Show Boat (1951 film)

Show Boat is a 1951 American musical romantic drama film based on the stage musical of the same name by Jerome Kern music and Oscar Hammerstein II script and lyrics, and the 1926 novel by Edna Ferber. This 1951 film version, by MGM, was adapted for the screen by John Lee Mahin, and was produced by Arthur Freed and directed by George Sidney.

The basic plot remains the same as in the stage play and the 1936 film version. When the Cotton Blossom, Capn Andy Hawkss show boat, arrives in a Mississippi town to give a performance, a fistfight breaks out between leading man Steve Baker Robert Sterling, and Pete Leif Erickson, the boats engineer who has been making passes at Steves wife, leading lady Julie La Verne Ava Gardner. But Capn Andy Joe E. Brown pretends to the assembled crowd that the two were really previewing a scene from one of the boats melodramas. But Pete knows a dark secret about Julie, and he runs off to tell the local sheriff.Riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal Howard Keel has gambled away a boat ticket, so he drops by the Cotton Blossom pretending to be an actor so that he can get passage on the boat, but is rejected. However, he meets Magnolia Kathryn Grayson, the captains 18yearold daughter, and the two are instantly smitten. ........

Source: Wikipedia