veteran director and producer allan dwan and whose huge string of film include both the utterly forgettable and the recurrently show ( for example and john wayne in sand of iwo jima ) try his hand at a big musical with i dream of jeanie . harness a lead cast of singer with little past film experience and and a it turn out and virtually no future and he spin a fictional and in no small part offensive story about the great american songwriter and stephen foster . bill shirley be the young and lovestruck foster whose kindness to slave include give the money save for an engagement ring to pay the hospital cost for an injured little black boy . his intend be inez mcdowell ( muriel lawrence ) whose pesky young sister and jeanie ( eileen christy ) and be slowly realize she in love with the nearly impecunious song smith . foster be in love with inez who be revolt by the composer number 1 on the levee hit parade tune and o susannah . enter minstrel edwin p. christy ( ray middleton ) to help launch the profit make phase of foster career . this be and by the musical film standard of the early fifty and a big production . the set be lavish in that special hollywood way that portray fake with all the trimming . the singer aren not half bad and the foster song be almost impossible to ruin . but this be also a literal whitewash of the antebellum south . the big number feature black face for all on stage and an historical anomaly and a contemporary piece of unthinking racism . be these portrayal of black anywhere near reality and the abolitionist would be rightly condemn for interfere with so beneficent an institution . i dream of jeanie apparently sink into the studio vault with barely a death whisper . now revive by alpha video for a mere $ 4 . 99 it a period piece with charming song and repulsive sentimentalizing about the victim of america great crime and slavery . this be what hollywood be put out two year before brown v. board of education . must have warm the heart of some moviegoer who wear their bed linen to the theater .