It was the 1927 production of Show Boat which first indicated that the American musical could be a serious theatrical medium, full of great drama and tackling social issues head-on.
It was not until 1943 that this new form of musical theatre reached its finest expression with Oklahoma!, but the earlier Show Boat still remains a powerful work, even though much of its musical score now seems dated.
Only three of the musical's set pieces now stand up as strong musical pieces - Ol' Man River, Only Make Believe and Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man. But the drama is still challenging, and the sheer sweep of the film is still mighty impressive.
This version was filmed in 1951, just two years before the introduction of Cinemascope. If filmmaking had been delayed by a couple of years this production would most probably have been the first major widescreen musical - as it is, the production fills its original Academy-ratio screen with great distinction.
It was filmed on an MGM backlot lake used previously for Tarzan movies - a fully functional 170-foot steam riverboat was built just for the movie.
This steam paddler is one of the movie's main stars, alongside Ava Gardner as Julie, Howard Keel as Gaylord Ravenal, Kathryn Grayson as Magnolia and William Warfield as Joe.
The best performance comes from Ava Gardner as Julie, the riverboat actress who is expelled from the boat when it's discovered she is part-coloured - a mulatto, it was termed in those days. It must have taken great courage for Ava Gardner to take this part in the racist-ridden mid-century America; she plays Julie with huge pride and dignity, even when portraying her as a fast-fading drunk towards the close of the movie.
Howard Keel was always one of Hollywood's strongest screen baritones, and he doesn't disappoint here. Kathryn Grayson does not destroy the movie as comprehensively as she did most of her starring vehicles. This pseudo-operatic singer sticks most of the time to her middle-range, and only occasionally moves up-register to emit her trademark ear-curdling screeches. And William Warfield was probably the best-sounding Joe since the days of Paul Robeson - this is a grand black-velvet bass-baritone voice, delivering the famous song with majestic power.
Joe E. Brown (remember him as Jack Lemmon's aged lover in Some Like it Hot?) is a consummate riverboat captain in Captain Andy, and Agnes Moorehead is delightfully shrewish as his wife. The biggest flaw after Kathryn Grayson is the utterly pathetic song-and-dance duo Marge and Gower Champion - they were quite a famous duo 50 years ago, but she was a tiring little bundle of pert affectation, and he seemed a feeble imitation of the genuinely stylish Jack Buchanan.
But despite Marge and Gower, and despite even Kathryn Grayson, Hollywood did pretty well by Show Boat in this Technicolor rendition, even though the plot had to be streamlined drastically.
The only serious flaw in the adaptation is the overly polite political correctness which sees the most urgent chorus of Ol' Man River dropped altogether - no trace remains of the famous original lines, "Niggers all work on de Mississippi; niggers all work while de white folks play". Perhaps Hollywood didn't understand that the lyricist Oscar Hammerstein wasn't using the word 'nigger' in disparagement - he was using the work as an emphatic attack upon its racist use.
No credit is given to Annette Warren, who sings for Ava Gardner; her voice is perfect casting, as moving as Ava Gardner's acting. Nor is credit given to the writer of the song Bill, written by one of my favourite of all writers, the constantly effervescent P.G. Wodehouse.
This was the third filming of Show Boat, with earlier versions shot in 1929 and in 1936. The 1936 movie, featuring Paul Robeson, is still the finest screen Show Boat, but this 1951 effort runs it a tight race.
The one-channel sound does show its age at times, and one musical number in particular, You are Love, suffers very badly. This is meant to be a duet, but Kathryn Grayson sounds like a screeching cat, and Howard Keel is almost completely drowned out.
But most of the rest of the movie shows the usual trademarks of MGM - big luscious sound for its time, recorded in multi-track and mixed to give the richest and clearest mono sound possible.
