My review was written in September 1989 after a Greenwich Village screening.
"Heart of Dixie" is a silly drama reducing the Civil Rights Movement of the '50s to a Whitman's sampler nostalgic exercise. Orion understandably has given it a low-profile release.
Following the widespread criticism of Orion's "Mississippi Burning" for failing to accurately portray '60s civil rights activism it is doubly problematic that "Dixie" not only commits the same mistake but also has a disastrously light-hearted tone.
Deficient script by Tom McCown is based on Anne Rivers Siddons' novel "Heartbreak Hotel". That title was lost to a Buena Vista's 1988 Tuesday Weld-David Keith comedy release that, like "Dixie", contains an Elvis Presley impersonation as the original tie-in period hook.
It's 1957 an Ally Sheedy is a sorority senior at Alabama's Randolph University, working at the school paper. First 50 minutes of the pic laboriously document the silly concerns of the sorority sisters, e.g., getting pinned or being named Honeysuckle Queen (stunning Virignia Madsen competes immediately following the death of her boyfriend).
The pastel visuals by Robert Elswit, loaded down with endlessly cute period costumes and vintage cars, continue to be pretty even after the film suddenly turns "serious". At a Presley concert in Tupelo, Mississippi, Sheedy witnesses a black kid being beaten viciously by police for daring to listen to Elvis in the segregated "white" section of the stadium.
She's instantly radicalized and with the goading of Associated Press photographer Treat Williams becomes a mini-crusader, writing a blistering plea for tolerance and equality for the campus newspaper, which gets her expelled. The movie's tearjerker finish has her visiting Randolph University as the first black student enrolls (filmed on location at University of Mississippi, no less).
This nonsense could have played acceptably, perhaps in the manner of a Deanna Durbin film, if the audience were made to care about Sheedy's character and share her concerns. Instead she's a drip, overacting in mannered fashion as does the rest of the giddy cast. Not helping matters is the principals looking too old for their college role though guest star Phoebe Cates looks just right.
Madsen, who did a good job for director Martin Davidson in the HBO baseball pic "Long Gone", is tiresome here. Jenny Robertson stands out in the supporting cast while the director is unkind to fellow sorority gal Ashley Gardner, who gets numerous unintentional laughs as she consistently overdoes simple reaction shots or functional line readings.
In the only black role of consequence, the sorority housekeeper, Francesca Roberts brings nobility and bearing to a cornball assignment.
Behind-the-camera credits, including a nonstop parade of golden oldies on the soundtrack, are technically excellent, but sabotage what should have been a serious, gritty story, besides the civil rights theme, examples of honest film depictions of sorority lfie exist, e.g., the classic documentary "Rush".
"Heart of Dixie" is a silly drama reducing the Civil Rights Movement of the '50s to a Whitman's sampler nostalgic exercise. Orion understandably has given it a low-profile release.
Following the widespread criticism of Orion's "Mississippi Burning" for failing to accurately portray '60s civil rights activism it is doubly problematic that "Dixie" not only commits the same mistake but also has a disastrously light-hearted tone.
Deficient script by Tom McCown is based on Anne Rivers Siddons' novel "Heartbreak Hotel". That title was lost to a Buena Vista's 1988 Tuesday Weld-David Keith comedy release that, like "Dixie", contains an Elvis Presley impersonation as the original tie-in period hook.
It's 1957 an Ally Sheedy is a sorority senior at Alabama's Randolph University, working at the school paper. First 50 minutes of the pic laboriously document the silly concerns of the sorority sisters, e.g., getting pinned or being named Honeysuckle Queen (stunning Virignia Madsen competes immediately following the death of her boyfriend).
The pastel visuals by Robert Elswit, loaded down with endlessly cute period costumes and vintage cars, continue to be pretty even after the film suddenly turns "serious". At a Presley concert in Tupelo, Mississippi, Sheedy witnesses a black kid being beaten viciously by police for daring to listen to Elvis in the segregated "white" section of the stadium.
She's instantly radicalized and with the goading of Associated Press photographer Treat Williams becomes a mini-crusader, writing a blistering plea for tolerance and equality for the campus newspaper, which gets her expelled. The movie's tearjerker finish has her visiting Randolph University as the first black student enrolls (filmed on location at University of Mississippi, no less).
This nonsense could have played acceptably, perhaps in the manner of a Deanna Durbin film, if the audience were made to care about Sheedy's character and share her concerns. Instead she's a drip, overacting in mannered fashion as does the rest of the giddy cast. Not helping matters is the principals looking too old for their college role though guest star Phoebe Cates looks just right.
Madsen, who did a good job for director Martin Davidson in the HBO baseball pic "Long Gone", is tiresome here. Jenny Robertson stands out in the supporting cast while the director is unkind to fellow sorority gal Ashley Gardner, who gets numerous unintentional laughs as she consistently overdoes simple reaction shots or functional line readings.
In the only black role of consequence, the sorority housekeeper, Francesca Roberts brings nobility and bearing to a cornball assignment.
Behind-the-camera credits, including a nonstop parade of golden oldies on the soundtrack, are technically excellent, but sabotage what should have been a serious, gritty story, besides the civil rights theme, examples of honest film depictions of sorority lfie exist, e.g., the classic documentary "Rush".