Connection
Show Boat is a american film of genre Drama directed by James Whale released in USA on 17 may 1936 with Irene Dunne
Show Boat (1936)
If you like this film, let us know!
- Infos
- Casting
- Technical infos
- Photos
- Videos
- Film quotes
- Characters
- Music
- Awards
Add to a movie listReleased in USA 17 may 1936
Length 1h53
Directed by James Whale
OriginUSA
Themes Films about music and musicians, Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals
Rating73%
Show Boat is a 1936 film. Directed by James Whale, it is based on the musical Show Boat by Jerome Kern (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (script and lyrics), which the team adapted from the Show Boat by Edna Ferber.
In 1929 Universal Pictures had filmed the part-talkie Show Boat. Carl Laemmle, head of Universal, had been deeply dissatisfied with that film, and had long wanted to make an all-sound version of the hit musical. It was originally scheduled to be made in 1934, but plans to make this version with Russ Columbo as the gambler Gaylord Ravenal fell through when Columbo was killed that year in a shotgun accident, and shooting of the film was rescheduled. The film, with several members of the original Broadway cast, was begun in late 1935 and released in 1936.
In addition to the songs retained from the stage production, Kern and Hammerstein wrote three additional songs for the film. Two of them were performed in spots previously reserved for songs from the stage production.
Synopsis
The musical's story spans about forty years, from the late 1880s to the late 1920s. Magnolia Hawks is an eighteen-year-old on her family's show boat, the Cotton Palace which travels the Mississippi River putting on shows. She meets Gaylord Ravenal, a charming gambler, falls in love with him, and eventually marries him. Together with their baby daughter, the couple leaves the boat and moves to Chicago, where they live off Gaylord's gambling winnings. After about ten years, he experiences an especially bad losing streak and leaves Magnolia, out of a sense of guilt that he is ruining her life because of his losses. Magnolia is forced to bring up her young daughter alone. In a parallel plot, Julie LaVerne (the show boat's leading actress, who is part African-American, but "passing" as white) is forced to leave the boat because of her background, taking Steve Baker (her white husband, to whom, under the state's law, she is illegally married) with her. Julie is eventually also abandoned by her husband, and she becomes an alcoholic. Magnolia's becomes a success on the stage in Chicago. Twenty-three years later Magnolia and Ravenal are reunited at the theater in which Kim, their daughter, is appearing in her first Broadway starring role.Actors
Irene Dunne
(Magnolia Hawkes)
Allan Jones
(Gaylord Ravenal)
Charles Winninger
(Cap'n Andy Hawkes)
Paul Robeson
(Joe)
Helen Morgan
(Julie LaVerne)
Comments
Leave comment :
Suggestions of similar film to Show Boat
There are 151 films with the same actors, 20 films with the same director, 89390 with the same cinematographic genres (including 71 with exactly the same 5 genres than Show Boat), 10651 films with the same themes (including 103 films with the same 4 themes than Show Boat), to have finally 70 suggestions of similar films.If you liked Show Boat, you will probably like those similar films :
By Candlelight (1933)
, 1h10Directed by James Whale
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes Théâtre, Films based on plays
Actors Elissa Landi, Paul Lukas, Nils Asther, Dorothy Revier, Lawrence Grant, Esther Ralston
Rating66%
During a European train journey, a nobleman's butler Josef (Paul Lukas) is mistaken for his employer Prince Alfred von Rommer (Nils Asther) by a beautiful woman, Marie (Elissa Landi), and he does nothing to disillusion her. In due course, the Prince himself arrives and is mistaken for his servant.
The Great Garrick (1937)
, 1h29Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, James Whale, Rowland Leigh
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Romantic comedy, Romance
Themes Films about television, Films based on plays
Actors Brian Aherne, Olivia de Havilland, Edward Everett Horton, Melville Cooper, Lionel Atwill, Luis Alberni
Rating67%
In London in 1750, renowned English actor David Garrick announces onstage that he has been invited to Paris to work with the prestigious Comédie-Française. A person in the audience jeers that the French want him to teach them how to act. The playwright Beaumarchais (Lionel Atwill) returns to the Comédie-Française and attributes the remark to Garrick himself. The outraged French actors, led by their president, Picard (Melville Cooper), decide to make him an object of public ridicule. They take over a wayside inn where he will be staying, and Beaumarchais devises a plot intended to humiliate Garrick by frightening him into returning to England.
Waterloo Bridge (1931)
, 1h21Directed by James Whale
Origin USA
Genres Drama, War, Romance
Themes Films about sexuality, Erotic films, Films about prostitution, Films based on plays
Actors Mae Clarke, Douglass Montgomery, Doris Lloyd, Bette Davis, Frederick Kerr, Enid Bennett
Rating73%
Unable to find work in London at the height of World War I, American chorus girl Myra Deauville resorts to prostitution to support herself. She meets her clients on Waterloo Bridge, the primary entry point into the city for soldiers on leave. During an air raid, she meets fellow American Roy Cronin, a member of the Canadian Army, and he joins Myra in her apartment.
Journey's End (1930)
, 2hDirected by James Whale
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, War
Themes Théâtre, Political films, Films based on plays
Actors Colin Clive, Billy Bevan, David Manners, Ian Maclaren, Charles K. Gerrard, Anthony Bushell
Rating68%
On the eve of a battle in 1918, a new officer, Second Lieutenant Raleigh (David Manners), joins Captain Stanhope's (Colin Clive) company in the British trench lines in France. The two men knew each other at school: the younger Raleigh hero-worshipping Stanhope, while Stanhope has come to love Raleigh's sister. But the Stanhope whom Raleigh encounters now is a changed man who, after three years at the front, has turned to drink and seems close to a breakdown. Stanhope is terrified that Raleigh will betray Stanhope's decline to his sister, whom Stanhope still hopes to marry after the war. An older officer, the avuncular Lieutenant Osborne (Ian Maclaren), desperately tries to keep Stanhope from cracking. Osborne and Raleigh are selected to lead a raiding party on the German trenches where a number of the British forces are killed, including Osborne. Later, when Raleigh too is mortally wounded, Stanhope faces a desperate time as, grief-stricken and without close friends, he prepares to face another furious enemy attack.
The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933)
, 1h7Directed by James Whale
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Crime
Themes Théâtre, Films based on plays
Actors Nancy Carroll, Frank Morgan, Paul Lukas, Gloria Stuart, Jean Dixon, Donald Cook
Rating64%
A lawyer (Morgan) fears his own wife (Carroll) might be having an affair while he defends a cuckolded wife-killer.
Port of Seven Seas (1938)
, 1h21Directed by James Whale
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Melodrama
Themes Films based on plays
Actors Wallace Beery, Frank Morgan, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Beal, Jessie Ralph, Etienne Girardot
Rating59%
In the French port of Marseille, a lovely young woman named Madelon (Maureen O'Sullivan) is in love with a young sailor, Marius (John Beal). Madelon in turn is loved by Honore Panisse (Frank Morgan), a well-to-do middle-aged sailmaker. When Marius finds out he must go to sea for three years, he leaves without saying goodbye to Madelon; in a note he tells her that it would break his heart to tell her in person. She rushes to the dock, but sees his ship sailing away and faints. Marius's father Cesar, (Wallace Beery) who already thinks of Madelon as one of the family, carries her to her home.
Frankenstein (1931)
, 1h11Directed by James Whale
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Science fiction, Fantastic, Horror
Themes Films about computing, Théâtre, Films based on science fiction novels, Frankenstein films, Films based on plays, Cyberpunk films
Actors Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Boris Karloff, Edward Van Sloan, Dwight Frye
Rating77%
In a European village Henry Frankenstein, a young scientist, and his assistant Fritz, a hunchback, piece together a human body, the parts of which have been collected from various sources. Frankenstein desires to create human life through electrical devices which he has perfected.
Roberta (1935)
, 1h46Directed by William A. Seiter
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes La mode, Films about music and musicians, Théâtre, Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals
Actors Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Claire Dodd, Victor Varconi
Rating69%
John Kent (Randolph Scott), a former star football player at Harvard, goes to Paris with his friend Huck Haines (Fred Astaire) and the latter's dance band, the Wabash Indianians. Alexander Voyda (Luis Alberni) has booked the band, but refuses to let them play when he finds the musicians are not the Indians he expected, but merely from Indiana (Huck Haines and his Indianians Band).
Babes in Arms (1939)
, 1h33Directed by Busby Berkeley
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Musical
Themes Dance films, Films about music and musicians, Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals
Actors Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Charles Winninger, Henry Hull, June Preisser, Guy Kibbee
Rating62%
In 1921 vaudeville performer Joe Moran (Charles Winninger) announces the birth of a son; but after the advent of talking pictures in 1928, vaudeville fails. His son Mickey Moran (Mickey Rooney) writes songs, and Patsy Barton (Judy Garland) sings "Good Morning." Mickey sells the song for $100. He gives Patsy his pin and kisses her. Mickey learns that his parents Joe and Florrie (Grace Hayes) are going on the road without the children, and he disagrees. Patsy and Molly Moran (Betty Jaynes) sing "You Are My Lucky Star" and "Broadway Rhythm," but Joe says no to their going. So Mickey proposes the kids put on a show, and Don Brice (Douglas McPhail) sings "Babes in Arms" as they march and make a bonfire. Joe dismisses Mickey.
State Fair (1945)
, 1h40Directed by Walter Lang
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Musical films, Films based on plays, Children's films
Actors Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, Charles Winninger, Fay Bainter
Rating69%
The Frake family is getting ready for the Iowa State Fair - each with their own hopes for the trip ("Our State Fair"). Daughter Margy (Jeanne Crain) is in a melancholy mood as she packs for the fair, singing "It Might As Well Be Spring". Margy muses about how the Fair will at least give her a break from seeing and doing the same old things every day on the farm. Father Abel (Charles Winninger) tends to his pig Blue Boy and bets his neighbor Dave Miller (Percy Kilbride) five dollars that the pig will win at the fair, and that the Frake family will all have a good time at the fair with no bad experiences. Mother Melissa (Fay Bainter) is preparing pickles and mincemeat to enter in the cooking competition. The mincemeat recipe calls for brandy, but Melissa objects to adding it because she doesn't believe in cooking with alcohol, even though Abel disagrees and thinks the brandy is essential to the recipe. When Melissa goes to the phone, Abel secretly puts some brandy in the mincemeat. The phone call is for son Wayne (Dick Haymes), whose girlfriend Eleanor is calling to tell him that she cannot go to the fair with him because her mother has been ill. Melissa comes back from the phone to her mincemeat and, not knowing Abel already added brandy, adds even more. Harry, Margy's fiance, tells her he can't go to the fair with her because he has to take care of his cows. He describes the new modern farm he wants to have after they are married, with a farmhouse made out of prefabricated plastic with linoleum floors throughout. Margy, who thinks old houses are charming, is not enthusiastic about Harry's ideas or about Harry himself.