Temporary Withdrawal From Circulation
Although the film was critically acclaimed and successful at the box office, it was withdrawn from circulation in the 1940s, after MGM, who was anxious to add a version of Show Boat to their growing list of Golden Age Movie Musicals, bought the rights (and all prints) from Universal. Initially, they hoped to star Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in a remake, but those plans fell through. MGM's Technicolor remake did not begin filming until late 1950, and was released in the summer of 1951 with Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel in the leading roles.
The fact that Paul Robeson, who had played Joe in the 1936 version, was blacklisted in 1950 further assured that the 1936 film would not be seen for a long time, and it was not widely seen again until after Robeson's death in 1976. In 1983 it made its debut on cable television, and a few years later, on PBS. It was subsequently shown on TNT and now turns up from time to time on TCM. It was made available on VHS beginning in 1990, but it has yet to be released on an authorized DVD, although a Brazilian company, Classicline, released a DVD version in 2003. For several years, Warner Brothers, through which Turner now releases its official DVDs, has been promising a comprehensive set of all three Show Boat films, but as of February 2013, this has still not come to pass, though there is a great demand for an official DVD release.
The Voyager Company, under its Criterion Collection Label, released two versions on laserdisc in 1989 of the 1936 version. One was a special edition with extras that included the history of show boats in general and its stage and film history, and the other was a movie only version. MGM/UA Home Video released the 1929, 1936 and 1951 versions, as well as the Show Boat sequence from Till the Clouds Roll By, as The Complete Show Boat collection on laserdisc in 1995. The 1929 version was restored and this release is the most complete version available. The transfer for the 1936 version is the same as the Criterion Collection and the 1951 was from the restored stereo release MGM had done earlier. Although an analog format, the laserdisc release is the only digital version of the 1929 and 1936 versions and is out of print.
In 2006 the 1936 Show Boat ranked #24 on the American Film Institute's list of best musicals.
Today, Turner Entertainment owns the film as part of the pre-1986 MGM library, with fellow Time Warner division Warner Bros. handling distribution.
Read more about this topic: Show Boat (1936 Film)
Famous quotes containing the words temporary, withdrawal and/or circulation:
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“Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption ... is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal.”
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