When will we see Whale's "Show Boat"?

This is actually one of the VERY few Universal films that Warner Bros. now owns (through MGM's purchase, then the Turner merger, etc)

Since the current Show Boat DVD is one of the very early MGM-Turner discs (read: laserdisc on a smaller disc), we'd probably have to wait for an SE. It would be neat if WB did a 2-disc edition containing all 3 versions.

From www.thedvdforums.com :

I love the 1936 version. Something to look forward to!

Wow, awesome news. Counting the announcements we already have for 2006, 1936 SHOWBOAT was the last genuine classic musical not yet out on DVD. It sounds like it will be a great set. I hate having to wait another year for it though.

Sounds like another must-have Warner Bros. DVD set.

best news all week...can't wait

Re: When will we see Whale's "Show Boat"?

any more news on this?

Re: When will we see Whale's "Show Boat"?

At one of the Warner chats at this site, they announced that the 3-film SHOW BOAT DVD set would be out in 2008.

The 2008 date for the James Whale "Showboat" - featuring Paul Robeson as Joe - is now three years past. Has anyone heard any news about this film coming to even standard DVD?

2011 is the 75th Anniverary of the 1936 film and the 50th Anniverary of the 1951 film - It would seem an great oppourtunity like that does not come along very often ...so you would think WB would release the film set in 2011. So where is it? Meanwhile others films are with held until an anniverary date in 2014 or 2015 -

At this point, I don't give this any chance of making it to pressed disc or Blu-Ray. If WB did not think that the Harlow films were worth their efforts than Show Boat certainly isn't. I hope that I'm wrong, but I don't expect to see any more pressed disc classics from WB aside from the very top tier titles.

2011 is the 60th anniversary of the 1951 film. (I wish I'd kept the Criterion laser disk and the laser disk trilogy--both had exhaustive and I believe that George Sidney had a commentary on the 1951 film.

 

The laserdisc of the Complete Showboat is still a prize possession of mine.  Sits right there next to the Director's cuts of It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World and The Alamo to one side and the Pioneer discs of Lost Horizon and 1776 on the other side. 

 

As a dreamer, I still have hopes that Warner's will give the go ahead for the Blu-ray collection, but I also dream of Raintree County in Blu. 
 

 

I agree. I would not be a happy person if I didn't have the three SHOW BOAT set on laserdisc. Kept thinking for years that it'd be a DVD box set. No such luck, and these films are too special to be Archive releases (though there are many wonderful films in the Archives). I guess we have to wait and watch.

A few years ago I got into the Show Boat groove, and very luckily scored both box sets (the Complete and the Criterion) on eBay within a week or two of each other.  Prized possessions, both -- along with Mad World, Alamo, and 1776 (Lost Horizon continually eluded me).

 

"Show Boat" is known today due to it's popular score. Plus it's still performed in theaters - unlike Jean Harlow's films which are not nearly as well known

 

60th for 1951 (not 50th) sorry for the typo

 

Warner lives for Anniversary dates - to miss these two is a head scratcher

The 1951 SHOW BOAT also outgrossed MGM's Oscar-winning Best Picture AN AMERICAN IN PARIS that same year, too. It doesn't seem to be prized nearly as much as it should. And Whale's 1936 version is one of the all-time great translations of a Broadway musical from stage to screen.

Your last sentence explains why the previous sentence is true. The 1951 version is a colorful diversion and an example of the MGM musical close to its apex. The talent in front of and behind the camera is staggering. However, the anachronistic MGM studio orchestrations, the Fifties choreographic style, and the brightly colored costumes and sets which depict a Hollywood-ized version of the period keep the tale from being the epic saga of America's transition into the Twentieth Century that Ferber, Kern and Hammerstein envisioned.

The 1936 version aims higher in this regard, even though it doesn't quite hit the mark. The attention to period detail in all areas is amazing. They get it right from a historical standpoint.

The dilemma in comparing the two versions is this: The 1936 Cotton Palace offering of "The Parson's Bride" is the perfect encaptulization of what the show boats of the time offered their patrons and takes you back to the period as it actually was. The 1951 Cotton Blossom's offering of Marge and Gower Champion's singing and dancing skills bear no relation to the reality of the period but provides unbeatable musical entertainment.

Each of the three Showboats (1929-1936-1951) reflected the era they were made in.  The most interesting, but not the most entertaining is the 1929.  With Carl Laemmle starting it out as a silent, which meant he did not have purchase the play rights, but sound making it's introduction at that time, caused him to rethink that idea and he bought the rights to the play and songs and added the songs as an epilogue. It is fortunate that the Vitaphone discs have been found several years ago and if Warner's does get this out, they should have the sound to the songs for the first time in years.  To me the most entertaining is the 1936 version with Irene Dunn, Helen Morgan and most of the original Broadway Cast reprising their roles.  Paul Roberson singing Ol' Man River is a showstopper.  As stated above, the 1951 version was strictly an MGM factory classic with bright costumes, excellent acting, and beautiful cinematography and just as entertaining in it's own way as the 1936 as the still below indicates. 

 

1951 version of "Show Boat" has excellent acting....what???? Where? in Which scene? on which line? I must have missed it

 

The only things the 1951 version has that's better than the 1936 Version is Color and the songs "Where Do I Love You" (filmed but cut fromthe 36 release), "Life Upon a Wicked Stage" and "I Might Fall Back on you". Oh, and the Boat is more impressive...otherwise, yuk!

Yup -the '36 is the winner by a country mile. Though the 1951 is pretty to look at (love that shot of the boat's entry into port), what it lacks is "soul." You really care about the characters in the Whale version and when Helen Morgan sings "Bill" she melts your heart. One of my all time favorites films.

Agnes Moorehead and Joe E. Brown  along with William Warfield. 

 

Joe E. Brown came through Charlotte in the 1960s on a national tour of Show Boat and his stage performance was, if anything, even more energetic than in the film. And that was more than a decade after this film appearance. He must have been close to 70 but he was throwing himself around the stage as if he were 30. The audience adored him.

 

I also saw the Lincoln Center stage revival (in 1966?) with Barbara Cook and William Warfield and it was also magnificent. No expense was spared for that remounting of the show.