Show Boat (movie)

Show Boat the name of a musical play by Oscar Hammerstein II, which was adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber. The music was by Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. It has been made into a movie three times.

Table of contents

1 1929 Version 2 1936 Version 3 1951 Version

1929 Version

Show Boat was filmed in 1929 with a censored story line. This version stars Laura La Plante, Joseph Schildkraut, Otis Harlan, Emily Fitzroy, Alma Rubens, Elise Bartlett, and Jack McDonald. It was adapted by Charles Kenyon, Harry A. Pollard, and Tom Reed and was directed by Pollard.

1936 Version

The 1936 musical film about a girl who has grown up on her father's musical-show boat, which travels the Mississippi River putting on shows. She meets an amoral gambler and marries him, but he leaves her while she is pregnant. In a parallel plot, a black woman passing for white is forced to leave the boat, taking her white lover with her, but he later abandons her. It stars Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson, Helen Morgan, Helen Westley, Queenie Smith, Sammy White, Donald Cook, and Hattie McDaniel.

Show Boat is a cornucopia of famous, favorite songs -- songs that many people today do not realize first appeared in this movie. The soundtrack includes:

• Make Believe
• Ol' Man River
• Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
• Mis'ry's Comin' Round
• Till Good Luck Comes My Way
• Life Upon The Wicked Stage
• You Are Love
• Ah Still Suits Me
• Why Do I Love You?
• Bill
• Goodbye, My Lady Love
• After The Ball

The 1936 version has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

1951 Version

It was remade in 1951, starring Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Robert Sterling, and Agnes Moorehead. It was adapted by John Lee Mahin, J.P. McGowan (uncredited), and George Wells (uncredited) and was directed by George Sidney.