One of the unabashed musical-comedy delights of Universal's new Bing Crosby Collection is Mississippi (1935), the only feature film to co-star Crosby and W.C. Fields. It will not disappoint fans of either.

Based loosely on the Booth Tarkington play Magnolia, the picture is set in the old south of 1860 -- the plantation era. Fields plays Commodore Orlando Jackson, a riverboat captain. Crosby plays Tom Grayson, a Philadelphian engaged to Elvira (Gail Patrick), the daughter of a rich Mississippi plantation owner. Elvira's younger sister Lucy (Joan Bennett), however, is madly in love with Tom, and is despondent as the wedding day approaches. When Tom sensibly refuses to accept the challenge of a duel, he is branded a coward and forced to leave town. Even Elvira will have none of him, so Tom joins the Commodore's riverboat as a singer and gets some lessons in bravery and honor from the Commodore himself. When it's W.C. Fields doling out such lessons, one can easily imagine the comic hilarity that ensues...

Crosby's role was originally created for Lanny Ross, a tenor whom Paramount was trying to build up at the time, and the production actually started filming with Ross in the part. But as the film was being made, the studio, which had gone bankrupt, was reorganized by Adolph Zukor from Paramount-Publix Corporation into Paramount Pictures, Inc. The new studio executives were disenchanted with Lanny Ross, replaced him with Crosby, and re-started the production.

Tarkington's play had already been filmed twice before: in 1924 as The Fighting Coward, with Mary Astor in the Joan Bennett role, and in 1929 as River of Romance, a talkie with Buddy Rogers and Mary Brian. This 1935 version was directed by Fields' old friend Edward Sutherland (one of six films they did together) and was injected with several fine songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Two of them -- "Soon" and "It's Easy to Remember" -- became number-one hits, while a third, "Down by the River," was later cited by Crosby as one of his all-time favorites.

Crosby also sings part of "Swanee River" (aka "Old Folks at Home"), a song that was controversial at the time and remains so even today. Originally known just as "Old Folks at Home," it was an 18th-century minstrel aria by Stephen Foster that Crosby specifically requested he be able to interpolate for the film. He did so, but Rodgers and Hart were terribly angered by this -- their contract had dictated that all the songs in the movie would be by them, and they also found the song's theme of a former slave "longing for the old plantation" to be highly offensive.

Crosby simply did not see the song that way, and as Crosby biographer Gary Giddins has rightly noted, "in his interpolation, it becomes a universal venting of desire for the lost places none of us can ever regain." Indeed, Crosby's beautiful and plaintive rendition is a touching highlight of the picture, and it is used dramatically to show the cementing of Lucy's love for Tom when she first hears it. Later in the movie Lucy even remembers the song in flashback, and the longing in the song becomes equated with her longing for Tom.

Yet Giddins also acknowledges that "for all the emotion [Crosby] wrings from the lyric and despite its undeniable historical appropriateness, his performance is enfeebled by Foster's minstrel grammar and the allusion to 'darkies' (in later years, Bing sang 'people')." Lorenz Hart certainly felt that way: he declared at the time that he would never write for Bing Crosby again, and Crosby in turn declined to record any more Rodgers and Hart songs until 1942.

In 1935, the same year this film was released, "Old Folks at Home" became the state song of Florida. It remains so, but in 2008 the Florida state legislature adopted a new version of the lyrics, replacing some of the racially insensitive phrasing and pronunciations.

The song is also the basis for one of Mississippi's best jokes. When Fields first hears someone playing a few bars on the piano, he asks what it is. "It's a new song called 'Swanee River,'" is the reply. "It's no good," says Fields. "It'll be forgotten in two weeks. People can't remember the tune." Fields then proceeds to hum the tune to himself throughout the rest of the picture!

Mississippi is consistently diverting and engaging, and at times it's downright romantic thanks to Crosby, and downright hilarious thanks to Fields. No one will forget the look on Fields' face when he draws five aces. Fields lies his head off (as in his uproarious tall tales about fighting off Indians and cutting through "a wall of human flesh"), he drinks his head off, and he insults everyone else's head off. He is, in other words, W.C. Fields.

Elsewhere in the cast, Gail Patrick does well in a role quite similar to her upcoming turn in My Man Godfrey (1936), 25-year-old Joan Bennett is radiant thanks in no small measure to Charles Lang's expert photography, and 20-year-old Ann Sheridan is very recognizable as an uncredited chorus girl on the Commodore's boat.

Despite rumors to the contrary, Crosby and Fields liked each other, often playing golf and drinking together. Crosby called Fields "Uncle Bill." It's interesting to compare Mississippi to My Little Chickadee (1940), in which Fields was for the first and last time paired with Mae West. In that case, the two huge stars did not get along, fought constantly over the script and their working methods, and ended up with a film that (despite a few comedy gems) is ultimately not a very satisfying union of the two stars. Mississippi, on the other hand, feels both like "a W.C. Fields film" and like "a Bing Crosby film." The pairing works well, with each having the chance to demonstrate his own persona and style, even when they're on screen at the same time.

The Bing Crosby Collection is another in Universal's "Backlot Series" of classic titles, here from the Paramount catalogue, which Universal owns. There are no extras save for a trailer or two. The packaging is very attractive, and the films themselves look and sound very good. The other titles here are College Humor (1933), We're Not Dressing (1934), Here is my Heart (1934), Sing You Sinners (1938) and Welcome Stranger (1947). None is an outright, all-time classic, but all are enjoyable looks at Crosby as he developed into a bigger and bigger star.

Originally, this collection was supposed to include the 1943 film Dixie, which would have marked its DVD debut, but for some unexplained reason Universal at the last minute substituted We're Not Dressing (1934), which was previously issued on DVD in the Carole Lombard Collection four years ago. All other titles here are new to DVD.

For more information about Mississippi, visit Universal Home Entertainment. To order Mississippi (it is only available as part of The Bing Crosby Collection, go to TCM Shopping.

by Jeremy Arnold