Show Boat

I will admit (with a great amount of shame) that the first time I saw the 1951 version of "Show Boat" I was not that impressed. I was so used to Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel as Lilli Vanessi and Fred Grahame, thought Ava Gardner was too beautiful for words, and thought Marge & Gower Champion were the coolest people I had ever seen. That was about it. I was a little bored.

But as I have come to watch it recently, I have discovered it is more magnificent the second time around. As a North Carolina native, I must say this movie holds something very special for me -- and that is TWO North Carolina natives from "Grabtown" and Winston-Salem, our ladies Ava and Kathryn respectively.

First of all, the Technicolor is vibrant and lovely and represents the very fiber that those beautiful, glorious MGM musical treasures of the 1950's were made of.

Supporting characters Joe E. Brown and Agnes Moorehead were, as usual, delightfully wonderful. I don't think I've ever seen either of them do anything "bad." William Warfield's delivery of "Ol' Man River" (accompanied with Julie/Ava's last wistful look toward The Cotton Blossom, of course) never fails to put a tear in my eye.

Howard Keel's voice was in fine form, and he did a great job of portraying the slick gambler, Gaylord Ravenal. Kathryn's voice was, as always, up to par and beautiful, and while perhaps her representation of Magnolia wasn't as vibrant as her portrayal of Lilli in "Kiss Me Kate" or Aunt... whoever it was she played in "Anchors Away" (ooh, I can't remember the name... that's BAD... REAL BAD), she was still her lovely, charming self. I found that her progression from innocent child-like creature to a portrait of woman- and motherhood was captured and characterized very well.

But my favorite parts of the movie were simply Ava Gardner, and Marge and Gower Champion.

Ava is, as always, ridiculously and insanely gorgeous. In fact, I would have liked to have seen more of her than I did. It's a stretch for a white woman to play a bi-racial woman, but she did it with what seemed like such ease. She accompanies so much with a look (which is evident as she watches Gay and Nolie sail off together with Kim -- you all know what I'm talking about). And yes, Ava's singing pipes (in my opinion) were far better than Annette Warren's and MGM is stupid for having dubbed her (just like they were stupid for dubbing Debbie Reynolds in "Singin' in the Rain"). Her songs, "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine" and "Bill," were extremely effective, but could've been even more so had they used her real voice. Such expression in those eyes. And my gosh... her speech to Gay! I don't think people in Hollywood ever really looked beyond Ava as anything but a "sex goddess" -- but she really had a beautiful talent.

Now for Marge & Gower Champion: who couldn't love them? Gower is this sort of... fluid-like creature with a stature and grace like Fred Astaire, but instead of Astaire's "lanky movements" that defined his style, he somehow executes the more athletic, brisk movements that defined Gene Kelly's style. And Marge has to be just about the cutest little person I have ever seen (great facial expressions!) and one of the most talented dancers (up there with Gwen Verdon, Carol Haney, Ginger Rogers, Chita Rivera, and all those gifted people) I've ever seen grace a screen. They're sheerly magnetic, and they never miss. "I Could Fall Back on You" and "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" are two of the most outstanding moments in the movie. You'll love them.

All in all, "Show Boat" is most definitely worth a look. Or two. Or three. Or... well, as many as you feel like!

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.

Show Boat is one of my favourite musicals, and I admit to being a solid Howard Keel fan! However, the one thing that gets me, and why they haven't returned it to the original film track, is the dubbing of Ava Gardner's voice.

I have a copy of the soundtrack on good old vinyl and have Ava singing her own songs on it and I have to say, in my humble opinion, that she actually did a better job of it, than the person who dubbed her.

Maybe in 1951 Ava's rendition was a bit.... too hot for the censors, but today, never. Why can't we have Ava's voice back on the film??? What do the rest of you think?

The coded language being used to criticize this film is ridiculous. Too 'PC' for showing less of the shiftless Negro comic relief...too 'PC' for showing William Warfield sing "Ol' Man River" with operatic sophistication (he was an opera singer, for pity's sake!!)...an accusation that Lena Horne claimed to be promised this film? Where did THAT one come from? According to Ms. Horne's documentary IN HER OWN WORDS (which periodically airs on PBS), she never said she was promised the film, she said she was offered a shot at the stage revival (this, apparently, came from Jerome Kern himself before he passed away) back in 1945-1946. That never materialized and she did 'TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY, probably always keeping the idea of doing the film in the back of her head. MGM, so the story goes, apparently had many speculative cast packages for this film once upon a time: Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald were considered in the 30's as Gaylord and Magnolia, then in the 40's, Tony Martin and Kathryn Grayson-- with either Dinah Shore or Judy Garland as Julie (in retrospect, this wouldn't have been that far-fetched; Shore was a dark-haired, decidedly exotic looking, band singer at the time, and Garland had recorded several Kern songs as singles, including "Bill"), but Garland was already fired from the studio by the time they started filming. The final decision to use the gorgeous Ava Gardner was just fine, thank you; I just wished Gardner was allowed to keep her own singing voice in the final film. And as far as justifying not using Horne (as someone else noted) because she is 'obviously a woman of color:' if the studio felt that way, they wouldn't have created a special 'Light Egyptian' face powder for her to make her darker on film (claiming that without this makeup she photographed white.) The film is wonderful in its rich Technicolor cinematography, costumes, and lush music. Yes, the book has been shortened to make the film less than two hours; otherwise, it would be nearly four hours, just as it is on stage. And when it is remade again as a film (as I imagine it will be someday), will you then complain that it is "too long?"

The plot may be changed a little, but it is still wonderful stuff, with a cast to die for. A great weepy love story, some fantastic dance sequences from the Champions, a sweet couple of leading ladies in Grayson and Gardner, and a high dose of comedy along the way. All this and Ol' Man River. The perfect Sunday afternoon wallow.