Mississippi
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Mississippi
Plot
In this comedy with musical numbers set in the Old South, Bing Crosby plays a singer (talk about a casting stretch!) from Philadelphia named Tom Grayson, who has fallen in love with Southern heiress Elvira Rumford (Gail Patrick). Tom wants to marry Elvira, but a man called Major Patterson (John Miljan) has announced his desire to do the same, and he challenges Tom to a duel to decide who will have Elvira's hand. Tom is not at all agreeable to this idea, which leads Elvira's father (Claude Gillingwater) to proclaim Tom to be a coward and deny him permission to wed his daughter. Elvira's sister Lucy (Joan Bennett), who is infatuated with Tom, thinks that he's merely being sensible, but Tom thinks that Lucy is too young for a serious relationship. In need of work and not especially welcome in the Rumford's community, Tom takes a job performing on a riverboat piloted by the blustery Commodore Orlando Jackson (W.C. Fields). One night, Tom finds himself in a barroom brawl with a man named Captain Blackie (Fred Kohler), who dies accidentally from a shot fired by his own gun. Hoping that his infamy will draw crowds, Jackson begins billing Tom as "The Singing Killer." Tom comes to realize that Lucy may be the right woman for him after all, but Lucy is not interested in a man with blood on his hands, and now Tom must convince her that he's not a killer at all. Noted gambling aficionado Fields has a hilarious poker-playing bit, and he steals most of his scenes from the rest of the cast. Mississippi was loosely based on the play "Magnolia" by Booth Tarkington. ~ Mark Deming, RoviReview
Hart, highlighted by the superb "Easy to Remember," delivered in equally superb form by Bing Crosby. Crosby is actually in superb form throughout (even if he looks a might uncomfortable in some of the costumes). Vocally, he's every bit as strong as one would expect, but he also handles his dramatic chores very skillfully. The screenplay may not be top drawer, but Crosby doesn't let that get in his way. That's good, too, as he already has his hands full keeping Fields from stealing the whole show away. (Watch out for the classic gambling scene.) With the two male stars going great guns, it's easy to overlook the delightful work turned in by Joan Bennett, who's a treat in what could be a fairly bland role. Like many other older films set in the South, it has an unfortunate number of racial slurs that will offend modern audiences. But if the viewer can get past these and some of the other flaws in the writing, they'll likely be highly entertained by those wonderful songs and the appealing cast. ~ Craig Butler, RoviCast
- Bing Crosby - Tom Grayson
- W.C. Fields - Commodore Orlando Jackson
- Joan Bennett - Lucy Rumford
- Queenie Smith - Alabam
- Gail Patrick - Elvira Rumford
Credit
Hans Dreier - Art Director, Bernard Herzbrun - Art Director, Edward Sutherland - Director, Chandler House - Editor, Charles B. Lang - Cinematographer, Arthur Hornblow, Jr. - Producer, Claude Binyon - Screenwriter, Herbert Fields - Screenwriter, Francis Martin - Screenwriter, Jack Cunningham - Screenwriter, Booth Tarkington - Play Author| Missione Planeta Errante (1965 Film), Missionary Man (2007 Film) | |
| Mississippi Blues (1984 Film), Mississippi Burning (1988 Film) |
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Mississippi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Mississippi (film)
| Mississippi | |
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| Directed by | A. Edward Sutherland |
| Produced by | Arthur Hornblow Jr. |
| Written by | Francis Martin Jack Cunningham |
| Starring | Bing Crosby W. C. Fields Joan Bennett |
| Distributed by | Paramount |
| Release date(s) | 1935 |
Mississippi (1935) is a musical comedy starring Bing Crosby, W. C. Fields, and Joan Bennett. The film was produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr. and directed by A. Edward Sutherland from an adaptation of a Booth Tarkington story by Herbert Fields and Claude Binyon. The screenplay was by Francis Martin and Jack Cunningham and the movie was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
This film has the distinction of being the only W. C. Fields film with a score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Also, it is the only film in which he costarred with Bing Crosby. Photographed by Charles Lang, the film featured art direction by Hans Dreier and Bernard Herzburn and was edited by Chandler House. The sound man was Eugene Merritt.
The original running time of this black-and-white film was 80 minutes. The film has been released on VHS and DVD as part of the W.C. Fields Collection (UK).
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Contents
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Story
Commodore Jackson (W. C. Fields) is the captain of a Mississippi showboat in the late nineteenth century. Tom Grayson (Bing Crosby) is engaged to be married and has been disgraced for refusing to fight a duel with Major Patterson (John Miljan).
Accused of being a coward, Grayson joins Jackson's showboat. Over the duration of the film, the behaviour of the meek and mild Tom Grayson alters as a consequence of the constant representation of him, by Commodore Jackson, as "The Notorious Colonel Steele", "the Singing Killer", and the constant attribution, by Jackson, of duelling victories by Grayson to unrelated corpses freshly dragged from the river beside the showboat as "yet another victim of the notorious Colonel Steele, the Singing Killer".
The film provides sufficient opportunities for Crosby to sing the Rodgers and Hart songs, including the centerpiece number, "Soon", while Fields gets to tell some outlandish stories. Crosby and Fields worked well together and there is one memorable scene in which Fields tries to tell Crosby how to act tougher. In the film, Crosby does a number of brilliantly engineered sight gags involving a chair and a bowie knife. Another highlight is Fields' remarkable story about his exploits among one notorious Indian tribe.
Cast
- Bing Crosby as Tom Grayson
- W. C. Fields as Commodore Jackson
- Joan Bennett as Lucy Rumford
- Queenie Smith as Alabam'
- Gail Patrick as Elvira Rumford
- Claude Gillingwater Sr. as General Rumford
- John Miljan as Major Patterson
- Edward Pawley as Joe Patterson
- Fred Kohler as Captain Blackie
- Five Cabin Kids as the Cabin Kids
- John Larkin as Rumbo
- Libby Taylor as Lavinia
- Theresa Maxwell Conover as Miss Markham
- Paul Hurst as Hefty
- And Harry Myers, Charles King, Jean Rouverol, Ann Sheridan, George Lloyd, J. P. McGowan, Francis McDonald, Stanley Andrews, Clarence Geldart, Forrest Taylor, Mabel Van Buren, Jack Mulhall, Arthur Millett, Fred Toones, James Burke, King Baggot, Mahlon Hamilton, William Gould, Matthew Betz, Warner Richmond[1]
Reviews (excerpts)
- New York Times - "Amid an atmosphere of magnolia, crinoline, and Kentucky whiskey, the boozy genius of Mr. Fields and the subterranean croon of Mr. Crosby strike a happy compromise."
- Motion Picture Herald - "The [film] is a melodramatic and sometimes tense romance. Fields' comedy, in both dialogue and action, is good for its full quota of laughs."
- Variety - "Paramount obviously couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to do with the film; it's rambling and hokey. For a few minutes it's sheer farce, for a few moments it's romance. And it never jells...Fields works hard throughout the film and saves it, giving it whatever entertainment value it has."
Source
- Deschner, Donald, The Films of W.C. Fields (New York: The Citadel Press, 1966)
References
- ^ Deschner, Donald (1966). The Films of W.C. Fields. New York: Cadillac Publishing by arrangement with The Citadel Press. p. 112. Introduction by Arthur Knight
External links
- Mississippi at the Internet Movie Database
- Mississippi at AllRovi
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