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Admirable film.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Boy, that was a tough slog getting through all the history lessons and moral instruction regarding slavery. Yes, yes, it was a shameful period in America and minstrel shows were degrading, but most contributors forgot to evaluate "Dixie" - the movie, that is.Well, let me have a bash at it. When I think back on "Dixie", the first thing I think of is the ballad, "Sunday, Monday or Always", done to perfection by Bing at the beginning and at the end. Much of the rest of the movie is forgettable and uninspired. Paramount had assembled an excellent cast which is largely wasted in this fictitious biography of a forgotten songwriter. Maybe the biggest disappointment was the lack of spectacle and excitement in musical number after lifeless musical number, especially the last one. The choreography was almost non-existent and very understated, except for a dance by the largely wasted Eddie Foy, Jr. The script was desperately in need of a re-write - and what's with the fires? There were three separate fires in the course of "Dixie", one of which should have included Dorothy Lamour's thankless part.I guess musicals were not Paramount's thing. Such matters were best left to Fox or MGM, or even Universal, which had a few pretty good underbudgetted musicals. Our present rating is a little rich for "Dixie" - I gave it five and upped it to six on the strength of the song "Sunday,Monday or Always", which was gorgeous.

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.

Dixie is about a man, Dan Emmett, who goes to New Orleans, Louisiana to try and make it big. He goes to New York to try and sell his songs, but refuses to sell one very important one, "Dixie." The movie stars Bing Crosby as Dan Emmett, Dorothy Lamour as Millie Cook, Billy De Wolfe as Mr. Bones, and Marjorie Reynolds, as Jean Manson. There are many other characters in the movie, but these were the key ones. Dixie was directed by A. Edward Sutherland. The movie was released in 1943, by Paramount Pictures. Dixie has many settings. The movie starts off in Kentucky, where Dan Emmett is telling the love of his life that he is going off to New Orleans to try and become famous so that him and her can finally get married and have a life of their own. On his way to New Orleans, Dan meets a man named Mr. Bones. Mr. Bones is a con man. He conned Dan out of $500. They become partners and come up with an idea of a show. The type of show that they created was called a Minstrel Show. Minstrel Shows were when white men performed in "blackface." Minstrel shows were made to be funny. The men would completely paint their faces except around their eyes and mouth to make them look like clowns. In this time black men were not allowed to perform on stage, especially with white men. Dan meets Millie Cook and falls in love with her, and promises to marry her. He then realizes that he must go back home to Kentucky and tell Jean his already fiancée that they weren't going to get married. When he arrives there he sees that Jean is in a wheelchair and is not able to walk by the paralyzing sickness. He then promises Jean that no matter what they would get married. He writes to Millie telling her this. Jean and Dan go to New York where they try and make a life together. Dan tries and sells his songs, but has a hard time. He ends up selling 10 of his songs for $100. The only one he didn't want to give up was the song that he wrote "Dixie." Mr. Cook, Millie's father, comes to New York and asks Dan to come back to New Orleans with his new bride. This is when Jean finds out that Dan and Millie were engaged. They go back to New Orleans where they start another show of the same genre, minstrelsy. This is when Dan is finally able to use the song that he had been trying to put to the show the whole time, but it just didn't sound right. The movie ends with the audience singing along with the cast and the show was a hit. Between the years 1840 – 1920, Minstrel shows were put on all over the United States, but mostly in the South. "The American musical has one shameful chapter in its history – minstrel shows. The most popular musical stage shows of the early and mid 19th Century, minstrelsy embodied racial hatred. Both white and black performers donned blackface, and audiences of all colors loved it. Minstrel shows developed in the 1840's, peaked after the Civil War and remained popular into the early 1900s. Minstrelsy was a product of its time, the only entertainment form born out of blind bigotry. In these shows, white men blackened their faces with burnt cork to lampoon Negroes, performing songs and skits that sentimentalized the nightmare of slave life on Southern plantations. Blacks were shown as naive buffoons who sang and danced the days away, gobbling "chitlins," stealing the occasional watermelon, and expressing their inexplicable love for "ol' massuh." In the early 1840s, a group called the Tyrolese Minstrel Family toured the United States with a program of traditional mittel-European folk songs. Four unemployed white actors decided to stage an African-American style spoof of this group's concerts. Calling themselves Dan Emmett's Virginia Minstrels, their blackface revue premiered at New York's Bowery Amphitheatre in February 1843. Emmett, Frank Bower, Frank Pelham and Billy Whitlock became the first troupe to offer a full evening of blackface variety entertainment. With their chairs in a simple semi-circle, the quartet offered a fresh combination of songs, dances and comic banter, creating cartoonish Negro caricatures. Most historians mark this production as the beginning of minstrelsy. Companies continued to perform in both North and South throughout the Civil War, with the minstrel tune "Dixie" becoming an unofficial anthem for the Confederacy. After the war, minstrelsy remained popular, and many skits took a sentimental view of the lost world of plantation slavery. Although African Americans were forbidden by law to perform on stage with whites in many states, some companies secretly included blacks. As laws changed, several all-black minstrel companies toured America and Great Britain. Black performers still had to wear blackface makeup in order to look "dark enough," performing material that demeaned their own race. Despite such drawbacks, minstrelsy provided African American performers with their first professional stage outlet" (Kenrick).The movie started out a little slow, but as the movie went on I got more and more interested in the story line and the plot. It was interesting to learn about the Minstrel shows and how they were performed, and why they were performed. I think that the movie was a little controversial, because of the fact that it poked fun and put down blacks. I honestly don't understand how people could have hated a group of people. It was degrading to blacks.