

In 1943, they were already looking at this stuff through filters, though if Al Jolson was out of blackface by then, it was only be a little bit. Now we have different filters.

Don't take other people's word (including mine), look at it for yourself. But spend some time with it. Sure, the first thing you will see is the caricature, and it will appear it was all about degrading at hate. But the more you look, the more you will learn.

Dixie Historical Film Review A popular musical stage show of the early and mid 19th Century was minstrelsy. Minstrel shows a variety of comical skits in which both black as well as white people painted their faces black. The film Dixie, directed by A. Edward Sutherland was a story about the intertwining characters and their production of a Minstrel show, Though Minstrel shows content embodied racial hatred they were the first form of musical theatre that was American-born and bred. It was embraced by all colors despite its ignorant and obnoxious slander of African Americans.

Minstrelsy had an initial structure normally broken into a three act performance. A dance sequence was first on stage. Singing songs and preparing the audience for the second part which included a coordinate speech said by "Mr. Interlocutor". This pun-filled speech in Dixie was said by Mr. Cook, played by Raymond Walburn, while he was in the center of the stage. The final act in the show was a song almost like one slaves would sing while working at the plantation.

In the film the characters refer to African Americans as "darkies". To accomplish "blackface" performers would burned corks and painted their face black with the soot, and then extenuated their lips with red paint, with the objective to appear as black as possible. Minstrelsy typical distastefully portrayed African Americans as lazy and moronic people gallivanting around.

Though enjoyed by audiences of all colors minstrelsy began to lose popularity with the gain of social rights against racism. In the 1930's it was considered suitable portrayal of black America by White America, with blind bigotry. The film Dixie did not have African American's performing in the Minstrel show they were all white. But during this era that was acceptable and considered comic relief.

Despite the slander against African Americans culture and characteristics all races enjoyed the comedy of the Minstrel show. But the fact that audiences at that time did not speak up sooner concerning the physical appearance of the blackface actors and overall enacting of blacks, leaves one with a strong impression, truly displaying the horribly rude comments and acts going on in our society. However Dixie correctly followed the structure of minstrelsy and had an interesting plot, forcing the audience to quickly forget how inconsiderately racist the movie actually is. This helps us ultimately realize the awareness of whites view on black culture.

Paramount finally gave Bing Crosby technicolor in this 1943 film, presumably based on the life of Daniel Decatur Emmett, minstrel man and composer of many 19th century songs like Turkey in the Straw, Old Dan Tucker, and of course, Dixie.

Seeing this film today and realizing that the song Dixie is a bad reminder of slavery for Afro-Americans and that minstrel shows in and of themselves are not so subtle examples of racism the film ain't recommended by this writer. It's a pity because technically the film is flawless, good writing, directing and acting.

Crosby also sings one of his most famous movie songs, Sunday, Monday, or Always in this and the recording by Decca is an interesting story. For most of 1943 into 1944 the musicians union went on strike against the record companies. This played hell on Frank Sinatra who had just signed a contract with Columbia Records after leaving Tommy Dorsey. Bing was already established and Decca re-issued his old platters up to a point. Sunday, Monday or Always was such a mega-hit from the film that Decca got Crosby to record it with the Ken Darby Singers doing an a capella background. The flipside was If You Please also from this film. Columbia did the same thing with Sinatra for the songs from Higher and Higher. Both Crosby and Sinatra were accused of not honoring the musician's picket line and the practice was discontinued. But Sunday, Monday or Always became one of Bing's million sellers.

One incident from the film is true. The song Dixie was originally written as a slow moving ballad. But a theater orchestra had to speed up the tempo to what we know today because of a threatening theater fire. That tempo change made it a hit and the rest as they say is history.

Dixie doesn't mean to be offensive, the film was made in a different time. But offensive it is.

I would only see it if you are Crosby fan or as a historical curiosity.

Dixie is a highly fictionalized biography of Daniel Decatur Emmett who was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio and was twice married: to Catherine Rives, who died in 1875 and then to Mary Louise Bird, a widow with two daughters.

Emmett performed his first song Old Dan Tucker at the age of fifteen. He was one of four men in the "Original Virginia Minstrels," with Frank Brower. Billy Whitlock, and Dick Pelham. Emmett later performed with Bryant's Minstrels in New York and then with Leavitt's Gigantean Minstrels. Emmett wrote the song Dixie in the spring of 1859, while with Bryant's Minstrels in New York. At the beginning of the Civil War both armies marched to the tune of Dixie but by 1861 Dixie had become a Southern tune.

The movie is essentially a series of songs and 'black-face' acts. The latter, although generally considered humorous in 1943, will probably offend many viewers today.

DIXIE (Paramount, 1943), directed by A. Edward Sutherland, capitalizes on the then current trend of musical biographies of popular songwriters of the twentieth century, a cycle that appeared to have begun with the life of George M. Cohan in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (WB, 1942). Unlike this and others made during this period, DIXIE goes back a century, prior to the Civil War in fact, depicting the life of a composer named Daniel Decatur Emmett. His life-story is as unknown as his name itself. The fictional screenplay does toy with the facts before leading to the purpose of its film title, the composition that's to become Emmett's most recognizable American song of all, "Dixie." Bing Crosby, one of Hollywood's top box office attractions, is properly cast as Dan Emmett. It reunites him with HOLIDAY INN (1942) co-star, Marjorie Reynolds, and re-teams him opposite Dorothy Lamour, in her only film opposite Crosby outside from the seven "Road to" comedies all featuring Bob Hope as part of the funny trio.

Dan Emmett's life is portrayed more to the personification of Çrosby himself, that of a good-natured singer/composer whose only weakness is his forgetfulness, especially when it comes to leaving his lit up smoking pipe around that causes a fire. He is engaged to Jean Mason (Marjorie Reynolds), a beautiful blonde Southern belle whose father (Grant Mitchell) disapproves of their courtship because he feels Dan to be irresponsible and won't amount to anything. Mason's more convinced now after Dan's lit-up pipe has caused the burning and destruction of Mason's old Kentucky home. However, Mason consents to Jean's marriage only if Dan can prove himself capable by doubling his $500 life savings to $1,000 within six months. (A similar opening lifted from the more familiar Fred Astaire musical, SWING TIME, in 1936). Leaving his clerical job, Dan seeks his fortune in New Orleans. While riverboat bound, he loses all of his $500 to Mr. Bones (Billy De Wolfe), a suave actor and cardsharp. After discovering that he had been cheated, he sets out to find Mr. Bones. Instead of beating him for the return of his money, composer and actor form a partnership leading to the origins of what was to be known as a Minstrel Show. Dan, who has already encountered Millie Cook (Dorothy Lamour) at the boarding house to whom Bones and other out-of work actors (Lynne Overman and Eddie Foy Jr.) owe back rent for their lodgings to her trusting father (Raymond Walburn), finds himself in love with her, in spite that she's the aggressor who made the first move. Dan decides to return to Kentucky and break his engagement to Jean. Upon his return, Dan finds the girl he once loved to be a victim of a crippling disease, polio, that puts him in a difficult situation as to which girl he should marry, and which should get his swan song.

Oddly enough for a life-story about a composer, one would expect a handful of selections by Emmett himself, however, with the exception of "Old Dan Tucker," and "Dixie," many were by others, new ones by James Van Heusen and Johnny Burke. The motion picture soundtrack includes "Sunday, Monday or Always," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," (both sing by Bing Crosby); "Kinda Peculiar Brown" (sung/performed by Eddie Foy Jr. and Lynne Overman); "Old Dan Tucker," "The Last Rose of Summer," "She's From Missouri," "Let the Minstrel Show You How," "Kinda Peculiar Brown" (dance number); "The Horse That Knew the Way Back Home," "If You Please," "Sunday, Monday or Always," and "Dixie." While "Dixie" is the song in question, "Sunday, Monday or Always" is the film's most romantic ballad, and one of many most associated with Crosby. The Lynne Overman and Eddie Foy Jr. number early in the story is another highlight.

So is it true, as depicted on screen, that the birth of the minstrel show was due to white actors acquiring black eyes in a fight to cover up their bruises by darkening themselves up with cork? Hard to tell since minstrel shows have become part of American culture that remains to be a controversial issue. How much is true about the Mr. Bones character as portrayed by Billy DeWolfe (in his screen debut) is another issue. His amusing scenes, however, come off quite well, at best when cheating at cards, and, in a sense, tasteless, when obtaining a free meal in a restaurant by placing a cockroach in his food before being nearly finished, then complaining the "incident" to a waiter. The result to this colorful production finds Crosby satisfying, as always; Reynolds quite sympathetic; DeWolfe, Overman and Foy comical delights; with Lamour leaving a lasting impression long after the finish of the film as she joins in with other proud southerners singing to Emmett's immortal song of the south, "I wish I was in Dixie, hooray, hooray!!!" in full camera closeup.

Less dramatic than composer Stephen Foster's interpretation in SWANEE RIVER (1939), each film has benefited from its lavish Technicolor. During the sequence depicting Emmett's Virginia Minstrels as the troupe performs in an opera house to a sophisticated audience, where the song, "Dixie," is to be introduced, a patron (Norma Varden) observing the show quips about the show to be of "such poor taste." Due to extensive use of minstrel show numbers recapturing that bygone era from which this film is based, is the sole reason why DIXIE hasn't aired on television since the 1980s. A video copy, however, was obtained by a private collector from which this review is based. How DIXIE succeeds or fails if seen today depends on the individual viewer. (***)