Show Boat
About Show Boat
Eighteen-year-old Magnolia Hawks elopes from her father’s Mississippi show boat with the gambler Gaylord Ravenal. After Captain Andy dies, Magnolia, Ravenal, and their daughter Kim go to Chicago and live on his winnings. When Parthy announces a visit and he is broke, he leaves them. Magnolia sings in a club and becomes known. Years later Parthy dies. Magnolia returns to the boat, finds Ravenal there, and gives her own inheritance to Kim.
Cast & crew
More about Show Boat
Harry A. Pollard directed. Universal shot it first as a silent film and held it. About 30 minutes of dialogue and singing were then added, and a silent version was still issued for theaters without sound. Gilbert Warrenton photographed it. Daniel Mandell edited. A two-reel prologue presents five songs from the 1927 Kern and Hammerstein show, sung by Helen Morgan, Jules Bledsoe, Tess Gardella, and the Jubilee Singers.
Themes
Background
It is a pre-Code part-talkie, released while many theaters still needed a silent print.
Making
The picture was planned from Ferber’s 1926 novel, not from the 1927 musical. Two songs from the show were dropped in later, sung in situations the stage version does not use.
Look
Gilbert Warrenton photographed the film, including the dialogue scenes that were reshot after the silent version was held back.
Music
Joseph Cherniavsky and Clarence J. Marks wrote the theme song. The body of the film mixes spirituals and popular tunes with Ol’ Man River and Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man from the Kern and Hammerstein score. A silent version was issued with no track.
Preservation
Most of the film survives and has been issued on LaserDisc and shown on Turner Classic Movies. In the TCM cut, the prologue picture is replaced by an overture card. Fragments of that prologue were used in an A&E biography of Florenz Ziegfeld. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025.
Notes
- Laura La Plante plays Magnolia. Joseph Schildkraut plays Ravenal. Emily Fitzroy plays Parthy. Otis Harlan plays Captain Andy. Alma Rubens plays Julie. Stepin Fetchit plays Joe. Gertrude Howard plays Queenie.
- In this version Julie is white, so her marriage is not the illegal one in Edna Ferber’s novel, and Ravenal comes back instead of dying.
- La Plante sings Ol’ Man River, a song Magnolia does not sing in the stage musical.
- Jules Bledsoe’s voice stands in for Stepin Fetchit on The Lonesome Road, used as the finale.
- The theme song is Love Sings a Song in My Heart, music by Joseph Cherniavsky and words by Clarence J. Marks.
- Other listed running times are 129 minutes without the prologue and 114 minutes without the sound sequences.
Scenes
- Magnolia elopes with Ravenal from the show boat.
- Broke, he leaves her and Kim before Parthy’s visit.
- She sings in a Chicago club.
- They meet again on the boat after Parthy’s death.
Influenced by
- Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat (1926)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Show Boat.webm)
