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Red Skelton and Ann Rutherford are "Whistling in Dixie" in this 1942 programmer also starring Guy Kibbee and Rags Ragland (in a dual role). Skelton played the role of Wally Benton a couple of times. On radio, Benton is "The Fox," a detective, but in his private life he gets dragged into real mysteries as well. This one is at the behest of a friend of his fiancé's (Rutherford) who asks them to come to Georgia to investigate a murder.

There are some funny moments in this film, but it's rather silly, with a lot of corny jokes, funny faces from Skelton and slapstick. Actually Skelton is much better when he's straightforward - he comes off as sweet, sincere and natural.

Some of the supporting cast has the worst southern accents I've ever heard. It's hard to blame them, though, because these types of films were made very quickly. I'm sure they had no dialect coach. However, the horrible accents were very distracting.

Okay, but "The Fox" isn't one of my favorite detectives.

This was the first time I've seen one of Red Skelton's "Whistling" movies. Seeing him always about to act crazy whenever someone mentions "murder" was good for some laughs as was some of his wisecracks and a few slapstick moments. Rags Ragsland was also good playing two roles as both a good and bad guy. Ann Rutherford made a nice foil for Red. After a while, some of the dialogue and action threatened to seem repetitious but by the climax, a few more laughs were earned. Anyway, overall, I was pretty entertained by Whistling in Dixie. P. S. The reason I watched this just now is because since I recently watched the Our Gang shorts in chronological order, I thought I'd also look at some of the films outside of the series that featured at least one member. This one had a scene with Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas talking to Rags.

A year before, Red Skelton made a remake to the dandy 1930s film "Whistling in the Dark". It was very popular and not surprisingly, he came back a year later in "Whistling in Dixie"--a sequel to a remake. While the continuity is great (as many of the same characters returned and the film logically follows the first one), there are a few stupid aspects of the sequel that make it less than endearing. For example, Rags Raglan returns...as the identical twin to the baddie sent to prison when the first film ended. That's great...but having the bad twin then return and everyone mixing them up was not only contrived but rather tiresome as well. Additionally, Red Skelton really mugged it up from time to time and was, at times, a tad annoying. Perhaps I'm being hard on the film, but I loved Skelton's later films--they were sweet and endearing. This one is a bit tired and only mildly interesting.

Gosh. The first film in this series had some rather amazing construction. It was a show about a show that had an anti-show: a radio broadcaster who did fictional mysteries, did a real one by broadcasting backwards through the radio! Red was along to do some facial gags and they added some value.

Based on the success of that, we have this. A whole new crew was involved, including no one from the seven (!) original writers. Red and his lover find themselves in the deep south and involved with a Confederate treasure. The only reason for the construction was so that MGM could use its new water set. Was this the first movie that had a closed room filling with water? Broke pipe, you know, and the trapped folks pouring out when the door was opened?

It could be.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Whistling in Dixie finds Red Skelton as radio detective the Fox and gal pal Ann Rutherford away in Georgia where Red's kind of faked an illness so he and Rutherford can get away and maybe get married down there. Rutherford has another agenda as well. Her old sorority sister Diana Lewis has sent her a pre-arranged signal that the sisters have in one needs help.

Finding out that there is a five day waiting period in Georgia, the two of them get involved in a mystery where Lewis has witnessed a murder, but no body can be found. It all leads to some buried Confederate treasure in an old arsenal guarded by Civil War veteran Lucien Littlefield who's a might addled.

Rags Ragland appears here as twins, both are convicts, one quite a bit nastier than the other. This film marked the farewell performance of George Bancroft as the sheriff who retired right after Whistling In Dixie was in the can.

And of course unless you got Raymond Walburn, no film like this would be complete without Guy Kibbee as an expansive, mint julep drinking, son of the South colonel.

With that kind of cast, this film can't miss being funny and the comedy is eternal.