Show Boat (1951)

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Director: George Sidney
Starring: Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel

Hollywood’s third adaptation of the famed Broadway musical carries the prized story set to background of show business upon grand floating vessel to the age of Technicolor extravagance as MGM present’s 1951’s Show Boat. A period piece, an elaborate, colorful costumed ladened musical was one of the year’s biggest pictures for the Hollywood giant. In an age where movies required to stand out from the free entertainment of television, this motion picture’s timeless style for a stage classic featured extravagance in the form of one of the biggest props/set pieces to fit its namesake.

 

Show Boat is a musical about the daughter of a riverboat captain who falls in love with a gambler and the troubles they experience when his luck runs out. Magnolia (Kathryn Grayson) is the talented and dutiful daughter of show boat captain who falls in love with her review partner, gambler Gaylord Ravenal (Howard Keel). Shunned by her parents over their romance, she and Ravenal leave the show boat to marry, living luxuriously off his winning until his luck dries up. The turn of fate leads the once lovebirds to quarrel as Ravenal walks out on her before she can inform him of her pregnancy. Through friends, primarily through the secret aid of her former best friend Julie (Ava Gardner), Magnolia finds help and her way back into the arms of her accepting family on the show boat where she can raise her daughter. Years pass and a chance meeting of Julie and Ravenal leads him too back to the show boat. There he meets his daughter for the first time and comes to reconcile with his lovely Magnolia.

 

Despite all the lavish costumes, impressive set pieces, and bright Technicolor, Show Boat feels a bit like a safe paint-by-color musical. Shining up the source material, making it a bit more happy-go-lucky, the successful, longstanding musical surely splashes on the screen with all of the classic Hollywood frills, but lacks a distinct punch in substance. For what had been an effective source of material of a bygone era, it fails to translate as the decades have marched forward, especially in being spiffy-ed up by the audience-friendly studio MGM prided in being. Enjoyable are MGM habits of turning back the clock in the splashy visual way with the art decoration, costumes, wonderful cinematography, and perhaps even the old-fashioned music delivered by Grayson and Keel. The film was a spectacle in 1951 standards, but its story and its script betray its ability to allow it to be as timeless as a motion picture, leaving it simply as a treat for the eyes.

 

Dating back in the 1930s MGM yearned to get their hands on “Show Boat.” Its source inspired one of the earliest lavish partial-talkies in 1929 followed by a more proper motion picture adaptation in 1936 starring Irene Dunne, both produced at Universal. MGM’s acquisition of “Show Boat” in 1938 led the studio to destroying what they could of the prior two’s negatives with hopes to immediately put into production a new adaptation. World War II however put a hold on the idea of MGM issuing a sizable funding towards a picture that would see only a fraction of receipts due to the closure of foreign markets, a pause that took nearly a decade to shake. 1946 proved to be the year MGM tested the waters for revitalizing the production by financing a Broadway revival of “Show Boat,” as well as featuring music from the play in their 1947 musical biopic Till the Clouds Roll In. Show Boat proved to be a viable option once again and the picture was set for development.

 

MGM’s master producer of musicals Arthur Freed went to work at making the picture happen. The story was reworked, tightened up to make its rather lengthy time period shorter for the movie to make it more palatable. The character Gaylord Ravenal, a gambler and somewhat a scoundrel, was rehabilitated into more of a gentleman in the classic styling of a Clark Gable type. Further tweaks would be made to skirt censors for some of the more mature nature of the story, but not too much since the precedent of the 1936 was evidence that the story was suitable for movie audiencias prior.

 

Freed tasked musical veteran filmmaker George Sidney with directing the feature as he was on his way with making his name as one of the finest in the genre. Finally, Freed would spare no expense with a budget that created the lavish set piece “Cotton Blossom,” a full-scale sternwheeler riverboat, one of the largest prop pieces in Hollywood up to this time. Originally planned to be filmed on location, MGM decided its own opulent backlot would do, using the same body of water featured as the jungle rivers of Africa in the Tarzan features to be dressed as their own muddy Mississippi, allowing for optimal control over production.

 

Two established, classically trained singers and MGM stars Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel were cast as the primary roles of the film. Long time studio musical darling Judy Garland was originally conceived to play the musically powerful veteran presentence of Julie. However, a recent falling out with and eventual firing of Garland sent MGM whirling to find the fit for the character that serves as the angel to Magnolia’s tale. Sidney’s suggestion of lesser musically talented, yet beautiful Ava Gardner was questioned, leading to the star being endlessly voice coached through the various musical numbers. The studio found unfavorable reviews towards Gardner’s singing talent, especially compared to her co-stars, ultimately deciding on dubbing her singing voice with the uncredited Annette Warren in the final picture.

 

Further changes to the story made supporting characters Frank and Ellie, a comic duo in the play, into dancers, depicted by husband-wife couple Gower and Marge Champion. Roles of Magnolia’s parents, the jovial Cap’n Andy and stern Parthy, would also be greatly reduced in their roles, eliminating swaths of screen time for the talents of character actors Joe E. Brown and Agnes Moorehead respectfully.

 

MGM put forth a great effort in recreating the lavishness the musical called for. Apart from the show boat set piece, the MGM lot was greatly used to recreate the small towns and bustling cities visited in the story, manifesting the great artistry and resources the Hollywood studio within its own boarders. George Sidney gave depth and dimension towards the visuals of the film, using multiple leveled camera work, elaborate set pieces, vast extras, and great detail in creating the time and place of Show Boat. However, perhaps the most well received scene in the picture was not even directed by Sidney. While away with illness, Roger Edens, an uncredited associate producer of Arthur Freed, directed the famed “Ol’ Man River” sequence, remembered for its fog filled setting and moody tones performed by the bass filled baritone William Warfield. The sequence would stand out for the rest of the film, receiving perchance the highest praise, while still being credited to Sidney.

 

With its lavish qualities, bright colors, vast budget, classic tunes, and known property name Show Boat was staged as a spectacle for the silver screen in 1951 and audiences would pay it back by arriving in large numbers, making it the second highest grossing feature of the year. Show Boat received generally positive reviews, no doubt with the aid of better sound and the use of Technicolor making it considered the superior motion picture adaptation of the musical. There are certainly brief moments of shining visual and sound that capture the magic of cinema during this age in musicals, receiving nominations for cinematography and score, but that could be expected of a film this size during this period.

 

With time Show Boat’s luster has grow foggy, its subject matter, especially its post-Civil War era southern setting leaves a sour taste in the mouth. It is evident that the story is altered with an overly sweetened plot that transforms underlining mature tones into a package of “happily ever after,” which just does not feel right. The feature leaves us with a time capsule of Hollywood in an era of economic boom while having a foot entrenched in the past. The film continued in a tradition of how things were at least in the minds of those fondly looking back, and there is nothing wrong with that, but in the years could be observed as too traditional. Show Boat is a good piece of cinema for the fan of clean fun and classic tales with a large MGM budget, delivering exactly what it set out to do.