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Can This Be Dixie?

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Can This Be Dixie?
Directed byGeorge Marshall
Written byGeorge Marshall
Lamar Trotti
Produced bySol M. Wurtzel
StarringJane Withers
Slim Summerville
Helen Wood
Thomas Beck
Sara Haden
Claude Gillingwater
Donald Cook
CinematographyBert Glennon
Ernest Palmer
Edited byLouis R. Loeffler
Music byEmil Gerstenberger
Joe Glover
Samuel Kaylin
Gene Rose
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • November 13, 1936 (1936-11-13)
Running time
70 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Can This Be Dixie? is a 1936 American musical comedy film directed by George Marshall and featuring child star Jane Withers along with Slim Summerville and Helen Wood.

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 and removed from the picture.[2]

Plot

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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.

Cast

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References

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  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
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