The term ‘Dulcem’, if I am not mistaken is a Latin word (and several Latin-ophiles in the band will enjoy correcting me if I am) meaning ’soft’ or ‘gentle’. ‘Sweet’, is another possible substitution. Clearly a versatile adjective. We chose it for the title as a tribute for our favorite minstrel-era composer, Stephen Foster, who (obviously) composed a song of the same name, and was fond of the word, using it in a few other ditties. BTW, the proper pronunciation of the word is: Dul-sum. The ‘c’ is soft, not hard, thus subtly adding by its sibilance to its literal meaning .

‘Wellumscope?’ Why, old hoss, dat would be’s a fieldhand’s (read slave’s) attempt at pronouncing the word ‘telescope’. At least that was the certainly less than culturally sensitive contemporary white minstrel performer’s concept of what a slave might call such an instrument. One can only wonder what damage a minstrel-man, finding himself in the midst of ‘darkest’ (as it used to be called) Africa, might inflict on the local dialect’s pronunciation of say, the African word for ‘elephant’, or ‘rhinocerous’.

In any case, George, there it is. Late, but better, as they say, than never. Of course, you are certainly to be forgiven if you have long since given up and gone home…

We’ll try to do better in future.

Anyway, we met the two young actors only the night before the shooting – the girl was from NYC and the ‘guy’ from LA; he was there because of his looks and pipes – he would do the principal singing, which had been recorded beforehand as was our part. We got together with them both in a hotel room in Hagerstown to run over the music, etc. They told us that they had written a little scrap of a scene to kick-off the musical part – he is supposed to be Harry McCarthy, the minstrel composer who, with his the woman who’s credited on the sheet music (whose name escapes me at the moment), maybe his wife, maybe not – can’t recall. In the film, she’s supposed to be his wife, who he toured with – they really did do exactly what they do in the movie!

So, the next day we show up before dawn for makeup and are subsequently taken by van to the set. Later on, the two of them show up with that incredible 4 foot-long stovepipe ‘Lincoln’ hat and her scoop-neck, scandalous dress. Bobby Lee would have had her arrested, I bet. In any case, they start working the crowd – the assembled galaxy of stars and celebrities in Confederate garb. Warming them up. She’s shaking her goodies and being genuinely funny – the idea being to get the crowd laughing as the cameras and sound began to roll. They delivered maybe 20 seconds of dialog – the supposed punch-line to an anti-Lincoln joke and then we launched into the song.

The film company cut a scene shot from below the set with a few guys running to get in on the fun and the scene described above, which really worked well. Too bad. It was good, I thought. It was the best day of ‘reenacting/acting’ I ever experienced – to this very day! Just about bloody perfect!

Joe

I own a DVD copy of Gods and Generals, which I’ve watched numerous times. I don’t recall a scene in the film that featured a fictious Abe Linclon, (as seen in the second photo). Was that scene edited out of the movie? What I do remember was a rousing rendition of the “Bonnie Blue Flag”. What’s the skinny on Dishonest Abe? Thanks!