Public Domain Movies

Show Boat is a 1929 American pre-Code sound part-talkie romantic drama film based on the 1926 novel Show Boat by Edna Ferber.

The eighteen-year-old Magnolia meets, falls in love with, and elopes with riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal.

After her father Captain Andy dies, Magnolia, Ravenal, and their daughter Kim leave the boat and go to live in Chicago, where they live off Ravenal's gambling earnings and are alternately rich and poor. Finally, Parthy announces she is coming to visit at a time when Ravenal is completely broke, and, fearing her wrath, he abandons Magnolia and Kim, after which Magnolia finds a job singing at a local club and eventually becomes famous. Years later, Parthy dies, and Magnolia, who had long been estranged from her because of her attitude toward Ravenal, returns to the show boat. Magnolia and Ravenal are reunited on the show boat at the end of the film, and after Parthy's death, Magnolia gives her own inheritance money to her daughter Kim.

Laura La Plante as Magnolia Hawks
Joseph Schildkraut as Gaylord Ravenal
Emily Fitzroy as Parthenia 'Parthy' Ann Hawks
Otis Harlan as Capt'n Andy Hawks and the Master of Ceremonies in Prologue
Alma Rubens as Julie Dozier
Jack McDonald as Windy
Jane La Verne as Magnolia as a Child/Kim
Neely Edwards as Schultzy
Elise Bartlett as Elly
Stepin Fetchit as Joe
Gertrude Howard as Queenie