Carl Laemmle, head of Universal, had been deeply dissatisfied with that film, and wanted to make an all-sound version of the musical.

She meets Gaylord Ravenal (Allan Jones), a charming gambler, falls in love with him, and eventually marries him.

Together with their baby daughter, the couple leaves the boat and moves to Chicago, where they live off Gaylord's gambling winnings.

After about 10 years, he experiences an especially bad losing streak and leaves Magnolia, out of a sense of guilt that he is ruining her life because of his losses.

In a parallel plot, Julie LaVerne (Helen Morgan) (the show boat's leading actress, who is part black, but passing as white) is forced to leave the boat because of her background, taking Steve Baker (Donald Cook) (her white husband, to whom, under the state's law, she is illegally married) with her.

Twenty-three years later, Magnolia and Ravenal are reunited at the theater in which Kim, their daughter, is appearing in her first Broadway starring role.

This film version of Show Boat stars Irene Dunne as Magnolia and Allan Jones as Ravenal, with Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson, Helen Morgan, Helen Westley, Queenie Smith, Sammy White, Donald Cook, Hattie McDaniel, Charles Middleton, and Arthur Hohl.

[citation needed] It is featured in all stage presentations of Show Boat, and if performed in its entirety is a long song, running six minutes and forty seconds.

[4] According to a New York Times interview with Dunne, her rendition during the car ride was too jerky and her recording on a separate sound track too smooth, and the song was dropped.

Greene also commented that the film had seen criticism from other viewers that the ending had suffered from "the extreme sentimentality and improbability of [the final] reunion".

MGM originally wanted to star Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in the remake, but those plans fell through.

[8] MGM's Show Boat 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.

[citation needed] In February 2014, a restoration of the film became available on DVD in the U.S. as part of Warner Home Video's Archive Collection line.