As mentioned in another review of this film, the racial stereotypes in MISSISSIPPI will probably keep it off television 90% of the time. While such stereotypes are toss-offs in most films made up to 1943 or so (after that a type of shame began to descend on Hollywood screenplay writers about anti-Black stereotypes, probably due to the hypocrisy of encouraging that thing while making films about fighting the racist policies of Hitler and Imperial Japan), films dealing with life in the South were the worst, particularly the anti-bellum South. If occasionally a performance would lift the "Jim Crow" image a bit (Hattie MacDaniel in GONE WITH THE WIND, or MacDaniel and Paul Robson in SHOWBOAT), or if the stereotyping had a twisted code of its own (most of the performances of Lincoln Perry/"Steppin' Fetchit" seem to be exaggerating the stereotype to make it backfire on white people - see his performance with Berton Churchill in STEAMBOAT 'ROUND THE BEND), the bulk of them make a modern audience squirm. For every serious film that grasped at racial tragedy in this country (IMITATION OF LIFE with Louise Beavers and Freddy Washington, or IN THIS OUR LIFE with Bette Davis) there were hundreds which were made that insulted millions of African-Americans for laughs. Also for box office - movie houses in the Southern states were calling the shots into the 1950s about what they wanted to see on the big screen.
MISSISSiPPI has plenty of that - the most obnoxious in my mind is W.C.Fields rubbing the curls of a little black kid for good luck. One wonders if he would have appreciated anyone giving his head a wedgie for good luck.
Yet the end result of this is that MISSISSIPPI is one of hundreds of surviving films that are still available from the 1910s - 1943 that are rarely revived. The films were the eventual losers for that reason. MISSISSIPPI is a particularly sad loss, as it has two of Hollywood's best performers working together for the first and only time: Fields and Bing Crosby. It also has a score (it was a musical because Crosby was in it) by Rodgers and Hart, including the standard, "It's Easy to Remember, But So Hard to Forget". In a book of the lyrics of Larry Hart it showed there were nearly ten songs written for the film, but only four made it to the screen in the final cut.
Crosby is a northerner visiting the South, and he has been romancing Gail Patrick, daughter of Claude Gillingwater, and sister of Joan Bennett. Patrick prides herself on having a beaux who is brave. Crosby attends a ball at Gillingwater's home, and manages to run afoul of the local fire-eater, John Miljan. Miljan is a noted duelist* and challenges Crosby to a duel, but Crosby is not into the code duello of the south and rejects it. He does not realize that it suggests he is a coward, and it washes him up with Patrick. Gillingwater, observing what happened, points out to the musically inclined Crosby the piece of advice in the "Summary" line above.
[*Actually, Miljan's Major Hillary Patterson is something of a fraud - and the quick watching viewer can see this earlier. Patterson has had a large number of hits in duels over opponents, but the most recent one is shown, and if you watch as the number of paces are counted to "10", Miljan starts turning at "9", so he is set up while his opponent is still turning. In short, our "brave" Major Patterson is a cheating skunk.]
Bennett still loves Crosby, and he is able to work on Field's showboat. Field's Commodore Jackson is as windy as all Field's marvelous characters. His favorite lie is how he once cut his way through a line of advancing Indians ("and I cut my way through a mountain of flesh!"). In fact he is quite a garrulous coward. One person he owes money to and whom he has made the mistake of spreading lies about is Captain Blackie (Fred Kohler). Anyone who sees the real violence Kohler put into his screen brawls knows that Fields must have taken leave of his senses when he did this. Kohler comes aboard the showboat, and confronts Jackson on the debt and the lies. But somehow Crosby gets involved and a fight results that ends with Kohler getting killed. As it was self-defense Crosby does not have to worry about prison, but what is better is that he now has an undeserved reputation of being a killer. And Fields (for publicity purposes) does just that - he spreads the reputation.
Naturally this leads to the conclusion of the film, when Crosby returns to Gillingwater's plantation and resolves his differences with Miljan. You can see the result by watching the film.
If the stereotypes had not been used MISSISSIPPI would have been seen far more than it is. But it wasn't, so the film remains a sadly neglected musical comedy. It is hard to say if this fate was totally deserved or not.
MISSISSiPPI has plenty of that - the most obnoxious in my mind is W.C.Fields rubbing the curls of a little black kid for good luck. One wonders if he would have appreciated anyone giving his head a wedgie for good luck.
Yet the end result of this is that MISSISSIPPI is one of hundreds of surviving films that are still available from the 1910s - 1943 that are rarely revived. The films were the eventual losers for that reason. MISSISSIPPI is a particularly sad loss, as it has two of Hollywood's best performers working together for the first and only time: Fields and Bing Crosby. It also has a score (it was a musical because Crosby was in it) by Rodgers and Hart, including the standard, "It's Easy to Remember, But So Hard to Forget". In a book of the lyrics of Larry Hart it showed there were nearly ten songs written for the film, but only four made it to the screen in the final cut.
Crosby is a northerner visiting the South, and he has been romancing Gail Patrick, daughter of Claude Gillingwater, and sister of Joan Bennett. Patrick prides herself on having a beaux who is brave. Crosby attends a ball at Gillingwater's home, and manages to run afoul of the local fire-eater, John Miljan. Miljan is a noted duelist* and challenges Crosby to a duel, but Crosby is not into the code duello of the south and rejects it. He does not realize that it suggests he is a coward, and it washes him up with Patrick. Gillingwater, observing what happened, points out to the musically inclined Crosby the piece of advice in the "Summary" line above.
[*Actually, Miljan's Major Hillary Patterson is something of a fraud - and the quick watching viewer can see this earlier. Patterson has had a large number of hits in duels over opponents, but the most recent one is shown, and if you watch as the number of paces are counted to "10", Miljan starts turning at "9", so he is set up while his opponent is still turning. In short, our "brave" Major Patterson is a cheating skunk.]
Bennett still loves Crosby, and he is able to work on Field's showboat. Field's Commodore Jackson is as windy as all Field's marvelous characters. His favorite lie is how he once cut his way through a line of advancing Indians ("and I cut my way through a mountain of flesh!"). In fact he is quite a garrulous coward. One person he owes money to and whom he has made the mistake of spreading lies about is Captain Blackie (Fred Kohler). Anyone who sees the real violence Kohler put into his screen brawls knows that Fields must have taken leave of his senses when he did this. Kohler comes aboard the showboat, and confronts Jackson on the debt and the lies. But somehow Crosby gets involved and a fight results that ends with Kohler getting killed. As it was self-defense Crosby does not have to worry about prison, but what is better is that he now has an undeserved reputation of being a killer. And Fields (for publicity purposes) does just that - he spreads the reputation.
Naturally this leads to the conclusion of the film, when Crosby returns to Gillingwater's plantation and resolves his differences with Miljan. You can see the result by watching the film.
If the stereotypes had not been used MISSISSIPPI would have been seen far more than it is. But it wasn't, so the film remains a sadly neglected musical comedy. It is hard to say if this fate was totally deserved or not.