Show Boat (1929 film)
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| Show Boat | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Harry A. Pollard |
| Produced by | Carl Laemmle |
| Written by | Edna Ferber (novel) Charles Kenyon (continuity) |
| Starring | Laura La Plante Joseph Schildkraut Emily Fitzroy Otis Harlan |
| Music by | Joseph Cherniavsky Jerome Kern |
| Cinematography | Gilbert Warrenton |
| Editing by | Daniel Mandell |
| Release date(s) | 1929 |
| Running time | 129 minutes without prologue, approx. 146 minutes with prologue, approx. 114 minutes without sound sequences |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Show Boat (1929) is a film based on the book by Edna Ferber. Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat was filmed in 1929 by Universal Pictures, with a "sanitized" story line. Contrary to what is often claimed, the 1929 film is not an adaptation of the classic 1927 Kern-Hammerstein Broadway musical based on the book. Its plot line sticks much closer to the novel than to the stage production, but is not as controversial as either one. It also features incidents completely omitted from the Broadway musical adaptation, such as the depiction of a Chicago bordello.
As in the novel (but not the show), the childhood of Magnolia, daughter of Captain Andy Hawks and his wife Parthy, is depicted, and the scenes with the actress Julie Dozier take place while Magnolia is still a little girl, not an eighteen-year-old as in the musical. Despite the mention of such risqué material as the Chicago bordello, however, the interracial love story between Julie and her husband Steve, the section of Ferber's novel that made the stage musical so unusual for its time, was completely dropped from the 1929 film to appease censors and Southern audiences, and Julie in this version was evicted from the boat because of Parthy's jealousy over her relationship with Magnolia (to whom Julie is a sort of surrogate mother and confidante).
Again, as in the novel but not the musical, both Cap'n Andy and Parthy die - the musical carefully avoided any of the four deaths mentioned in Ferber's novel, despite the fact that the story spans forty years (in the novel, the span is a decade longer). However, in a nod to the stage musical, Magnolia and her gambler husband Gaylord Ravenal are reunited on the show boat at the end, whereas in the novel, Ravenal not only never returns to Magnolia, but dies in San Francisco, and Magnolia returns to Mississippi to run the show boat alone after Parthy's death.
The 1929 film stars Laura La Plante, Joseph Schildkraut, Otis Harlan, Emily Fitzroy, Alma Rubens, Elise Bartlett, Stepin Fetchit, and Jack McDonald. It was adapted by Charles Kenyon, Harry A. Pollard, and Tom Reed and was directed by Pollard.
Because these were the years in which films were making a transition to sound, this version of Show Boat was made as a silent film, but the studio panicked when they realized that audiences might be expecting a talking picture version. To safeguard against this, several scenes were then reshot to include about thirty minutes of dialogue and singing. Because of the success of the stage musical, which was playing on Broadway at the same time that the film was being shot, a two-reel sound prologue, featuring original Broadway cast members Helen Morgan, Jules Bledsoe, Tess Gardella and the Jubilee Singers singing five songs from the show, was also added, and the movie was released both as a part-talkie and as a silent film without the prologue. Otis Harlan, who played Cap'n Andy in the film, served as Master of Ceremonies in the prologue, which also featured legendary impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, producer of the stage musical version of Show Boat, as himself. Three of the songs heard in the prologue were not heard in the film proper.
All of the original stage score, except for the five songs alluded to above, was replaced in the 1929 film by both spirituals and popular songs written by other songwriters, and largely because of this, it was not a success. It is likely, though, that the fact that it was a part-talkie may have played a part in its failure. The then-recent 1929 film version of The Desert Song, an all-sound film, had been a huge success, and audiences were no longer willing to accept part-talking musical films.
This was the only film version of Show Boat to be given a road show presentation, and the only one of the three film versions to run over two hours (the stage musical ran three hours originally, and was filmed in 1936 and 1951 at a length of slightly less than two hours).
The 1929 movie was long considered a lost film, but most of it has since been recovered, although large portions of the sound track are still missing as of 2006. What has so far been recovered of the film turns up on television very occasionally, on Turner Classic Movies.
[edit] Cast
(first billed only)
- Laura La Plante as Magnolia Hawks
- Joseph Schildkraut as Gaylord Ravenal
- Emily Fitzroy as Parthenia 'Parthy' Ann Hawks
- Otis Harlan as Capt. Andy Hawks/Master of Ceremonies in Prologue
- Alma Rubens as Julie Dozier
- Jack McDonald as Windy
- Jane La Verne as Magnolia as a Child/Kim
- Neely Edwards as Schultzy
- Elise Bartlett as Elly
- Stepin Fetchit as Joe
