Dixie
               
Director: A. Edward Sutherland
Year:  1943
Rating: 5.0

Please don't send the PC police to my door. I had no idea what this film was going to be about other than it starred Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour without Bob Hope getting in the middle of them for a change. It turned out to have more blackface than a party at a Virginia frat house. Imagine Der Bingle in blackface and an afro wig. Not a pretty sight. In 1943 of course this didn't raise an eyebrow among the white movie goers, but it is a different story now and I can't imagine it gets a lot of play on TV. Now you can look at this film through another lens if you wish - a historical one because it is in fact based on a real person. Dan Emmett. Not that the film even comes close to being historically accurate except for the high level basics - Emmett was the first person to form an entirely blackface minstrel show in 1843 and he wrote one of the more famous songs ever - but again not one that is politically correct any more in parts of the country - but loved in other parts - Dixie.



Emmett was a northerner and his minstrel group played primarily in the north where it was very popular - as opposed to the film where it all takes place in New Orleans. Minstrel shows had began decades before but initially only had a performer or two in black face who were the butt of jokes or caricature. One of the most famous characters was named Jim Crow from where that term originated. A typical show consisted of jokes, skits and songs. After Emmett, all the minstrel shows went blackface basically hijacking another culture - Frederic Douglass called them the "scum of the earth". The great song writer Stephen Foster wrote for the Christy Minstrel Show. For a few decades it was the main form of entertainment in America. At some point even black performers began performing in blackface which just seems really strange but that was how they could get work.



In the film the reason for Emmett to go blackface is rather a glib effort to make it sound innocent - he and his partner get in a fight and have blackeyes - and to cover it up they put on blackface - after Lamour suggests that they should look like "darkies" to cover it up - my love for Lamour dropped a few points on that. The audience eats it up - knowing they are of course not really black - that they keep it. A romance is thrown in too with Bing and Lamour and also with Bing and Marjorie Reynolds and it actually has a nice corny sentiment around it. None of that is true of course. The film ends with a rousing version of Dixie with the entire audience joining in. It is a great song. Emmett wrote it in 1859 and was horrified when the south used it during the Civil War as their anthem. A couple other of his better known songs - he is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame - are Turkey in the Straw, Old Dan Tucker and The Blue Tail Fly better known as Jimmie Crack Corn which I recall singing when I was a child.



Bing sings those but mainly sings a number of songs written by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen - as well as a lovely version of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Sunday, Monday or Always was a hit for Crosby. Unfortunately, Lamour who got her start as a singer doesn't get to sing a note. And the strange thing is that Lamour who was a native of New Orleans has what sounds like the worst southern accent on the set. The music and shows sound very old fashioned which of course makes sense but also a bit dull, a couple of the jokes land but it is hard getting over the blackface even though you know that is how it was back then.