I think an important thing to keep in mind when reviewing DIXIANA is the fact that it’s not actually a Wheeler and Woolsey movie but rather a movie where they’re just two actors taking part in a filmed stage production. Knowing this, I went in with the mindset of looking at it as a movie with Wheeler and Woolsey in it rather than a Wheeler and Woolsey movie. With that said, having finally watched this, I consider this to be a bad movie.
Yeah, there’s not much defending of this one. Dorothy Lee cited Everett Marshall as the problem; while he is definitely not good in this movie, he actually doesn’t take up as much of it as you would think. The musical numbers? Also not good for the most part, although I did kind of enjoy Woolsey’s number near the end as well as Bebe Daniels’s number when she’s sitting at the gambling table. I clearly didn’t enjoy them enough to remember the songs’ names, but they at least didn’t make me want to fall asleep.
To me, the big problem with this film is its pacing. This movie is extremely slow for its first two thirds. There are moments of dialogue that seem stretched out for absolutely no reason, especially when Marshall and Ralf Harolde are arguing about Dixiana at the beginning and when Joseph Cawthron and Jobyna Howland are arguing about their social status. Speaking of which, Howland is also wasted in her role. The Dumont like flavor she adds to her roles in THE CUCKOOS and HOOK, LINE AND SINKER are completely missing here; this role could have been played by just about anyone. Even Wheeler and Woolsey suffer from the pacing problems. They do the same joke about the “Three Cigars” game four times, and every time they do it, they have to explain the game and slowly set up the picking up of the first two cigars before finally delivering an extremely lame payoff...and the first two times, it’s literally the same exact thing!
I’m kind of torn on Bebe Daniels here. I think she does have a certain charm to her that carries through in some scenes, but the writing just doesn’t do her any favors. There’s one moment where she rejects an offer to join the gambling club before immediately changing her mind when Wheeler and Woolsey decide not to join without her. She really feels like she’s trying to create this emotional moment highlighting her relationship with the duo, but in a rare moment of the pacing being too fast, she’s not given enough time to establish this.
The movie picks up a little bit once Dorothy Lee shows up; they get to focus a bit on the Wheeler-Lee dynamic and the moment with Wheeler and Woolsey trying to trick each other into thinking the other left is amusing. By far the best sequence in this film is when Wheeler and Woolsey are setting up the duel; Woolsey has to first teach Wheeler the proper etiquette to challenge him, only for Woolsey to continually not feel insulted enough until Wheeler just randomly kisses him in an attempt to make peace. It’s actually a really funny sequence and it’s a shame it was wasted on this film of all things.
It is nice to see them take some advantage of the Technicolor process near the end, especially with Woolsey’s outfit, but at the end of the day, it’s still the same boring characters resolving a boring conflict. Heck, the way they resolve it is incredibly stupid; Dixiana literally just tells the witness to inspect the guns for the duel, which he should have done in the first place. Heck, he watched the guy putting the bullets in. How did he not notice that the bullet wasn’t actually put in the second gun; it was literally right in front of him!
I’d heard bad things about this before and there was always a part of me that felt it couldn’t be nearly as bad as people make it out to be. But it is; even Wheeler and Woolsey are not as funny as they usually are. It’s really only worth it for that one duel sequence. Beyond that, this is one I won’t be seeking out again.
