FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #2: Show Boat [1936]

“Just one big happy family” Based on Edna Ferber’s novel, the James Whale directed and Oscar Hammerstein II scripted Show Boat concerns the show-biz family of Magnolia Hawks and how her life is forever changed once a sheltered childhood makes way for international success. Ushered in by a nicely animated credit sequence of cardboard dancers in a parade carrying the cast and crew title cards, we are thrust into an excited Mississippi River port town awaiting the visiting showboat and its famous entertainers. Led by Cap’n Andy Hawks (Charles Winninger),…

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