He’s also one of the most elusive, because writing about him requires volumes, not pages. You can delight in seeing Hattie MacDaniel ( Gone With the Wind) as Queenie, though her song, “Tell Him,” isn’t included, and enjoy Allan Jones’ marvelous vocals as Gaylord Ravenal.īut even beyond Show Boat, with over 100 musical scores, Jerome Kern is one of the greatest composers of American Musical Theater. This is the better of the two films, not only for the delightful performance of Irene Dunne as Magnolia, but because it preserves the stage performances of Charlie Winninger as Captain Andy, Helen Morgan as Julie and Paul Robson as Joe. The 1936 version, directed by James Whale ( Bride of Frankenstein) is available on dvd.

The 1951 MGM version can be found on YouTube. I won’t go into it here, because if you don’t know about it, you can easily find out. This story has been told several different ways, but for its score alone, Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern’s Show Boat is one of the milestones of American musical Theater. Eva Kern was telling someone that her husband wrote “Ol’ Man River,” and Dorothy Hammerstein corrected her by saying, “Your husband wrote ‘da-da-dum-da,’ ” and hummed the tune. There’s a story about an encounter between the wives of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.

Sweet adeline goodspeed opera house