“SWANEE RIVER”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1940, Page 9

“SWANEE RIVER”

EXCITING LIFE BROUGHT TO SCREEN. . The very heart of America is embodied in the familiar melodies of Stephen Foster, inspirationally expressed in such songs as “The Old Folks At Home.” (Swanee River), “Old Black Joe.” “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Oh Susanna,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” to mention but a few. f Stephen Foster was born in Pittsburgh on July 4,182 G. Thirty-eight years later, alone and all but forgotten, he died in a shabby Bowery lodging house to which had had drifted. Yet today the name of Stephen Foster, the great American troubadour, is written imperishably in the nation’s culture. Dozens of memorials dot the land from Florida to Maine to keep his name alive, Shrines have been dedicated to him, schools bear his name, and volumes have been written about him. Now the screen has added another monument to his memory. At 20th Century-Fox studio “Swanee River” has recently been filmed in technicolour. It is a dramatisation of Foster’s life from the time he reached manhood and knew a great love, to a tragic end. Few liberties have been taken with the essential details, for the facts of the great songwriter’s life comprise the best elements of screen drama —a struggle, success and happiness, then disillusion, suffering and poverty. It is for Foster’s songs that he is remembered and honoured today. He wrote hundreds of them and the best have become genuine classics. As one of his biographers has written: "No other composer has produced so many simple, unassuming songs that have survived their first popularity. His songs are more alive today than ever. Syncopated versions of them are record companies’ best-sellers and they are heard often on the radio. Musicians as well as laymen have-come to realise that they arc a genuine folk expression; simple, unaffected and spontaneous.”

Don Ameche portrays Foster, and Andrea Leeds, a young emotional actress of rare ability, portrays Jane McDowell his sweetheart and wife, foi whom Foster wrote “Jeanie will; the Light Brown Hair.”