Clip HD | Show Boat | Warner Archive

Show Boat (1951) #WarnerArchive #WarnerBros #ShowBoat

From novel (by Edna Ferber) to Broadway smash (by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II) to three film versions (1929, 1936, 1951) to stage revivals. Like Ol' Man River, Show Boat just keeps rollin' along. Produced by Arthur Freed and directed by George Sidney, this 1951 version of the saga of riverboat lives and loves has glorious stars (Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Marge and Gower Champion) in Technicolor® radiance, a made-from-scratch 170-foot paddle wheeler, timeless songs and an equally timeless outcry against racial bigotry. "This was music that would outlast Kern's day and mine," Ferber said in recalling her first reaction to hearing "Ol' Man River." She was right as rain.

Directed By George Sidney
Starring Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel

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[DiffrentDrumr]

Ava Gardner is absolutely gorgeous!!!!

[artsmith]

Ava was wonderful and I just love her seemingly natural chemistry with Kathryn playing a mother-like figure she can turn to rather than the stern Parthy. That performance of “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” is the epitome of hair-raising Ava’s hair-raising Technicolor GLAMOUR!!!

[richardfuchs]

Warner Archive has done an amazing job with this release, as they always go. It looks and sounds absolutely amazing.

[KaydeyRai]

I’ve been wanting to see this in hd for years, looks stunning 😍

[fanofmusicals]

This looks GORGEOUS! The stereo mix also sounds great!

[tommoncrieff]

The whole point of Julie’s story in the original novel is it’s about how the 19th century Southern states interpreted miscegenation - Julie’s only slightly mixed race and she passes for white, no one can tell she’s got black heritage unless they’ve seen her birth certificate. Even Queenie, the main black female character, wonders how Julie could possibly know the tunes and lyrics to her African-American songs, that’s the first clue she’s going to get caught out. So it had to be somebody who looked white. She’s not so much a black character - Joe and Queenie are the main black characters - more she’s a cypher of how ludicrous and tragic those laws were. For commercial reasons it also had to be a big box office star like Ava Gardner, who was married to Frank Sinatra at the time: the studio wanted to build up Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson into the new Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald but at this point they weren’t deemed big enough to carry such an expensive colour film alone.

[artsmith]

Looking beautiful just in time for its 70th anniversary!!!

[micheldilly]

Pour moi AVA GARDNER était et restera la plus belle femme que Dieu aie créé sur cette terre !

[FllixRouge]

Ava....man, who could improve that? 😊

[slilacs]

Kathryn looks like a porcelain doll omg