Show Boat (1929 film)

Show Boat
Directed byHarry A. Pollard
Written byCharles Kenyon (continuity)
Tom Reed
Based onShow Boat
1926 novel
by Edna Ferber
Show Boat
1927 musical
by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II
Produced byCarl Laemmle
StarringLaura La Plante
Joseph Schildkraut
Emily Fitzroy
Otis Harlan
CinematographyGilbert Warrenton
Edited byDaniel Mandell
Music byJerome Kern
Joseph Cherniavsky
Production
company
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • April 17, 1929 (1929-04-17) (United States)
Running time
146 minutes (with prologue)
129 minutes (without prologue)
114 minutes (without sound sequences)
CountryUnited States
LanguagesSound (Part-Talkie)
Talking Sequences
English Intertitles
Box office$1,643,000 (rentals)[1]

Show Boat is a 1929 American pre-Code sound part-talkie romantic drama film based on the 1926 novel Show Boat by Edna Ferber. The film initially did not use the 1927 stage musical of the same name as a source, but scenes were later added into the film incorporating two of the songs from the musical as well as other songs. Many of these songs from the stage show were featured in a special prologue that was added to the picture before it was released. This film was produced and released by Universal. Like the majority of films during the early sound era, a silent version was made for movie theatres that had not yet converted to sound.

The film was long believed to be lost, but most of it has been found and released on LaserDisc and shown on Turner Classic Movies. Like most early sound films the film was released in both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film versions. A number of Vitaphone type records for the sound-on-disc version were located in the mid-1990s.[2] The soundtrack for the film was originally recorded using the sound-on-film Western Electric process and transferred to the disc format for those theatres that did not have the capability of playing the sound-on-film format. Two more soundtrack records were discovered in 2005.[3]

Due to being a film published in 1929, it will enter the public domain on January 1, 2025.[4]

  1. ^ "All-Time Film Rental Champs". Variety. October 15, 1990. p. M150.
  2. ^ "The Vitaphone Project!".
  3. ^ "The Vitaphone Project!".
  4. ^ "See Who's Starring in Reimagined Show Boat in the 2025 Under the Radar Festival".