Show Boat (1929 film)
| Show Boat | |
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| Directed by | Harry A. Pollard |
| Produced by | Carl Laemmle |
| Written by | Charles Kenyon (continuity) |
| Based on |
Show Boat by Edna Ferber |
| Starring |
Laura La Plante Joseph Schildkraut Emily Fitzroy Otis Harlan |
| Music by |
Jerome Kern Joseph Cherniavsky |
| Cinematography | Gilbert Warrenton |
| Edited by | Daniel Mandell |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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146 minutes (with prologue) 129 minutes (without prologue) 114 mins. (without sound sequences) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English (Intertitles with talking sequences) |
Show Boat is a 1929 American romantic drama film based on the novel Show Boat by Edna Ferber. It is not, as has been often claimed, based on the Kern-Hammerstein stage musical, although the film does have songs. This version was released by Universal in two editions, one a silent film for movie theatres still not equipped for sound, and one a part-talkie with a sound prologue.
The film was long believed to be lost, but most of it has been found and released on laserdisc and shown on Turner Classic Movies. A number of sections of the soundtrack were found in the mid-1990s on Vitaphone records, although the film was made with a Movietone soundtrack. Two more records were discovered in 2005.
The eighteen-year-old Magnolia meets, falls in love with, and elopes with riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal.
After the death of Captain Andy, Magnolia, Ravenal, and their daughter Kim leave the boat and go to live in Chicago, where they live off Ravenal's gambling earnings and are alternately rich and poor. Finally, Parthy announces she is coming to visit at a time when Ravenal is completely broke, and, fearing her wrath, he abandons Magnolia and Kim, after which Magnolia finds a job singing at a local club and eventually becomes famous. Years later, Parthy dies, and Magnolia, who had long been estranged from her because of her attitude toward Ravenal, returns to the show boat. Magnolia and Ravenal are reunited on the show boat at the end of the film, and after Parthy's death, Magnolia gives her own inheritance money to her daughter Kim.
The film stars:
These were the years in which film studios were making a transition from silent films to sound films and this version of Show Boat was made as a silent film. The studio panicked when they realized that audiences might be expecting a sound version of Show Boat now that sound films had become so popular, and the film was temporarily withheld from release.
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Wikipedia