Show Boat
Universal Pictures | Release Date: May 17, 1936 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 10 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Slant MagazineKeith Watson
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. Read full review
80
Time OutStaff (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
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (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
80
VarietyStaff (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
88
Chicago ReaderJonathan 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
100
The New York TimesFrank 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
80
The New YorkerPauline Kael
This classic musical-melodrama with the Jerome Kern songs and the novelistic Edna Ferber plot, full of heartbreaks and miscegenation and coincidences, is hard to resist in any of its versions.
90
NPRLloyd 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
90
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
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]
80
The DissolveKeith 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
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