South of Dixie (1944) DVD-R

Starring Anne Gwynne, David Bruce, Jerome Cowan, Ella Mae Morse, Joe
Sawyer, Samuel S. Hinds
Directed by Jean Yarbrough

Print: black/white
Runtime: 61 min.
Genre: musical
Print Quality: B

Universal's yearly quota of cheap, 60-minute musicals occasionally
yielded such likeable diversions as South of Dixie. David Bruce stars as
Danny, a popular composer of southern ballads. Striking while the iron is
hot, Danny's partner Brains (Jerome Cowan) promotes a filmed biography
of the southern-fried songsmith. Trouble is, Danny is a fraud-he was born
in the North, with nary a relative below the Mason-Dixon line to his name.
Anxiously, Brains "invents" a southern lineage for Danny, going so far as
to hire a voice tutor named Dixie (Anne Gwynne) and to cook up a
romance between the hero and the daughter (Ella Mae Morse) of
Southern colonel Morgan (Samuel S. Hinds). Inevitably, South of Dixie
features several black performers in stereotypical roles, including Louise
Beavers and Mantan Moreland.