Dixiana

Plus La Cucaracha!

In 1929, RKO starred the comic team Wheeler and Woolsey in the film version of their hit play Rio Rita.It's success lead to a series of W&W films.Dixiana (1930) was their third.

Set in 1840's New Orleans, Dixiana finds a circus performer (Bebe Daniels) falling in love with a Southern sophisticate (Metropolitan Opera star Everett Marshall).Wheeler and Woolsey provide comic relief as members of the circus troupe.

What really sets Dixiana apart are its two-color Technicolor Mardi Gras finale (missing from TV prints for years) and the appearance of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in a great solo tap-dance sequence.What's more, it gave an early orchestration credit to Max Steiner (Gone With The Wind).

This DVD also includes the 1934 two-reeler La Cucaracha.The film was largely produced as a test of the new three-strip Technicolor process while ideas for a feature were consider.Costing $65,000 at a time when the average short ran $15,000, La Cucaracha was a smash and received the 1935 Academy Award for Best Comedy Short Subject.It also stands as the first live-action three-strip Technicolor film ever made.