Show Boat

Name: Show Boat
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance, Musical
Released: May 17, 1936
Duration: 113 min
Rating: 88

1936

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Universal acclaim based on 10 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Universal Pictures | Release Date: May 17, 1936 | Approved

Summary: 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.

Director: James Whale

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Romance, Musical

Rating: Approved

Runtime: 113 min

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Critic Reviews

100

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

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. Read full review

100

Frank S. Nugent

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. Read full review

Lloyd Schwartz

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. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

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. Read full review

Keith Phipps

Even with material as strong as Show Boat, Whale recognizes he’s making a film, not just a record of a stage production. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Show Boat, Universal’s second talkerized version, is a smash filmusical. Basic tender romance [from Edna Ferber’s novel] between Magnolia (Irene Dunne) and Gaylord Ravenal (Allan Jones), romantic wastrel of the Mississippi river banks, has been most effectively projected by this reproduction of the classic [1927] Edna Ferber-Oscar Hammerstein II-Jerome Kern operetta. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Whale does superbly by this much-loved Kern-Hammerstein musical, abetted by modestly handsome sets and lustrous camerawork from John Mescall. Read full review

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