Dixie Lee Movies
- 1935
One of the last Fox releases before the studio's merger with 20th Century, Redheads on Parade stars John Boles and Dixie Lee as washed-up movie star John Bruce and aspiring singer Ginger Blair. The couple is given the opportunity to co-star in a film financed by Augustus Twill (Raymond Walburn), who has a crush on Lee. Not wishing to rock the boat, press agent Peter Mathews (Jack Haley) assures Twill that Ginger is crazy about him, without bothering to consult the girl beforehand. The plot isn't straightened out until the film's premiere, by which time Twill has gone broke and Mathews has had to work overtime to scare up new "angels." Leading lady Dixie Lee was, of course, the real-life Mrs. Bing Crosby. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Boles, Dixie Lee, (more)
- 1935
Love in Bloom ostensibly stars George Burns and Gracie Allen,but the team is actually comedy relief for the romantic leads, Joe Morrison and Dixie Lee. Burns and Allen are travelling carnival performers working in a rundown tent show for Lee's father. Lee tires of her nomad life and heads to New York, where she meets would-be songwriter Morrison. The hero loves Lee, but each time the twosome makes wedding plans some crisis or other gets in the way. The course of True Love finally runs smooth, but audiences can't help but feel disappointed that Burns and Allen aren't given more to do (Allen's big scene, set in a grocery store, is painfully unfunny). If nothing else, Love in Bloom features a rare screen appearance by Dixie Lee, better known as the first wife of Bing Crosby. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- George Burns, Gracie Allen, (more)
Based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich, Manhattan Love Song charts the misadventures of the madcap Stewart sisters, Jerry (Dixie Lee) and Carol (Helen Flint). Suddenly finding themselves broke, the girls are forced to become the servants of their former chauffeur Williams (Robert Armstrong) and maid Annette (Nydia Westman). This seemingly untenable situation ends happily when Jerry falls in love with Williams. Because of this Monogram production, Fox's movie version of Kathleen Norris' novel Manhattan Love Song had to be retitled Change of Heart. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Armstrong, Dixie Lee, (more)
- 1931
In this fluffy comedy, an innocent usherette falls for a customer whom she finally meets and eventually marries. Soon after the ceremony, she learns that he's a jewel thief about to go to jail. She then moves into a girlfriend's ultra-modern apartment that is really a front for gamblers. Again, the young woman finds herself in real trouble until her hubby is released from jail and comes to her rescue. Happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1931
In this melodrama, a recently-abandoned wife consoles herself by heading for Reno and falling in love. Her new lover is married to a jealous woman who shoots him when she learns of the affair, leaving the sadder-but-wiser other woman to try to make up with her own wayward spouse. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jameson Thomas, Dixie Lee, (more)
- 1930
This comedy features Collier unwittingly running a sweatshop and Mama Churchill keeping the suitors away from her daughters by discussing marriage. ~ Rovi
- Starring:
- William Collier, Sr., Marguerite Churchill, (more)
- 1930
In this backstage musical, an aspiring actor comes to Hollywood to get his big break. Trouble ensues when he is mistaken for a famous opera star and given red-carpet treatment wherever he goes. He even stays at the singer's mansion until he gets his break. Unfortunately, he soon loses his girlfriend after the singer's wife, who has not yet seen him, appears. The whole mess is cleared up when the real singer appears, and the young actor learns that he is the singer's nephew. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Joseph Wagstaff, Lola Lane, (more)
- 1930
A pre-Dagwood Arthur Lake plays a hapless hayseed who becomes a popular crooner in this fluffy musical comedy that begins during the robbery of a big-city radio station. There the gunman forces him to sing on the air. The audience loves him and he is an instant star. Delighted with his sudden success, the bumpkin sends for his beloved pumpkin back home so they can marry. The young singer's boss, afraid that married life will steal away his new-found gravy train, tries his darnedest to break the young lovers up and even convinces a seductress to ruin the youth. Look closely for John Wayne in a bit part. Songs include: "The Shindig," "Where Can You Be?" and "You May Not Like It But It's A Great Idea." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dixie Lee, Arthur Lake, (more)
- 1930
Filmed in "Fox Grandeur," an early widescreen process, Happy Days was the immediate follow-up to Fox Studios' Movietone Follies of 1929. Most of the film takes place on the showboat of Mississippi entrepreneur Colonel Billy Batcher (Charles E. Evans). When the Colonel faces foreclosure after several failing seasons, soubrette Margie (Marjorie White) stages a fund-raising revue on the boat, enlisting the aid of all the big stars who got their start with Batcher. By an amazing coincidence, virtually all of the showboat alumni are under contract to Fox Studios! Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell perform "We'll Build a Little World of Our Own," Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe kid their roughneck screen images in the novelty number "Vic and Eddie," Sharon Lynn and Ann Pennington offer the "hot" dance routine "Snake Hips," and "Whispering" Jack Smith offers a rendition of the title tune. Also on hand are Will Rogers, El Brendel, Walter Catlett (who also staged the musical numbers), Lew Brice (Fanny's brother), Dixie Lee (Mrs. Bing Crosby) and Georgie Jessel -- not to mention an uncredited 14-year-old chorus girl named Betty Grable. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1930
Shortly before retiring from films to become an actor's agent (and, incidentally, Mrs. Alan Ladd), the ebullient Sue Carol starred in The Big Party. Carol and Dixie Lee (Mrs. Bing Crosby) play a couple of funloving gals who take jobs as dress models. They are invited to the eponymous party by their lecherous bosses Walter Catlett and Charles Judels. Before anything untoward can happen, Carol and Lee find true love in the forms of Frank Albertson and Richard Keane. Radio star Whispering Jack Smith provides a couple of pleasant tunes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1930
Also known as Harmony at Home, She Steps Out was based on The Family Upstairs, a play by Harry Dell. William Collier Sr. stars as a well-meaning patriarch who is forced by circumstance to run a sweatshop. Meanwhile, Collier's garrulous wife Elizabeth Patterson unintentionally scares off Rex Bell, the blue-collar fiance of her daughter Marguerite Churchill. Good ol' pop steps in to reunite Bell and Churchill and to tell Patterson in as nice a way as possible to shut her big yap. Inasmuch as William Collier Sr. was a screenwriter and dialogue director at Fox Studios, one suspects that he penned his own lines in She Steps Out. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- William Collier, Sr., Marguerite Churchill, (more)
- 1929
In this musical comedy, a young man from Virginia who is heir to a wealthy estate falls in love with a girl who longs to be a Broadway star. He moves to New York to be with her but discovers that she's a lot more interested in her career than in settling down. Hoping to turn her gaze away from the Great White Way (and onto himself), he buys up controlling interest in the show in which she has just been cast -- and fires her. However, the young man first discovers unemployment makes her no more inclined to walk down the aisle with him, and besides, he now has the Actor's Equity to contend with. The cast includes John Breeden, Lola Lane, DeWitt Jennings, and Stepin Fetchit, and features the songs "The Breakaway," "Walking with Susie," and "The Varsity Drag." At this time, no prints of this film are known to exist. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Breeden, Sue Carol, (more)
- 1929
Dixie Lee, best known to latter-day viewers as the first wife of Bing Crosby, essayed a leading role in the early Fox talkie Why Leave Home?. Things get under way when suburban matrons Ethel (Ilka Chase), Susan (Dot Farley) and Maude (Laura Hamilton) discover that their husbands George (Jed Prouty), Elmer (Walter Catlett) and Roy (Gordon DeMain) have been "stepping out" with some chorus girls. To get even, the ladies hire college boys Jose (Richard Keene), Oscar (David Rollins) and Dick (Nick Stuart) as their "gigolos." Caught in the middle are the collegiates' showgirl sweethearts Billie (Dixie Lee), Jackie (Jean Barry) and Mary (Sue Carol). Inevitably, all fifteen protagonists meet at a nightclub, leading to a cascade of slapstick complications. A remake of 1928's The Cradle Snatchers, Why Leave Home? was itself remade as Let's Face It in 1943. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Rating Systems
Blockbuster
BLOCKBUSTER name, design and related marks are trademarks of Blockbuster L.L.C.
2013 Blockbuster L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Portions of Content Provided by Rovi Corporation. 2013 Rovi Corporation.