The film was long believed to be lost, but most of it has been found and released on LaserDisc and shown on Turner Classic Movies.

[7] Years later, Parthy dies, and Magnolia, who had long been estranged from her because of her attitude toward Ravenal, returns to the show boat.

This song is heard on numerous occasions on the soundtrack as it served as the theme music for the sequences dealing with love.

So, a two-reel sound prologue, featuring original Broadway cast members Helen Morgan (Julie), Jules Bledsoe (Joe), Tess Gardella (Queenie) and the Jubilee Singers singing five songs from the show, was added, and the movie was released both as a part-talkie at a time when most films being released were all-talking.

Otis Harlan, who played Cap'n Andy in the film, served as Master of Ceremonies in the prologue, which featured legendary impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, producer of the stage musical version of Show Boat, and Carl Laemmle, the producer of the film, as themselves.

In the actual storyline of the film, Laura la Plante, with a dubbed singing voice, performs five songs, two of them from the stage musical – "Ol' Man River" (which Magnolia does not sing at all in any other version of Show Boat), and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man".

It was long believed that an entirely new score was written by Billy Rose for the film, but according to Miles Kreuger in his book Show Boat: The Story of a Classic American Musical, this turns out to not be true.

Fragments of the prologue not included in the TCM showings, both sound and picture, were shown as part of A&E's biography of Florenz Ziegfeld, and have turned up on YouTube.