L'affaire du Fort Dixon

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.

This early Red Skelton comedy is one of several in which he portrayed an actor who was a radio detective called the Fox who also got mixed up in real mysteries, is quite agreeable, at times very funny, and handsomely filmed. The supporting cast, including pretty Ann Rutherford, and the not so pretty George Bancroft and Guy Kibbee, is good and doesn't play in the usual fright film spoof manner. This one isn't really all that inferior to the kind of film Bob Hope, Danny Kaye or for that matter Abbott and Costello were making at around the same time, but Skelton's appeal hasn't worn the years well. Like most comedians he tended to play "innocent" characters, but in his case there was a country bumpkin aspect. Skelton is decidedly not a city guy even when he's playing one. He looks out of place walking down a busy New York street in a double-breasted suit and fedora. There's a child-like quality to him, with none of the knowingness of a Harpo or a Lou Costello, that makes him at times embarrassing to watch. He belongs to another time, when people woke up to roosters rather than alarm clocks, and the first thing they did after breakfast was milk the cow, not jog around the block five times. Modern day hipness has eradicated the country boy sensibility, or removed it from the mainstream; and to a large degree hipness has become almost dictatorial, and can be measured by the extent to which naivite of any sort has been obliterated in our culture. Skelton's films offer a fascinating glimpse of a bygone era, as we can clearly see that behavior that was regarded as quite normal sixty years ago would be considered bizarre by today's standards, and not at all funny.

Anyway, back to Red. One area in which Skelton excels: he believes in the heroic ideal. He may not be the ideal screen hero, but when he swings into action you believe him, or his sincerity anyway; and when he gets the girl you can see him beaming. When Skelton triumphs in these silly comedies it's like virtue triumphing, not because Skelton has so much more virtue than the average person, but because he believes in it. I'd like to see Adam Sandler try that one on for size some time.

Red Skelton played the radio sleuth known as "the Fox" in three comic mysteries of the early 1940s. All had the word "whistling" in the title.

This is the second of the three, and by far the weakest.

The first one, "Whistling in the Dark," was an excellent remake of the 1933 film of the same. The last one, "Whistling in Brooklyn," was an extremely enjoyable farce. I recommend both.

"Whistling in Dixie" can be funny at times, but too often it's boring. I suspect it was made simply because the title seemed irresistible. The phrase "whistling 'Dixie' " was popular American slang at the time. And Ann Rutherford, who co-starred as the Fox's love interest in all three movies, was best known for her role in a Southern epic, "Gone With the Wind."

This movie is full of corny "Southern" dialog, and there are some dated portrayals of African-Americans. Nothing here is any more more offensive than what you'd find in the typical 1940s film about the segregated South. But gosh, this kind of stuff was tired even then.

Skelton's slapstick routines are weaker than usual. He and Rags Ragland, his sidekick and foil in all three "Whistling" films, work very hard, but some of the material falls flat.

If this movie leaves you cold, don't rush to judgment. You may like the other two "Whistling" entries, because they are much better. And if you love this one, you will definitely want to see the other two.

In Georgia, Martin Gordon is murdered in Fort Dixon as someone whistles Dixie. Hattie Lee discovers the body but when she brings everybody to the site, the body had disappeared. Martin was involved in a love triangle with Hattie and her cousin Ellamae Downs. Judge George Lee produces a letter from Martin that he's leaving town to avoid romantic troubles. Ellamae sends a beetle to her friend Carol Lambert (Ann Rutherford) and invites her to a murder investigation. Carol's boyfriend is radio personality and amateur detective Wally Benton (Red Skelton) known as The Fox.

This is a fun screwball murder mystery with Red Skelton. He delivers the jokes. Some of which are understandably anti-Japanese racist. Rutherford returns to join him in the duo. It ends with some fun slapstick. All in all, it is fun and of its times.

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.