Other than W.C. Fields and a few songs by Bing Crosby, there's little to recommend this dreary period musical about a milquetoast singer who turns legendary when he kills a man in self defense during a performance and continues his song right from here he left off. This makes him a local hero but doesn't impress the young innocent (Joan Bennett) who fell in love with him after her own sister (Gail Patrick) dumped him for not stepping up to a duel. Fields has a few amusing sequences, cracking wise about the singing "pickaninnies" and dealing himself a hand of five aces in a card game. But these moments only point out the dull plot line which stoops dead for a few songs, all unmemorable. The film appears to believe that its comparisons to "Show Boat" and its opulence will hide the fact that everything it wants to be never comes true.
Review of Mississippi
