This Technicolor remake of the famous Kern-Hammerstein musical has been very successful financially over the years due to the fact that its re-releases, frequent TV showings, digital re-mastering,and soundtrack album kept the excellent Universal 1936 film from being seen for a long time. It has its good points, among the best being the beauty of Ava Gardner (who gives one of her best portrayals,although she makes Julie more obviously sexy than either Edna Ferber or Oscar Hammerstein II intended), the sumptuous color photography, the thrilling voice of William Warfield singing "Ol' Man River", the likewise excellent voice of Howard Keel, and the dancing of Marge and Gower Champion. Then we get to the negative points, beginning with mostly indifferent or awful acting, slow pacing, especially in the first thirty minutes, and an atrociously rewritten script, which keeps the basic plot line,but throws out most of Hammerstein's dialogue to make way for some memorably corny lines ("There's still not enough room on this boat for the two of us!"). By doing this, the film makers ruin one of "Show Boat" 's greatest virtues--a libretto good enough to enable the show to stand the test of time. Many other 1920's shows have not, principally because of the quality of the scripts, although their songs remain famous and popular. Both "Show Boat"'s score and libretto are highly regarded today.
In addition,the script for this 1951 film version either waters down or eliminates several hard-hitting elements in the plot which were rendered extremely faithfully in the '36 version, though it would spoil the story, as well as that 1936 film, if I gave away what those moments are. It also manages to reduce an important supporting role, that of Queenie,the black cook, to just two lines and no singing, as well as to eliminate the black chorus, an important element of all the show's stage productions as well as of the 1936 film version. The all-purpose M-G-M chorus substitutes for the black chorus, and they do so offscreen.
Scenically,everything is just too artificial and prettied up-you can tell MGM was deliberately ignoring any historical authenticity,especially in the too elaborate and inaccurate redesigning of the show boat itself as a luxurious self-propelled paddlewheeler.
