X
- 1936
- Approved
- Universal Pictures
- 1 h 53 m
- 1936
- Approved
- Universal Pictures
- 1 h 53 m
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.
Directed By: James Whale
Written By: Edna Ferber, Oscar Hammerstein II, Zoe Akins
- 1936
- Approved
- Universal Pictures
- 1 h 53 m
- 1936
- Approved
- Universal Pictures
- 1 h 53 m
Show Boat
88
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
tbd
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.
Directed By: James Whale
Written By: Edna Ferber, Oscar Hammerstein II, Zoe Akins
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 10 Critic Reviews
88
100% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 10 Critic Reviews
88
100% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
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.
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]
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.
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.
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.
Whale does superbly by this much-loved Kern-Hammerstein musical, abetted by modestly handsome sets and lustrous camerawork from John Mescall.
Even with material as strong as Show Boat, Whale recognizes he’s making a film, not just a record of a stage production.
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Awards
National Film Preservation Board, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Venice Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
