Show Boat (1936 film)

Show Boat
Directed by James Whale
Produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr.
Written by Oscar Hammerstein II (also wrote lyrics)
Based on Show Boat 
by Edna Ferber, and the Kern-Hammerstein musical adapted from the novel
Starring Irene Dunne
Allan Jones
Charles Winninger
Paul Robeson
Helen Morgan
Helen Westley
Hattie McDaniel
Queenie Smith
Sammy White
Music by Jerome Kern
Cinematography John J. Mescall
Edited by Bernard W. Burton
Ted Kent
Production
company
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates
  • May 17, 1936 (1936-05-17) (United States)
Running time
 113 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Show Boat is a 1936 film. Directed by James Whale, it is based on the musical Show Boat by Jerome Kern (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (script and lyrics), which the team adapted from the Show Boat by Edna Ferber.[1]

In 1929 Universal Pictures had filmed the part-talkie Show Boat. Carl Laemmle, head of Universal, had been deeply dissatisfied with that film, and had long wanted to make an all-sound version of the hit musical. It was originally scheduled to be made in 1934, but plans to make this version with Russ Columbo as the gambler Gaylord Ravenal fell through when Columbo was killed that year in a shotgun accident, and shooting of the film was rescheduled. The film, with several members of the original Broadway cast, was begun in late 1935 and released in 1936.[2]

In addition to the songs retained from the stage production, Kern and Hammerstein wrote three additional songs for the film. Two of them were performed in spots previously reserved for songs from the stage production.

Plot

The musical's story spans about forty years, from the late 1880s to the late 1920s. Magnolia Hawks is an eighteen-year-old on her family's show boat, the Cotton Palace which travels the Mississippi River putting on shows. She meets Gaylord Ravenal, a charming gambler, falls in love with him, and eventually marries him. Together with their baby daughter, the couple leaves the boat and moves to Chicago, where they live off Gaylord's gambling winnings. After about ten years, he experiences an especially bad losing streak and leaves Magnolia, out of a sense of guilt that he is ruining her life because of his losses. Magnolia is forced to bring up her young daughter alone. In a parallel plot, Julie LaVerne (the show boat's leading actress, who is part African-American, but "passing" as white) is forced to leave the boat because of her background, taking Steve Baker (her white husband, to whom, under the state's law, she is illegally married) with her. Julie is eventually also abandoned by her husband, and she becomes an alcoholic. Magnolia's becomes a success on the stage in Chicago. Twenty-three years later Magnolia and Ravenal are reunited at the theater in which Kim, their daughter, is appearing in her first Broadway starring role.

Cast

Production history

This film version of Show Boat stars Irene Dunne as Magnolia and Allan Jones as Ravenal, with Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson, Helen Morgan, Helen Westley, Queenie Smith, Sammy White, Donald Cook, Hattie McDaniel, Charles Middleton, and Arthur Hohl. It was directed by James Whale, who tried to bring as many people from the stage production as he could to work on the film. (Florenz Ziegfeld, who died in 1932, had originally produced Show Boat onstage.) Winninger, Morgan and White had all previously played their roles in both the original 1927 stage production and the 1932 stage revival of the musical. Robeson, for whom the role of Joe was actually written, had appeared in the show onstage in London in 1928 and in the Broadway revival of 1932. Dunne had been brought in to replace Norma Terris, the original Magnolia, in the touring version of the show, and had toured the U.S. in the role beginning in 1929.[2] Francis X. Mahoney, who played the brief role of the comic stagehand "Rubber Face" Smith, had also starred in the original production and in the 1932 Broadway revival, and would repeat his role in the 1946 Broadway revival of Show Boat, two years before his death.

This film also enlisted the services of the show's original orchestrator, Robert Russell Bennett, and its original conductor, Victor Baravalle as the film's music director and conductor. The screenplay for the film was written by Hammerstein.[2]

The songs were performed and staged in a manner very similar to the way they were done in the original stage version, not counting the three new songs written for the film, of course. Many of the show's original vocal arrangements (by an uncredited Will Vodery) were retained in the film. "Why Do I Love You?" had been filmed in a new setting—inside a running open-top automobile—but was cut just before the film's release to tighten the running time. It is featured in all stage presentations of Show Boat, and if performed in its entirety is a very long song, running six minutes and forty seconds. There is no word on whether or not the film footage has survived,[3] but modern sources state that the visibly jerky car ride did not match the studio recording well enough, and the song was dropped, but a hint of it remains underneath the dialog. The music of the song is heard in the automobile sequence, in an earlier hotel lobby scene, and in the scene in which Magnolia receives Ravenal's farewell letter.

Due to time constraints, Whale was forced to delete much of his ending sequence, including a "modern" dance number to contrast with the romantic, "Old South" production number we see Kim starring in, and which was intended to highlight African-American contributions to dance and music. In order to condense many year's time into the final reel of the film, a number of montages were employed, and up-tempo and down-tempo excerpts of "Gallivantin' Aroun'", arranged by Robert Russell Bennett, were used in place of dialog, or under incidental dialog. There was also to have been an additional reprise of Ol' Man River, sung by Paul Robeson in old-age makeup as Joe, but this was deleted, and we never do see an aged Joe (or Queenie) in the film as released.

According to film historian Miles Kreuger in his book Show Boat: The History of a Classic American Musical, great care was taken by director James Whale to ensure a feeling of complete authenticity in the set and costume design for the 1936 film. This included the design of the show boat itself.[2]

Reception

This film is considered by some critics to be one of the classic film musicals of all time, and one of the best stage-to-film adaptations ever made. Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times called it "one of the finest musical films we have seen".[4]

Ten numbers from the stage score are actually sung, with four others heard only as background music, and a tiny, almost unrecognizable fragment of the song "I Might Fall Back on You" is heard instrumentally at the beginning of the New Year's Eve sequence. Except for three new dialogue scenes, the final ten minutes of the film, and the three additional songs written for the movie by Kern and Hammerstein, the 1936 Show Boat follows the stage musical extremely closely, unlike the 1929 film and the 1951 version released by MGM. It is so faithful that even several instrumental pieces not by Kern which are regularly included as part of the show's score are retained in the film.[2] The film also retains much of the comedy in the show.[2]

In 1996, this version of Show Boat was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Temporary withdrawal from circulation

Although the film was critically acclaimed and successful at the box office, it was withdrawn from circulation in the 1940s, after MGM, who was anxious to add a version of Show Boat to their growing list of Golden Age Movie Musicals, bought the rights (and all prints) from Universal. Initially, they hoped to star Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in a remake, but those plans fell through.[5] MGM's 1951 film Show Boat did not begin filming until late 1950, and was released in the summer of 1951 with Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel in the leading roles.

The fact that Paul Robeson, who had played Joe in the 1936 version, was blacklisted in 1950 further assured that the 1936 film would not be seen for a long time, and it was not widely seen again until after Robeson's death in 1976. In 1983 it made its debut on cable television, and a few years later, on PBS. It was subsequently shown on TNT and now turns up from time to time on TCM.

Musical additions

The three new songs written by Kern and Hammerstein for the 1936 film are:

Songs

Accolades

In 2006 the 1936 Show Boat ranked #24 on the American Film Institute's list of best musicals.

Home Media

It was made available on VHS beginning in 1990 (MGM/UA M301757). The Voyager Company, under its Criterion Collection Label, released two versions on laserdisc in 1989 of the 1936 version. One was a special edition with extras that included the history of show boats in general and its stage and film history, and the other was a movie only version. MGM/UA Home Video released the 1929, 1936 and 1951 versions, as well as the Show Boat sequence from Till the Clouds Roll By, as The Complete Show Boat collection on laserdisc in 1995. The 1929 version was restored and this release is the most complete version available. The transfer for the 1936 version is the same as the Criterion Collection and the 1951 was from the restored stereo release MGM had done earlier.

A Brazilian company, Classicline, released a poor quality DVD version in 2003.

In February 2014, a restoration of the film became available on DVD in the U.S. as part of Warner Home Video's Archive Collection line.[6] The initial inventory will be filled by manufactured DVDs; subsequent inventory will be filled by DVDs-on-demand (DVD-Rs).

References

  1. ↑ "Detail view of Movies Page".
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Show Boat: The Story of a Classic American Musical (A Da Capo paperback): Miles Kreuger: 9780306804014: Amazon.com: Books".
  3. ↑ The original songs and the various film versions, and their replacements, are available on the three CD set from EMI as CDS 7-49108-2.
  4. ↑ "Movie Review - - THE SCREEN; A Bravo for Universal's Splendid Film Edition of 'Show Boat,' at the Radio City Music Hall. - NYTimes.com".
  5. ↑ "Show Boat (1951)". Turner Classic Movies.
  6. ↑ "Show Boat (1936) (MOD)". www.WBShop.com.

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