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Show Boat



Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's immortal musical adaptation of Edna Ferber's sprawling novel receives its most faithful and enduring cinematic adaptation under the elegant direction of James Whale. A rich portrait of changing American entertainment traditions and race relations, Show Boat spans four decades and three generations as it follows the fortunes of the stage-struck Magnolia (Irene Dunne), an aspiring actor whose journey takes her from her family's humble floating playhouse in the 1880s South to the height of fame in the 1930s North. The cast of show-business legends includes Helen Morgan, Hattie McDaniel, Charles Winninger, and the great Paul Robeson, whose iconic, soul-shaking rendition of "Ol' Man River" is one of the crowning glories of the American stage and screen.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary from 1989 featuring American-musical historian Miles Kreuger
• New interview with James Whale biographer James Curtis
• Recognizing Race in "Show Boat," a new interview program featuring professor and author Shana L. Redmond
• Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist (1979), an Academy Award–winning short documentary by Saul J. Turell, newly restored
• Two performances from the sound prologue of the 1929 film version of Show Boat, plus twenty minutes of silent excerpts from the film, with audio commentary by Kreuger
• Two radio adaptations of Show Boat, featuring stage and screen cast members Allan Jones, Helen Morgan, and Charles Winninger; actor Orson Welles; and novelist Edna Ferber
• PLUS: An essay by critic Gary Giddins

This looks friggin amazing!!!

Oh hey, looks they're upgrading a part of the Robeson set with the special features, guess that means (as I think everyone suspected) that set is never not ever getting upgraded.

the last time I watched ShowBoat was on a very dupey and crackly VHS, looking forward to a revisit!

Amazing, I've only recently begun to explore James Whale's filmography and this was one I was hoping to see but didn't think would be made available on BD anytime soon.

This looks to be a tremendous release. It’s been rumored for a long time, and they’ve really done it justice. Can’t wait!

hearthesilence wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:14 pm Amazing, I've only recently begun to explore James Whale's filmography and this was one I was hoping to see but didn't think would be made available on BD anytime soon.

Same! I recently got to see a few of his melodramas—A Kiss Before the Mirror and The Impatient Maiden being the highlights—in an early 30s Universal series that focused on him, Stahl, and Wyler, and they put him firmly in the "I'll Give Everything a Shot" category. Really looking forward to this one...


Any idea why they're not including the whole extant 1929 version?

This is a truly great musical, previously available only on a DVD-R. Fantastic news.

Actually, this was one of the very few Archive single-film releases to get a pressed disc rather than a DVD-R

Wait, really? Amazon lists it as a DVD-R and I was sure the disc I watched a few years ago was a DVD-R as well.

The first pressing was absolutely pressed. The only other one, besides a handful of rando Paramount titles, I can remember is the Lusty Men, though there may have been one or two more I can’t recall (plus quite a few multi-film sets). All Archive DVDs from Amazon are DVD-R regardless because they burn them in-house

senseabove wrote:

hearthesilence wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:14 pm Amazing, I've only recently begun to explore James Whale's filmography and this was one I was hoping to see but didn't think would be made available on BD anytime soon.

Same! I recently got to see a few of his melodramas—A Kiss Before the Mirror and The Impatient Maiden being the highlights—in an early 30s Universal series that focused on him, Stahl, and Wyler, and they put him firmly in the "I'll Give Everything a Shot" category. Really looking forward to this one...


Any idea why they're not including the whole extant 1929 version?

My question as well. I don’t have my LD set handy but is WAS included on that, right?? I don’t remember the running time, and of course, it was incomplete, but it seems the new release will not be that version?



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The LD only had excerpts from the '29 version. The restoration/reconstruction status of that version seems to be kind of a mess—the restoration that MGM released on their Complete Show Boat LD set (which I believe is the same one that still occasionally airs on TCM) is missing the prologue, even though there were excerpts (which will presumably be carried over to the Blu) on the earlier Criterion LD. The previously-lost Vitagraph discs for a couple of silent reels have also been rediscovered in the intervening years, but I've seen no indication of a new restoration incorporating this material. A poster on Nitrateville wrote in 2013 that they'd been told by Warner that there were "problems with some film elements" standing in the way of a new restoration. My guess is that Criterion is only including excerpts because either they or WB don't want to put out an old restoration that was frankly inadequate to begin with.

Just FYI, TCM will be airing the '29, '36 and '51 versions of Show Boat back-to-back on December 30, beginning at 7:30 am CT.