Show Boat

Director: James Whale

1936 / 119min / DCP

One of the great American stage musicals, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1927 Show Boat, an epoch-spanning tale of travelling entertainers on the Mississippi River, became one of the first true masterpieces of the American movie musical, a film that celebrates the United States’ rich musical heritage while also exploring how this heritage is inextricable from the country’s long legacy of racism. Torch song chanteuse extraordinaire Helen Morgan brings down the house with her lachrymose rendition of “Bill,” while Paul Robeson’s performance of “Ol’ Man River” constitutes perhaps the most iconic moment any African American actor had in 1930s cinema.