Dixiana/La Cucaracha

I've waited a long time before getting the Roan version of this film. I owned the Alpha version which was decent, until I got the Roan copy. The Roan version outshines any other copy out there. 35mm elements had to of been used, as the print sparkles on the screen. The Tech scenes are bright and totally restored. If you've seen the C& C television print you will fully appreciate this beautiful version of W&W's musical. Not a bad deal for 8 bucks!

DIXIANA is in the public domain, which means that there are many companies that have released versions missing footage that is vital to the plot, as well as being in the original, two-color Technicolor. This Roan version, a version from Grapevine, and possibly a newly-released version do contain the complete film as released in the late summer of 1930. The film is a good example of the extravagant operetta genre popular in the early days of sound. If you don't like musicals, no, you will not like this, but if you are the type of person who watches a film and appreciates the era in which it was filmed, you will like this. The 1934 short LA CUCARACHA is included here, the first live-action film shot in the three-color Technicolor process.

Dixiana has been variously described as a 'dog', a 'prehistoric turkey', and worse before now (and that's from people who generally liked it and the people in it!). It's a clunky mix of operetta and vaudeville musical comedy which doesn't quite gel, but is typical of its period right at the dawn of the talking picture. The DVD has been lovingly restored so even the two-strip colour sequence at the end looks pristine. In the cast, Bebe Daniels and Everett Marshall sing well enough - he wasn't a great actor, but never mind - and Wheeler and Woolsey, that talented pair of clowns from RKO's first decade, add their archaic brand of humour between the serious musical bits. Dixiana is far from their best but it is their only movie easily available, so it will have to do.

I had never seen the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey before I saw this movie, and at the very least they are an acquired taste. They were a successful Broadway act that made several movies together, all along the same style as this one. Wheeler plays the wide-eyed innocent to the more caustic Woolsey, whose comedy is very reminiscent of George Burns. "Dixiana" is basically a musical drama played out in the pre-Civil War south with comedy bits by Wheeler and Woolsey interspersed with the dramatic storyline. The problem is, this movie is just not big enough for the two of them. Wheeler and Woolsey's comedy really has nothing to do with the dramatic storyline, and the dramatic storyline is totally divorced from Wheeler and Woolsey's characters. Another problem is that large parts of the dramatic storyline never get sewed up. For example, there is a scene where the villain says he had something to do with rigging a duel involving a relative of the hero of the dramatic storyline - and that's the last we ever hear of it. The music is pretty good, and the musical numbers have very lavish and in some cases unusual sets and costumes. The prime example is the opening number with Wheeler and Woolsey dressed up as dancing ostriches and Dixiana popping out of an egg to do her part of the musical number. Wheeler and Woolsey's comedy in this particular film falls flat by today's standards, but it is watchable enough and interesting since Wheeler and Woolsey kept RKO afloat during the Great Depression. I'd say it's worth viewing just for the weirdness of it all. Cucharacha is an interesting little bonus to the set, mainly because of it being the earliest three-strip live action feature, made in 1934. The movies could finally do blue! Compare it to the two-strip color in the finale of Dixiana. If you care about sound and video quality, this is the only copy of Dixiana worth having, since it has been restored along with its Technicolor sequences. The versions you see for eight dollars or in the fifty movie packs are hard to look at and harder to listen to and do not have the Technicolor sequences. Plus, several key scenes have been hacked out of those versions. I'm glad Roan restored this old musical, one of the last of its kind until Busby Berkeley revived the musical genre in 1933.

Not a classic by any means, the DVD release of DIXIANA allows us to view an early (1930) talkie musical in pristine picture and sound, suggesting how it must of appeared to audiences of that day. Best of all, the last couple of reels have been restored to their original two-strip Technicolor beauty. Bebe Daniela is charming and proves that a silent screen star could effortlessly make the transition to talkies. The male lead is played by Metropolitian Opera star Everett Marshall who displays a fine singing voice but limited acting talent. The real star of this DVD is the stunning picture and sound. The short subject, La Cucharacha, is a nice bonus. While not as sharp as the feature visually, the historic importance of this short compliments DIXIANA nicely. In all, a highly recommended DVD.

I have no idea what the reviewer of the "Mexicos finest performers" is babbling about. The "La Cucaracha" presented together with "Dixiana" is a double lame short dance/guitar-tink-a-tanking extravaganza, notable merely for it's place on the Technicolor stairway to oblivion, and not a film about the Mexican revolution. "Dixiana" promises to be very cool as it starts - with the circus/vaudeville settings and so on, but we very soon realize it is an unpardonable mishmash. Bebe Daniels is quite good, but that's ALL!!! Even the Technicolor sequence (actually the whole last reel) I was looking forward to anxiously turned out to be a complete waste of good celluloid - one of the most idiotic dance routines ever choreographed with costumes ugly as a whore's dream and dance girls from hell (they are from the worst kennel). The flick itself is presented in a perfectly good condition, the sound and colours being top quality. Too bad the ones who made this miserable epic didn't put more into it. But at least this one pretty much explains why the musicals were out in the early thirties - too much BS was being turned out and hadn't B.Berksley saved the industry, God knows what might have been!