“Swanee River” and Flying Film At Liberty

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23100, 16 August 1940, Page 5

“Swanee River” and Flying Film At Liberty

“Swanee River,” Twentieth Century Fox’s story of Stephen C. Foster, the great American troubadour, will open at the Liberty to-day. Foster's songs embody the very soul of his country; they include “The Old Folks at Home” (Swanee River), "Old Black Joe,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” “De Camptown Races,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” “Oh! Susanna!” or “Ring, Ring de Banjo.” ■ . In beautiful technicolour, “Swanee River” takes moviegoers back to the romantic, colourful days of Foster’s time, when minstrels and river boatst were popular. It shows his happy young manhood, depicts his early strug-

gles, the introduction of his songs by Christy's Minstrels, his meeting with and marriage to “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” and portrays his rapid rise to fame and happy life with his wife and daughter. Then, with relentles realism. “Swanee River” shows Foster’s emotional instability, his disillusions and disap* pointments, his gradual disintegration, and eventual death in a shabby Bowery rooming house.

The associate feature. “20.000 Men a Year.” stars Margaret Ritchie and Randolph Scott and concerns the training of men as civil pilots in the United States. There are thrilling adventures in the film.