Río abajo

The first time I saw this film was well over 50 years ago on WOR TV's Million Dollar Movie. It was almost a requirement in my house as my father was a big fan of Al Jolson and my mother happened to love the melodies of Stephen Foster.

Two years after Swanee River was out, Foster and other songwriters of his era had a revival of sorts as the American Society of Composers and Publishers got into a wing ding battle with the radio and record industry and banned its music from broadcast and vinyl. What was done was that a lot of music that was in the public domain got revived in all kinds of strange ways. Swing versions of various classic and folk melodies invaded the airwaves. Country type music got it's own licensing agent in Broadcast Music Incorporated set up as a rival to ASCAP. It all got settled before Pearl Harbor and the country moved on to more important disputes. But Swanee River as a film gave Foster kind of a leg up on some of his other public domain contemporaries.

Don Ameche, fresh from another biographical triumph in Alexander Graham Bell, makes a charming, talented, but weak of character Stephen Foster. The man who created some of the most beautiful melodies ever composed, was no businessman as other reviewers pointed out. He also suffered from alcoholism which led to his early demise. Andrea Leeds is his patient and loving wife for whom I Dream of Jeannie was composed.

As was also pointed out by another reviewer, there was no such thing as ASCAP to protect the creators of melody from exploitation. What Al Jolson's E.P. Christy did to Stephen Foster insofar as his first song hit, Oh Susanna is concerned was not only true, but quite the norm. What Christy did was also decide maybe he ought to cut Foster in on the profits to keep the creative spigot flowing.

Jolson as Christy was the premier minstrel artist of his day when that form of entertainment was acceptable and popular. Of course Jolson got his start in minstrel shows and damage to his reputation has come because he never would discard the black-face. This is the only time on film that Jolson plays a real life character and he sings the Foster songs with feeling and the inimitable Jolson style.

By dint of the fact that his songs were minstrel show material and some and only some glorified the old South, Foster himself has come down as damaged goods in these politically correct days. That's a pity because items like Beautiful Dreamer, Old Dog Trey, My Old Kentucky Home are the stuff of genius.

It's not the complete truth, but Swanee River still holds up as a nice account of America's premier melody maker of his century.

SWANEE RIVER (20th Century-Fox, 1939), directed by Sidney Lanfield, is the second adaptation on the life of American composer Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864). An earlier version, titled HARMONY LANE (Mascot, 1935) starred Douglass Montgomery, and the third and last incarnation (to date) became I DREAM OF JEANNIE (Republic, 1952) with Bill Shirley as Foster. Having seen all three screen treatments at one time or another over the years, the vote goes to the 1939 version as the best of the trio. For this screen version, it stars Don Ameche as Foster, an absent-minded but good-natured struggling composer whose songs become part of American music, thanks to the encouragement of his wife, Jane (Andrea Leeds) and E.P. Christy (Al Jolson), the "world's greatest minstrel." Of course with Foster's popularity comes trials and tribulations, whether it be in his struggles for success, or due to heavy drinking leading to his failed marriage, but it is not all in vain. Even after Foster's death, his music lives on.

While SWANEE RIVER is more of a fictional essay than fact, and what Hollywood bio-pic isn't, overlooking inaccuracies such as Foster's last complete composition actually being "Beautiful Dreamer" instead of "Swanee River" as the screenwriters of this story depict, the movie holds interest during its 85 minutes. Accurate in its period costumes, SWANEE RIVER is given lavish Technicolor, the charm of Andrea Leeds, and the rich singing voice of Al Jolson. Sadly for the legendary Jolson, who is in excellent form both in acting and singing (mostly in black-face), this became his last movie as a featured performer. The comedy routines for the minstrel shows, which wouldn't work as entertainment today, are lavishly staged and reproduced from that by-gone era.

Of the 200 completed songs written by Foster, only a few were selected. The musical program includes: "Here Comes the Hevan Line" (sung by Negroes); "Beautiful Dreamer" (background score); "Oh, Susanna" (sung by Al Jolson); "Camptown Races," "My Old Kentucky Home" (sung by Don Ameche and Al Jolson); "Ring, Ring de Banjo," "I Dream of Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair," "Old Black Joe" and "Swanee River" (sung by Jolson).

In the supporting cast are Chick Chandler as Mr. Bones; Felix Bressart as Henry Kleber; George Reed as Old Joe; Diane Fisher as the Foster daughter, Marion; and The Hall-Johnson Choir.

Don Ameche is believable as Stephen Foster, but even today, this life story of Foster is overshadowed by his earlier and most famous role in 1939's THE STORY OF Alexander GRAHAM BELL. Out of circulation for quite some time, if SWANEE RIVER should ever resurface again on any cable channel, chances are it won't be from American Movie Classics, where it was once scheduled and pulled in 1991, but possibly on the Fox Movie Channel during the early morning hours. For now, SWANEE RIVER, available on DVD, lives in the memory of those fortunate to have seen it many years ago. (***1/2)

My mother took me to see this movie in 1939, when I was 6 years old, at the Sanders theater across from Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I liked the music, and still do, but have this memory of Stephen Foster killing himself with a straight razor. I remember the water in the wash pan next to him filling with blood. Heavy stuff for a six year old. I asked my Mom why he would do that and she said she didn't know. Of course, later in life I found out why.

The music was great and the color very impressive for the time. Anyway, I always liked Don Ameche and remember seeing him sing and dance on Broadway in 1953 at the Winter Garden theater co-starring with Hildegarde Neff. I believe the show was Silk Stockings.

In this film's comment section, the one given by "theowinthrop" is particularly on the mark, and I would agree with all of its points. Being from Cincinnati, and attending four years in high school in Louisville, one of my roommates was from Bardstown, Kentucky, the locale of "My Old Kentucky Home," the state park of the same name, and "The Stephen Foster Story," one of the nation's largest outdoor (indoors if rain) dramas. This area is among America's most beautiful, and seeing it just magnifies the already giant irony of the fact that this locale, and others depicted by Foster's work, were from the pen of a man from Pittsburgh, who spent most of his time there, in Cincinnati and New York City - dying in abject poverty in the latter.

Hollywood biopics about composers and musical personalities (e.g. Rodgers & Hart, Kern, Romberg, Duchin, Sousa, and a score of others) are among the most fictionalized genre in any medium. However, this one dwarfs them all. I read a brief review (I believe from Leonard Maltin) remarking that in this flick, every line of dialog seemed to spark a lyric and/or title for a new song.

Jolson's inclusion is interesting to view, especially recalling that this was a time when his tremendous career had reached a point somewhat below its former level. The following years into the 1940's would see its subsequent rejuvenation, the filming of his two highly-popular biographical pictures (they may well run this one a close second for fictional aspects), and his rise to be voted top vocalist again (besting Crosby and Sinatra), only to have ill health overtake him.

Seeing Ameche, who was to enjoy greater longevity than Jolson and many other contemporaries, along with Jolson, is a unique asset of this film. Enjoy this, along with the nostalgic period conveyed (and the sad history of callousness and lack of respect for those of color - both during the time of the story and filming), and the outstanding melodies which Mr. Foster created.

Proof that not every 1939 release was part of the Golden Age. It's the life and not-so-hard times of Stephen Foster (Don Ameche), who despite a heart condition and a taste for the drink manages to crank out hit after hit. This is the cliched sort of composer bio in which every key event turns out to be instant inspiration for a new ditty, and the moment an on-screen audience hears a new song it can immediately join in for a reprise and know all the words. Still, Al Jolson is sturdy as E.P. Christy, the Technicolor is ravishing, and there are several convincing recreations of minstrel show numbers...and that last fact is why you won't see this film around, no way.

It's just not P.C. to show all that blackface any more, let alone the condescending approach to black people. (When Foster has ripped off "Oh Susannah" from a slave work song but is stuck on the last line, Jeannie--she of the light brown hair fame--comments that she's grown up among black music, their simple culture..."Hmmm...Here's how I think the Negroes would end it." Bingo, smash hit.) "Swanee River" is no great shakes as a movie, but it's a shame that people can't see it because of cowardice.