Show-Boat

I had long heard about this film version of "Show Boat", and "Show Boat" being my favorite Broadway musical, I had anticipated this part-talkie as something truly dreadful to sit through. It was televised the other day, and I finally got my chance to see it.

The film is not a catastrophe by any means, but it certainly isn't good, either. It is mostly silent, and much of the dialogue and singing that was originally part of the film has either been lost forever or simply not found yet. Some of the film's two-reel prologue has turned up (both sound and picture) in A&E's biography of Florenz Ziegfeld, so somebody should obtain those excerpts and include them as part of this showing. It is inexcusable for Turner not to have done so. At present, none of the prologue in the TCM print is shown visually; it's all audio, with an "OVERTURE" card on the screen as the songs are sung. And as of now, only two of the five songs originally filmed for the prologue are heard. The prologue now ends with Otis Harlan heard enthusiastically saying, "And now, Jules Bledsoe will sing 'Ol' Man River'!" - however, we never get to see or hear this portion!

The singing by choral groups supposedly heard on the soundtrack isn't in this print of the 1929 film either; all we get during the action is orchestral accompaniment and a few sound effects. Jules Bledsoe's voice can be heard on the soundtrack at the end, singing "The Lonesome Road", a fairly good number also in the style of a work song, but no match for the great "Ol' Man River".

As for the acting, it never becomes the kind of silent film or early talkie acting that strikes people as unintentionally funny. Laura la Plante and Joseph Schildkraut are actually quite good in their dialogue scene on the stage of the show boat (here, as in the 1936 film version, renamed the Cotton Palace). Schildkraut, especially, is good, his Viennese accent hardly getting in the way. He shows a surprising and welcome ability to act "intimately" as opposed to the hammy overacting featured in most early talkies, except in the scene where he gets drunk. Gaylord Ravenal is presented as being much more of a jerk in this version than in the Kern-Hammerstein musical adaptation; he is shown being especially nasty (verbally) to Magnolia when his gambling luck runs out.

The film is directed in a very flat style; nothing in it seems especially interesting and one never becomes involved in the story; in fact, the musical version presents the story more dramatically. The racial angle in the original Ferber novel and in the musical is completely eliminated in this 1929 version, however, draining the film of much of its potential dramatic power and leaving it little more than a romantic soap opera. And without the beautiful Kern-Hammerstein score to hear, except for those two songs in the prologue and an orchestral rendition of "Ol' Man River" played as background music during the boat's arrival, one is tempted to ask, "Why bother with this version when you can have the classic 1936 film, or even the 1951 remake?"

...but frustrating if judged as a talkie. I use the term "talkie" in the loosest of terms, because very few talking passages survive. In a tragic reverse of what is the case of many dawn of sound era films, the video film elements for this movie largely remain and do so in good quality, and the talking and singing passages largely do not. For example, you can find CDs of the entire soundtrack of 1929's Gold Diggers of Broadway - minus a very little - but it is the film itself that no longer exists with the exception of two reels. We owe this to the durability of Vitaphone discs and to the throw-away attitude that the film industry had towards these early talking and part-talking experiments.

There is a prologue at the beginning of the film in which stars from the Ziegfeld production do numbers from the musical, and the video portion of that is lost. Then the first half of the film is largely silent with synchronized sound effects. The second half of the film was largely synchronized dialogue, but the audio portion has been largely lost. All that remains where there is both video and dialogue are two short scenes between romantic leads Laura LaPlante (as Magnolia) and Joseph Schildkraut (as Gaylord Ravenal). Notice that the film has Ms. LaPlante billed ahead of the now well-known Schildkraut. LaPlante was a big star at Universal at the time having starred in films such as "The Cat and the Canary".

This incarnation of "Show Boat" differs from the 1936 and 1951 versions in big ways besides just the technical aspects. For one, a large portion of this film is devoted to the disintegration of the Ravenal marriage after the couple leave the Show Boat. Also, Julie is only a passing figure in this film, and Captain Andy has a completely different fate than in the latter two films.

In spite of all the odd decisions - to put the musical numbers associated with Ziegfeld in as a prologue, and to make this musical a part-talkie with non-musical stars in the first place, the film made money for Universal, largely outside the big cities where people had not seen Ziegfeld's Broadway version. In short, this is an example of a film that was dated in technique as soon as it was made, but was rushed out the door in order to cash in on the dawn of sound in motion pictures.

I had thought this little gem completely lost and was delighted to spot it on TCM. The restoration is quite good considering the missing soundtrack for a long sequence toward the end. The plots of all three movies differ. This one may be more faithful to the book. The acting is especially good and the drama plays out much less superficially than the later versions.

For future restoration work, it seems to me an awful lot more of the spoken dialog can be recreated with very modest lip reading. I was delighted to realize that the retiring Magnolia, singing unknowingly to a tear-stained Ravenal in the audience, is in fact singing a slow Lena Horne-ish "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine". If they can't find that soundtrack, I say, what the heck, see what Marni Nixon's doing these days and give her the job! The haunting Kern-themed orchestral score works just right.

While I agree with the critics here who question the absence of the racial subplots, the scenario holds up very well on its own.

Edna Ferber did not write "Showboat" as a musical, but as a novel, and this 1929 silent-early talkie version fleshes out the story of a complicated marriage and makes it completely believable. It is certainly not dated, especially with the number of people today who are addicted to gambling, and it stands on its own two feet without the Jerome Kern score. I was pleasantly surprised, and enjoyed TCM's broadcast completely.

Favorite scenes: when little Magnolia is torn from Julie (Alma Rubens, who would be dead from heroin addiction only two years later) by her jealous mother (Emily Fitzroy, with her customary severe hairknot appearance), when Gay and Magnolia first meet on the Showboat (how beautiful those close-ups were!), and the ending, when the elderly Gay falls at Magnolia's feet and the forlorn Lonesome Road is sung in the background. The last scene in particular seemed other-worldly to me, and that was because of the performances of both Laura La Plante and Joseph Schildkraut, which were so solid and touching.

Especially compared to the later musical versions, which glossed over some of the more difficult aspects of Gay and Magnolia's marriage, 1929's "Showboat" has the courage to show the seedier aspects of the downward turn in their relationship due to gambling. The Grayson-Keel musical has their child being born after Gay leaves, with Magnolia never informing Gay she was pregnant. But in the 1929 version Gay is shown to basically abandon both wife and young child, instead of living up to his responsibilities to get a real job to provide for them. We should have less sympathy for such a man, but somehow, we understand and forgive.

Interesting but flawed part-talkie version of the great musical based on the novel by Edna Ferber.

There is a long "overture" that features songs from some of the original Broadway cast (including Helen Morgan singing "My Bill") and most of the film is silent. There are a few talking sequences but one track is lost (though recently rumored to have been discovered).

But being silent is this film's problem. What's really wrong is that the racial part of the story, much of what drives the plot in the stage version and the 1936 and 1951 versions is missing. In this version Julie (Alma Rubens) is fired from the show boat because Parthy (Emily Fitzroy) is jealous of her affection for the daughter Magnolia. In the other versions Julie is discovered as a black passing for white and married to a white man--a criminal offense in the 19th century South.

But most of the rest of the story is in place as grown-up Magnolia (Laura LaPlante) falls in love with her leading man Gaylord (Joseph Schildkraut) and leaves the show boar for a fast life in Chicago, where the husband's gambling reduces them to poverty and breaks up the marriage. Magnolia goes on the stage and becomes a hit as a "coon shouter," a white singer of black music.

This version also features a drowning that does not appear in other versions of the play.

LaPlante is good as sympathetic Magnolia, but Schildkraut is a tad gay as the husband. The changes in plot require Fitzroy to play Parthy as a raving hag. Rubens is touching as Julie; she would make one film after this in 1929 and would be dead in 1931 from drugs. Otis Harlan plays Hawks. That's it. The rest of the cast is made up of bit players.

No one sings "Old Man River." Stick to the superb 1936 version starring Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger, Helen Morgan, Helen Westley, Donald Cook, Hattie McDaniel, Paul Robeson, Queenie Smith, and Sammy White.