Can This Be Dixie?

Can This Be Dixie?
Directed by George Marshall
Produced by Sol M. Wurtzel
Written by George Marshall
Lamar Trotti
Starring Jane Withers
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • November 13, 1936 (1936-11-13)
Running time
 70 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Can This Be Dixie? is a 1936 American film featuring child star Jane Withers.

Withers plays Peg Gurgle, who, with her uncle Robert E. Lee Gurgle, runs a traveling musical patent medicine show through the deep south. When they encounter a plantation owner named Colonel Robert E. Lee Peachtree, their luck picks up when the Colonel buys a bottle of their elixir for each one of his plantation field hands. When the sheriff impounds their wagon, the Gurgles stay on with the Colonel and helps defend his mansion against Yankees and bankers.

In 1937 and 1938 Withers became one of the top 10 box-office stars in the United States, despite her status as Fox's second-tier child star (behind Shirley Temple). On a shooting schedule that allowed 21 to 24 days per picture, she acquired the nickname "One-Take Withers",[1] and produced four or five films a year.

The level of comedy can be assessed by the names of the characters, the names of the musical numbers ("Pick, Pick, Pickaninny," "Uncle Tom's Cabin is a Cabaret Now"), and the fact that Withers appeared in blackface. Some even more racially offensive material was challenged by co-star Hattie McDaniel [2] and successfully removed from the picture.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ Tap!: the greatest tap dance stars and their stories, 1900-1955, by Rusty E. Frank, page 168
  2. ↑ Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood, by Jill Watts, page 131

External links

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