Show Boat (1951 film)
| Show Boat | |
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French film poster
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| Directed by | George Sidney |
| Produced by | Arthur Freed |
| Screenplay by | John Lee Mahin |
| Based on |
Show Boat by Edna Ferber Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II |
| Starring |
Kathryn Grayson Ava Gardner Howard Keel Joe E. Brown Marge Champion Gower Champion Agnes Moorehead William Warfield |
| Music by | Jerome Kern |
| Cinematography | Charles Rosher |
| Edited by | John D. Dunning |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,389,000 |
| Box office | $7,621,000 |
Show Boat is a 1951 American musical romantic drama film, based on the stage musical of the same name by Jerome Kern (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (script and lyrics), and the 1926 novel by Edna Ferber. It was made by MGM, adapted for the screen by John Lee Mahin, produced by Arthur Freed and directed by George Sidney.
Filmed previously in 1929 and in 1936, this third adaptation of Show Boat was shot in Technicolor in the typical MGM lavish style. The film stars Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, and Howard Keel, with Joe E. Brown, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, William Warfield, Robert Sterling, Agnes Moorehead and Leif Erickson. Unlike the 1936 film, none of the members of the original Broadway cast of the show appeared in this version.
The 1951 Show Boat was the most financially successful of the film adaptations of the show: one of MGM's most popular musicals, it was the third-most profitable film of that year.
The basic plot remains the same as in the stage play and the 1936 film version. When the Cotton Blossom, Cap'n Andy Hawks's show boat, arrives in a Mississippi town to give a performance, a fistfight breaks out between leading man Steve Baker (Robert Sterling) and Pete (Leif Erickson), the boat's engineer who has been making passes at Steve's wife, leading lady Julie La Verne (Ava Gardner). Cap'n Andy (Joe E. Brown) pretends to the assembled crowd that the two were really previewing a scene from one of the boat's melodramas. But Pete knows a dark secret about Julie, and he runs off to tell the local sheriff.
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