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Category:    Home > Reviews > Musical > Folk > Dixiana (Roan)

Dixiana (Roan)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Film: B+

 

 

Dixiana is quite a mix of everything a film could be.  You have the silent film influence and the feel of a live play.  It is also an early sound film that happens to be a musical.  Add to that another surprise, the finale is in color while the rest of the film is black and white.  This all comes together to make the film fascinating in that you don't know what's coming next.

 

For example, it's strange to see placards come up between edits describing the action.  For a minute, I even thought there was a little Romeo and Juliet alliteration concerning the protagonist having the last name of Montague, but it could have been coincidental.  It is no unlike watching the recent feature film version of Moulin Rouge.  Only this film does what it does less clumsily than that film.  Set in 1840's New Orleans gives it a Gone with the Wind epic touch.  The music score is great.  It's top-notch from Max Steiner.  It gave the film a lot of life and is one of the best scores from that period.  The acting was mostly good, with intensity.  The star gave a Bette Davis-type performance only with a whiney voice (which was annoying).

 

The love interest is a Pennsylvania Dutchman with a fun-loving father and mother who takes verbal jabs at each other.  The singing was integrated well and was not used to the point of overkill where it would take you out of the story.  The story centers on a circus performer in love with a wealthy Virginian.  The subplots include the release of slaves and class prejudice.  This gave the film some depth.  Attached to the extras is:  La Cucaracha, which won an Academy Award for best comedy short.  It's the first 3-strip dye-transfer presentation of “Glorious Technicolor” in a live-action film, made for roughly 4 times the cost of a normal short, but a landmark beginning of the most successful color process of all time.  It's set in a Mexican bar and runs for about 20 minutes.  It's about 2 performers competing with each other until they become singing partners.

 

The standard 1.33 X 1 image is descent, the print is a little rough, but it was transferred well.  The color finale is in great shape.  This is 2-strip dye-transfer Technicolor footage, so the original negatives are only going to look so good.  It's great to be able to run a comparison between it and La Cucaracha's three-strip.  They are both in great shape, but you can see how good three-strip is.  La Cucaracha makes good use of color and composition.  You can't compare it with 1956 Ten Commandments or Wizard of Oz's color, but it is still looks better than many of the other color formats used long after this film was produced including Cinemascope and Panavision.  Three-strip is just such a vivid and dynamic color format.  It really pops out at you.  I was receiving 5 mbps avg. on the video, but the audio is still crisp and clear enough.  There is some background noise, but the detail is definitely there.  The audio was running at 192 kbps, which is not much.  There was enough room to increase the bit rate, which would have been nice.  The extras were a little lite.  The background in the notes are well done and informative/interesting.  Otherwise, there are no extras and no booklet included with the disc.

 

 

-   Marcus Mazur


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