SHOW BOAT (Universal, 1929), a Carl Laemmle Super Production directed by Harry A. Pollard, is a part-talking/part-silent screen adaptation based more on the dramatic story by Edna Ferber's book than the then successful 1927 Florenz Ziegfeld Broadway musical by Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. Remade most famously by Universal (1936) starring Irene Dunne and Allan Jones, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1951) with Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel, no three editions are alike, all having both different outlook and visual styles of its own.
Opening title: "The mighty Mississippi - deep and moody," begins with the Cotton Palace Show Boat "bringing to the river folk the glorious world of unreality - the theater." As the public cheers the boat's arrival, Magnolia Hawks (Jane LaVerne), a child of show boat owners, Captain Andy (Otis Harlan) and Parthinia Ann (Emily Fitzroy), dances for the public against the objections of her stern mother, who dislikes show people. During the night of the show, Magnolia, hoping to someday become an actress, is caught imitating its leading lady by her mother, who punishes Magnolia with a spanking inside her room. Magnolia calls out the window for actress and dear friend, Julie Dozier (Alma Rubens) for both moral support and comfort. Overhearing Magnolia wishing Julie were her mother, the hurt and jealous Parthinia immediately dismisses Julie from the show, not before Captain Andy enters to have her go out to perform. Years later, Magnolia (Laura LaPlante) grows up to become a successful Show Boat entertainer, but finds it difficult keeping her leading men who constantly get fired by Parthinia after they find themselves falling in love with her. Captain Andy subjects Gaylord Ravenal (Joseph Schildkraut), a gentleman and non-actor, to become Magnolia's new leading man. Fascinated by her beauty and charm, Gaylord eventually elopes with her. Though Captain Andy approves of Gaylord, Parthinia simply refuses to accept him into the family, constantly arguing with him, even after Magnolia gives birth to their daughter, Kim. Some time later, after Parthinia becomes a widow and becomes in charge of the Show Boat, Magnolia and Gaylord, unable to cope with her anymore, buy out their interest of the show boat and, taking along their five-year-old daughter (Jane LaVerne), start a new life in Chicago. Because of Gaylord's compulsive gambling and losing all the earnings and wife's respect, causes a friction in their marriage, leaving uncertainties ahead.
Others in the cast include: Elsie Bartlett (Elly); Jack McDonald (Windy); and Edwards (Schultzy). With Jane LaVerne, playing both mother and daughter roles, being such an adorable child, Stepin Fetchi's Joe, the character who sings the famous "Ol' Man RIver," is reduced here to a cameo dub-singing a slow but dull song titled "Look Down That Lonesome Road." While many of the actors credited being properly cast, especially Laura LaPlante, Universal's top actress of the day, and Schildkraut's less sympathetic gambling husband, it's Emily Fitzroy as Magnolia's frightful mother who gets better attention here over the likable Otis Harlan's Captain Andy.
For anyone having seen the remakes and expecting on hearing its classic songs, would be disappointed. Also missing are the romantic subplots of half-black Julie Dozier and her white husband, Frank Baker; and black comic support of Joe and Queenie. Other than some tunes from the musical used as underscoring for the silent treatment, the existing two hour edition to 1929s SHOW BOAT opens with an audio overture of stage performers of the musical show, including Aunt Jemima singing "Hey, Fella," Helen Morgan's "Bill" and Jules Bledsoe's rendition of "Ol' Man River." Take notice the voice-over announcer, Otis Harlan, introducing Bledsoe's "Ol' Man River" does not occur, cutting straight to the opening titles instead. Virtually silent with original underscoring, it takes the story nearly a half hour before reverting to ten minutes of spoken dialogue set during a bad acting stage play and after. The second talking segment occurs a half hour after reverting to silent scoring and inter-titles. Unfortunately the surviving print's second talkie segment, lasting a good half hour, contains no audio (now lost) using some inserted subtitles in its place. The supposed banjo segment of LaPlante singing on stage is voiceless with no indication to what songs she is actually singing.
Reportedly lost with no prints to have survived due to MGM's acquiring the rights to both Universal editions for its basis for its 1951 Technicolor musical, both 1929 and 1936 adaptations have fortunately survived, with the long unseen 1936 version the only one of the Universal two being available on video cassette and DVD. Regardless of being incomplete both in audio and brief segments, at least Turner Classic Movies cable channel has brought back this original edition back from obscurity, where it has been shown since July 1995, a real curiosity for fans of both stage and screen editions to see for comparison reasons more than anything else. (***)
