Synopsis
Despite her mother's objections, the naive young daughter of a show boat captain is thrust into the limelight as the company's new leading lady.
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Cast
- Irene DunneMagnolia Hawkes
- Allan JonesGaylord Ravenal
- Charles WinningerCap'n Andy Hawkes
- Paul RobesonJoe
- Helen MorganJulie LaVerne
- Helen WestleyParthenia "Parthy" Hawkes
- Queenie SmithEllie May Chipley
- Sammy WhiteFrank Schultz
- Donald CookSteve Baker
- Hattie McDanielQueenie
Recommendations
- 100
TV Guide Magazine
Master director Whale, here essaying his first musical, does some typically marvelous things with the camera and mise-en-scene and gets wonderful performances from his cast. - 100
The New York Times
Universal's excellent screen transcription, preserving the Jerome Kern score and accepting Oscar Hammerstein's book and lyrics, is the pleasantest kind of proof that it was not merely one of the best musical shows of the century but that it contained the gossamer stuff for one of the finest musical films we have seen. - 90
NPR
Daring as the racial issues in Show Boat were, its glory has always been its music, and my only major regret about this film — one of the most important movie musicals ever made — is that it doesn't include more of the score. - 90
Los Angeles Times
It is a stylish, durable piece of epic Americana, replete with some of the most beloved songs in musical theater and rich in its sense of period. [15 Jul 1985, p.2] - 88
Slant Magazine
A surprisingly nuanced, if at times woefully dated, attempt to depict the complexities of what W.E.B. Du Bois famously identified as the problem of the 20th century: the color line. - 88
Chicago Reader
James Whale’s brilliant and surprisingly delicate 1936 rendition of the Kern and Hammerstein musical, which was based on an Edna Ferber novel, is infinitely superior to the dull 1951 MGM Technicolor remake and, interestingly enough, less racist. - 80
The Dissolve
Even with material as strong as Show Boat, Whale recognizes he’s making a film, not just a record of a stage production. - 80
Time Out
Whale does superbly by this much-loved Kern-Hammerstein musical, abetted by modestly handsome sets and lustrous camerawork from John Mescall.
