Themes: Actor's Life, Star-Crossed Lovers, Rags To Riches
Main Cast: Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson, Helen Morgan
Release Year: 1936
Country: US
Run Time: 110 minutes
Plot
This second film version of the Edna Ferber/Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Show Boat is considered by many film buffs to be the best of the three. Covering nearly four decades (was there ever an Edna Ferber novel that didn't?), the film stars Irene Dunne as Magnolia Hawks, a role she'd previously played on stage, though not in the Broadway version. The daughter of showboat impresario Captain Andy (Charles Winninger, who was in the Broadway original), Magnolia is swept off her feet by dashing gambler Gaylord Ravenal (Allan Jones). Yearning to appear on the showboat stage, Magnolia gets her chance when Captain Andy's leading lady, the tragic Julie (Helen Morgan, likewise a holdover from Broadway), is ordered not to perform by a small-town sheriff because she is Mulatto. Julie's husband Steve (Donald Cook) loyally walks out with his wife, thereby leaving the leading-man position open--but not for long, since Gaylord Ravenal agrees to take over for Steve, the better to stay close to Magnolia. Despite the disapproval of Magnolia's mother Parthy Hawks (Helen Westley), Magnolia and Ravenal are married. Later on, the couple has a baby girl named Kim. At first, the young family is blissfully happy, but as Ravenal's gambling debts begin to mount, things turn sour. Unable to support Magnolia and Kim, Ravenal walks out on them both. Desperately, Magnolia tries to get a job as a singer in Chicago. She auditions at a night spot where, fortuitously, Julie is the featured attraction. Hoping to give Magnolia a break, Julie gets drunk, forcing the manager to hire Magnolia as a replacement. During her New Years' Eve debut, Magnolia "chokes up" in front of the raucous audience--and then, who should emerge from the crowd but lovable Captain Andy, who gives Magnolia the encouragement she needs. Magnolia goes on to become a famous musical comedy star, as does her grown-up daughter Kim (played as an adult by Sunnie O'Dea). On the eve of Magnolia's retirement from the theater, she is reunited with her now-contrite husband Gaylord Ravenal. While the second half of Show Boat departs radically from both the novel (in which Ravenal never returns ) and the Broadway show, the film manages to capture the spirit of its literary and theatrical ancestors. Of the original score, "Cotton Blossom," "Ol' Man River," "Where's the Mate for Me?" "Make Believe," "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," You are Love" and "Bill" are retained, while most of the other songs are heard as background accompaniment. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II penned three new tunes for the film version: "Ah Still Suits Me," "Gallavantin' Around" and "I Have the Room Above." As in all stage and screen versions of Show Boat, the Charles K. Harris standard "After the Ball" is heard in the New Year sequence. In addition to the aforementioned Dunne, Jones, Winninger, Westley, Morgan, and O'Dea, the Show Boat cast includes the magnificent Paul Robeson as Joe (his rendition of "Ol' Man River" can still induce goosebumps), Hattie McDaniel as Queenie and Sammy White and Queenie Smith as the engagingly second-rate vaudeville team of Frank and Ellie Schultz. Though James Whale of Frankenstein fame seems an odd choice for director, he brings a vibrant theatricality to the proceedings that is lacking in other versions. Show Boat literally saved the financially strapped Universal Pictures from receivership--but not soon enough to prevent the ousters of Carl Laemmle Sr. and Jr. in favor of a new administration. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Show Boat lacks the production values and color cinematography of the 1951 remake, but it more than compensates with great performances and the remarkable work of director James Whale. Working with Universal at a time when the studio was severely short of cash, Whale uses a variety of camera tricks to keep the film visually interesting. The two best scenes both involve Paul Robeson's towering performance as Joe. First is the "Ol' Man River" sequence, in which Whale creates compact, non-linear storytelling techniques that would wait nearly fifty years to be rediscovered in the era of the music video. The second is the remarkably straightforward musical scene with Robeson and Hattie McDaniel, which, unlike "Ol' Man River", is wholly linear and uses non-intrusive, fixed location camera shots. The evolution of Show Boat from Edna Ferber's novel to a history-making Broadway play to its several film versions is among the most important milestones in 20th century U.S. culture. This was the first widely popular play (and/or motion picture) to depict African-American performers whose characters were as important as those of the white actors. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
This film version from Universal Pictures, which had in 1929 filmed a part-talkieversion of Ferber's original novel, is, for the most part, a faithful adaptation of the famed Broadwaymusical version of the novel, and retains the interracial subplot so important to both the novel and the show. Carl Laemmle, head of Universal, had been deeply dissatisfied with the 1929 film, and had long wanted to make an all-sound version of the hit musical. After plans to make this version with Russ Columbo as Ravenal fell through when Columbo was accidentally killed, shooting of the film was rescheduled, and the new version of Show Boat, with several members of the original Broadway cast, was released in 1936.
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.
Magnolia Hawks is an eighteen-year-old on her family's show boat, the Cotton Palace (renamed from the stage original's Cotton Blossom) which travels the Mississippi River putting on shows. She meets Gaylord Ravenal, a charming gambler, 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, but is reunited with the repentant Ravenal after twenty-three years. 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 consequently becomes an alcoholic, from which she presumably never recovers. Her husband, Steve, also presumably never returns to her. But Julie, who was Magnolia's best friend during their days on the show boat, secretly enables her to become a success on the stage in Chicago after Ravenal has abandoned Magnolia. In the film's most significant change from the show, Magnolia and Ravenal are reunited at the theatre in which Kim, their daughter, is starring in her first Broadway show, rather than back on the show boat, as in all other versions. The final sequence, however, does retain reprises of the songs You Are Love and Ol' Man River.
Production history
This film version of Show Boat stars Irene Dunne and Allan Jones, with Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson, Helen Morgan, Helen Westley, Queenie Smith, Sammy White, Donald Cook, Arthur Hohl, and Hattie McDaniel. It was directed by Frankenstein / Bride of Frankenstein director James Whale, who tried to bring as many people from the stage production as he could to work on the film. 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.
The 1936 film also enlisted the services of the show's original orchestrator, Robert Russell Bennett, and its original conductor, Victor Baravalle. The screenplay for the film was written by Hammerstein.
The songs were performed 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 automobile - but was cut just before the film's release to tighten the running time. There is no word on whether or not this footage has survived.
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.
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.
Reception
The 1936 version of Show Boat is considered by nearly all film critics to be one of the classic film musicals of all time, and one of the best stage-to-film adaptations ever made. 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 the final ten minutes of the film and the three additional songs written for the movie by Kern and Hammerstein, this production follows the stage musical extremely closely, unlike the 1929 film and the 1951 version released by MGM. It also retains much of the comedy in the show. 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
Show Boat was successful at the box office, but was withdrawn from circulation in the 1940s, after MGM bought the rights so that they could film a Technicolorremake; however, MGM's version did not begin filming until 1950, and was released in the summer of 1951. The controversy surrounding Paul Robeson's supposed Communist leanings 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. It has been available on VHS since 1990, but it has yet to be released on an authorized DVD.
The three new songs written by Kern and Hammerstein for the 1936 film are:
I Have The Room Above Her (a duet for Magnolia and Ravenal, sung in a new scene not included in the original play, but performed approximately in the spot in which the song I Might Fall Back On You was sung by Frank and Ellie, the comic dance team, in the show. "I Might Fall Back On You" is not sung in the film; a tiny fragment of it is heard instrumentally in the New Year's Eve sequence.) Harold Prince included I Have the Room Above Her in his 1993 stage revival of Show Boat.
Gallivantin' Around (a blackface number sung onstage by Magnolia, in place of the orchestral Olio Dance performed by Frank in the original play). An instrumental version of Gallivantin' Around is played in the film's new final scene.
Ah Still Suits Me (a duet for Joe and Queenie, written especially to expand both their roles, and sung in a new scene especially written for the film) This song was also included in the 1989 Paper Mill Playhouse stage revival of "Show Boat", telecast by PBS.
External links
Showboat Film page, Reel Classics - photos, sound clips
