Show boat

USA 1936

Dir: James Whale

110 mins

Cast: Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson

Rating: G

The 1936 production of Show Boat is the second version of the story based on Edna Ferber’s novel (the 1929 version was in fact shot as a silent adaptation of the original novel and hastily reworked to include some of the show’s songs as a part-talkie release) and still the best. Irene Dunne, who had been discovered by Hollywood talent agents while performing in a road show version of the stage musical, returns to the role of Magnolia, the dreamy daughter of Cap’n Andy (Charles Winninger), the captain and proprietor of the floating paddlewheel playhouse. She plays out her romantic fantasies in real life when she falls for riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal (Allan Jones) and, after a flirtation by duet, she takes the stage with him as her leading man, against the wishes of a mother who wants to keep her far away from the “wicked stage” of show business. Co-star Helen Morgan (in her final film role) reprises her role in the original Broadway production and Paul Robeson reprises the part he created in the London version, which gives the film documentary gravity as well as dramatic power. Dunne, with her trilling laugh and easy charm, is wonderful as the earnest Magnolia and Jones, most famous as the bland romantic lead of a couple of Marx Brothers comedies, shows more charisma and strength in the role of the romantic gambler than in any other of his film performances, but Robeson and Morgan are transcendent.

... James Whale, most famous for directing the great gothic horror classics Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, and the baroque blast of Bride of Frankenstein, was a cultured Englishman with a gift for sophisticated melodrama. He was also a gay man in a society hostile to homosexuality, which many have suggested made him sympathetic to the black characters in the film. Show Boat features a minstrel number with Irene Dunne in blackface (which, offensive as it is to our sensibilities, is at least true to the show’s era) and all of the black characters are servants, manual laborers, or otherwise subservient to the white characters. Yet the film is remarkable for its acknowledgement of segregation as a legal and social reality, and for creating a theatrical community where the white and black characters interact freely in their own world.

... Legendary actor, singer, and political activist Paul Robeson takes the role of Joe. On the one hand it’s a cliché of the lazy, day-dreaming black river man who is totally devoted to his white bosses, but it also has a dimensionality unseen in other roles written for black characters in the era and Robeson brings depth and dignity to the part and a majesty to the show’s signature song Ol’ Man River. ...

Sean Axmaker, Parallax View