The 1951 Show Boat was the most financially successful of the film adaptations of the show: one of MGM's most popular musicals, it was the second highest-grossing film of that year.[4]
Plot
When the show boat Cotton Blossom arrives in a Mississippi town to give a performance, a fistfight breaks out between leading man Steve Baker and Pete, the boat's engineer who has been making passes at Steve's wife, leading lady Julie La Verne. Pete knows a dark secret about the couple: Julie is part black and therefore their marriage is illegal. When Pete shows up with the town sheriff, Baker pricks Julie's finger and sucks blood from it, meaning he now has "negro blood" in him as well. Unfortunately, since black and white actors are not allowed onstage together, Cap'n Andy is forced to dismiss the Bakers along with Pete.
Julie's best friend Magnolia becomes the new leading lady and riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal is hired as her leading man. The two become successful, fall in love, and marry. They leave the boat and move to Chicago, where they live on Ravenal's gambling winnings until he goes broke and walks out on Magnolia.
Ellie Shipley and Frank Schultz, formerly the dance team on the show boat, take Magnolia to audition at the Trocadero nightclub, not realizing the club already has a singer: Julie Baker. Julie overhears Magnolia audition, learns from the nightclub manager that Ravenal deserted her, and quits so that he will have no choice but to hire Magnolia. Cap'n Andy attends her opening night, where he helps Magnolia conquer her stage fright. Magnolia reveals that she is pregnant with Ravenal's child. She returns to the show boat with Cap'n Andy, where she gives birth to a daughter, Kim.
About five years pass. Ravenal is gambling on board a packet boat, on which a drunken Julie is trying to sing. After punching her escort because he slapped Julie, Ravenal goes out on deck. Julie, who has been keeping track of Magnolia, finds out who Ravenal is, and not realizing that he knew nothing of Magnolia's pregnancy, tells him off. Ravenal is overcome with guilt and returns to the show boat the next day, where he meets his little daughter Kim for the first time and returns to Magnolia, with whom he is reconciled.
Sheila Clark, who played Kim,[5] Frances E. Williams, who played Queenie,[5]Regis Toomey, who played Sheriff Ike Vallon,[5]Emory Parnell, who played Jake Green, the Trocadero nightclub manager,[5] and Owen McGiveney, who played Windy,[5] were not billed either in the film or in poster advertising for it.[6]
Adaptation
For the 1951 Show Boat, Oscar Hammerstein II's dialogue was almost completely thrown out and new dialogue written by John Lee Mahin. The story was given a major overhaul, particularly near the end of the film. Changes included keeping the characters of Magnolia and Gaylord significantly younger at the end than in the play, and the expansion of the role of Julie to give her character greater depth. The film also somewhat sanitized the character of Gaylord Ravenal by having him leave Magnolia without finding out about her pregnancy. Kim (Magnolia and Ravenal's daughter) appears only as a baby and a little girl. Frank and Ellie, rather than being portrayed as unsophisticated, barely talented dancers as in the show, were made into a rather debonair couple in the style of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The aspects of the original stage version dealing with racial inequality, especially the story line concerning miscegenation, were highly sanitized and deemphasized, although the interracial subplot was retained.[7]
Nearly all of the purely comic scenes, retained in the 1936 film version, were removed in the 1951 film. Much of the comedy in the show has no direct bearing on the plot. According to William Bayer's book The Great Movies, producer Arthur Freed maintained a strict policy of removing everything in the musicals that he produced if they did not advance the storyline.[8]
Production
According to George Sidney, MGM executives wanted Dinah Shore to play Julie. Sidney tested Shore but she "wasn't right" according to the director. So he tested Ava Gardner miming to a Lena Horne track and Gardner was cast.[9]
Lena Horne was originally to have played Julie (after Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee and Judy Garland were passed over) as she had in the brief segment of the play featured in the 1946 Jerome Kern biopic Till the Clouds Roll By. But studio executives were nervous about casting a glamorous black actress in one of the lead roles, so Gardner was chosen instead. After some unfavorable sneak previews using her real voice in her songs, Gardner's singing voice was dubbed by vocalist Annette Warren. Gardner's vocals were included on the soundtrack album for the movie, and in an autobiography written not long before her death, Gardner reported she was still receiving royalties from the release.
The arrival of the boat was achieved by blending backlot footage showing the boat pulling in with location shots of crowds running along the bank of the real Mississippi River. The show boat itself remained moored on the MGM backlot. The full-scale stern-wheeler constructed on the backlot lake was sold off at the MGM property auctions for $15,000 in 1970 dollars.[7]
Reception
Contemporary reviews were positive. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote a rave review, calling the film "so magnificent in so many ways" that it put the 1936 version "in the shade," for no previous screen version of the stage musical had ever been presented "in anything like the visual splendor and richness of musical score as are tastefully brought together in this brilliant re-creation of the show."[10]Variety wrote that the film "takes to Technicolor with an accord that makes it seem no other treatment would be possible. Freed has dealt out his physical production values with a lavish and elegant hand, dressing the presentation with a sight appeal in keeping with the tune worth, and they have been brilliantly captured on film by Charles Rosher's cameras."[11]Harrison's Reports called it "excellent ... It has been filmed twice before, but the color photography makes this version far superior."[12]Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post wrote, "Old 'Show Boat' fans will admire this immensely and new ones will be won for what has been one of the most satisfying of our musical plays."[13]John McCarten of The New Yorker wrote that "it will do for a summer's evening," but thought that only William Warfield measured up to any cast members of previous versions and that the other players on hand were "unobjectionable but hardly praiseworthy."[14]The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Although the musical numbers retain their original appeal, they are, in most cases, executed without much imagination or charm. Kathryn Grayson makes an indifferent Magnolia, Ava Gardner a bewildered and, at times, ludicrously over-empathic Julie. Only Howard Keel among the principal players suggests the dashing carefree charm needed for the part."[15]
The film was a commercial success. During its initial theatrical run it earned $5,293,000 in the US and Canada and $2,328,000 in the rest of the world, resulting in a profit of $2,337,000.[3]
Among recent critics, Garry Giddins stated that "MGM made a brash, highly successful Technicolor show", but "cleansing the material of racial complexity, period authenticity, and general sophistication" in contrast to other stage productions and the 1936 film. Giddins stated that it is "not a terrible movie, but it’s not much of a Show Boat, beyond introducing, in the greatly reduced part of Joe, the marvelous William Warfield (...)".[16]
Television
The film was first telecast on January 3, 1972, on The NBC Monday Movie. This marked the first time any production of Show Boat was telecast, with the exception of an experimental telecast in 1931 of a scene from the 1929 film version. NBC repeated the film on Saturday June 17, 1972. Several years later, the film went to CBS, where it appeared twice as a holiday offering on The CBS Late Movie. From there the film went to local stations and then to cable.
As of 2014, this and the 1936 version are the only film versions of Show Boat to have been officially released on DVD. Warner Home Video, which owns the distribution rights to all three film versions of Show Boat, said it would release in 2007 a three-disc DVD release of all three film versions, but this still has not come to pass as of June 2016.[20] A three-film laserdisc version was released by MGM/UA, while the 1936 film was released on Laserdisc through The Criterion Collection.[21]
Harold Clifford Keel, professionally Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer known for his rich bass-baritone singing voice. He starred in a number of MGM musicals in the 1950s and in the television series Dallas from 1981 to 1991.
Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and coloratura soprano.
Arthur Freed was an American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture twice, in 1951 for An American in Paris and in 1958 for Gigi. Both films were musicals, and both were directed by Vincente Minnelli. In addition, he produced the film Singin' in the Rain, the soundtrack for which primarily consisted of songs he co-wrote earlier in his career.
Show Boat is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, over 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love. The musical contributed such classic songs as "Ol' Man River", "Make Believe", and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man".
Roberta is a musical from 1933 with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics and book by Otto Harbach. The playful romantic comedy is based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller. It features the songs "Yesterdays", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Let's Begin", "You're Devastating", "Something Had To Happen", "The Touch of Your Hand" and "I'll Be Hard to Handle".
Gower Carlyle Champion was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer.
That's Entertainment! is a 1974 American compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 50th anniversary. The success of the retrospective prompted a 1976 sequel, the related 1985 film That's Dancing!, and a third installment in 1994.
Show Boat is a 1936 American romantic musical film directed by James Whale, based on the 1927 musical of the same name by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, which in turn was adapted from the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.
That's Entertainment, Part II is a 1976 American compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and a sequel to That's Entertainment! (1974). Like the previous film, That's Entertainment, Part II was a retrospective of famous films released by MGM from the 1930s to the 1950s. Some posters for the film use Part 2 rather than Part II in the title.
Till The Clouds Roll By is a 1946 American Technicolor musical film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and a fictionalized biopic of composer Jerome Kern, portrayed by Robert Walker. Kern was involved with the production, but died before its completion. It was the first in a series of MGM biopics about Broadway composers.
Show Boat is a 1929 American pre-Code sound part-talkie romantic drama film based on the 1926 novel Show Boat by Edna Ferber. The film initially did not use the 1927 stage musical of the same name as a source, but scenes were later added into the film incorporating two of the songs from the musical as well as other songs. Many of these songs from the stage show were featured in a special prologue that was added to the picture before it was released. This film was produced and released by Universal. Like the majority of films during the early sound era, a silent version was made for movie theatres that had not yet converted to sound.
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, is one of the most famous songs from their classic 1927 musical play Show Boat, adapted from Edna Ferber's 1926 novel.
Gaylord Ravenal is the leading male character in Edna Ferber's 1926 novel Show Boat, in the famous Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II 1927 musical play of the same name based on the novel, and in the films made from it. He is a handsome, compulsive riverboat gambler, and he becomes leading man of the show boat Cotton Blossom at the same time that Magnolia Hawks, the captain's daughter, becomes the leading lady. In the novel, this happens after several of the company's leading men and ladies have left, including the illegally married mulatto Julie Dozier and her white husband Steve Baker. In the musical, Magnolia and Ravenal become the leading players on the boat immediately after Julie and Steve are forced to leave the show, not years later.
Three for the Show is a 1955 Technicolor and in CinemaScope musical comedy remake of Too Many Husbands. It stars actress Betty Grable, in her last musical, opposite Jack Lemmon, Gower Champion and Marge Champion. It is based on the 1919 play Home and Beauty by W. Somerset Maugham, which was retitled to Too Many Husbands when it came to New York.
Jupiter's Darling is a 1955 American Eastman Color musical romance film released by MGM and directed by George Sidney filmed in CinemaScope. It starred Esther Williams as the Roman woman Amytis, Howard Keel as Hannibal, the Carthaginian military commander and George Sanders as Fabius Maximus, Amytis's fiancé. In the film, Amytis helps Hannibal swim the Tiber River to take a closer look at Rome's fortifications.
Julie Dozier is a character in Edna Ferber's 1926 novel Show Boat. In the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's classic musical version of it, which opened on Broadway on December 27, 1927, her stage name is Julie La Verne. She is exposed as Julie Dozier in Act I. In Act II, Julie has changed her name, this time to Julie Wendel.
Show Boat is a 1926 novel by American author and dramatist Edna Ferber. It chronicles the lives of three generations of performers on the Cotton Blossom, a floating theater on a steamboat that travels between small towns along the banks of the Mississippi River, from the 1880s to the 1920s. The story moves from the Reconstruction Era riverboat to Gilded Age Chicago to Roaring Twenties New York, and finally returns to the Mississippi River.
"Make Believe" is a show tune from the 1927 Broadway musical Show Boat with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.
"You Are Love" is a song by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II from their classic 1927 musical play Show Boat. It is sung twice in the show - first, by Magnolia Hawks, the heroine, and riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal when they agree to marry near the end of Act I, and again in the penultimate scene of Act II by Ravenal when he returns to Magnolia after having deserted her for 23 years.
Lovely to Look At is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Mervyn LeRoy, based on the 1933 Broadway musical Roberta.
↑ Hutchinson, Ron, ed. (Summer–Fall 2005). "1929 Showboat [sic] Discs Found". The Vitatphone Project / Vitaphone News. Archived from the original on April 1, 2012. Retrieved August 14, 2012.
↑ "Show Boat". criterion.com. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
Further reading
Kreuger, Miles: Show Boat: The Story of a Classic American Musical (Oxford, 1977)
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