Movies

Show Boat (1936) This version follows the stage show more closely than the later Technicolor film, and sadly that is its greatest weakness. The first third is the best, and that's what was expanded into a full movie in 1951. The plot then becomes a multigenerational melodrama that becomes quite wearying, though the effect must be quite different onstage where the impetus is to flow from one song to the next. It succeeds far better than the later version in capturing the look and feel of the times it depicts - the later film is beautiful but it always looks like a 20th century back-lot historical fantasy. The costumes for both sexes are outstanding in at least providing a feeling of verisimilitude, and Helen Westly as Parthenia Hawks, fearsome matron of the showboat, gets the most astonishing of them. I have seen literally thousands of American movies and can say without a doubt that the film's other great success is in giving African Americans a squarer deal than they got from any Hollywood studio until The Jackie Robinson Story. Hattie McDaniel is funny, but because she is witty and at times an awesome force of nature, and her natural beauty really comes through. Paul Robeson is a slackmaster whose pursuit of freedom from labor is not vice but virtue, and his rendition of Old Man River, often seen, needs to be viewed in context to show its true stirring power. Clarence Muse's appearance later in the film as doorman of the Trocadero is also handled with quiet dignity, not made into a comedy relief caricature. In the latter (almost all-white) part of the movie, pleasures are fewer, but one standout is Irene Dunne's angelic performance of the music-hall classic After the Ball. Maybe not a movie to be seen just for fun, but certainly one of great importance. 7/10

Beauty Natural and Contrived