''Carnival Boat'' is a 1932 American

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...

adventure film The adventure film is a broad genre of film. Some early genre studies found it no different than the Western film or argued that adventure could encompass all Hollywood genres. Commonality was found among historians Brian Taves and Ian Cameron in ...

directed by

Albert S. Rogell Albert S. Rogell (August 21, 1901 – April 7, 1988) was an American film director who was born in Oklahoma City and died in Los Angeles. Rogell directed more than a hundred movies between 1921 and 1958. He was known for an aggressive directing ...

and written by James Seymour. The film stars William Boyd,

Ginger Rogers Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starri ...

Fred Kohler Fredrick Louis Kohler (April 20, 1888 – October 28, 1938) was an American actor. Career Fred Kohler was born in Kansas City, Missouri or in Dubuque, Iowa. As a teen, he began to pursue a career in vaudeville, but worked other jobs to suppor ...

, and

Hobart Bosworth Hobart Van Zandt Bosworth (August 11, 1867 – December 30, 1943) was an American film actor, director, writer, and producer. Bosworth began his career in theater, eventually transitioning to the emerging film industry. Despite a battle with ...

. The film was released on March 21, 1932, by

RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...

Plot

With production down and his health failing, Jim Gannon has only one logging season to groom his son Buck to replace him as the logging camp boss. However, Buck is more interested in courting Honey, a singer and dancer on a carnival boat that travels from camp to camp. Against orders from his father, he takes his crew to the boat where he proposes to Honey and promises her that he will quit his job and move to the city. Meanwhile, head loader Hack Logan wants to be promoted to boss after Jim retires. After Jim is injured in an accident, Buck is too busy with work to see Honey and she begins to doubt their relationship. When she visits Jim, he convinces Honey that Buck wants to continue logging. Before Honey can leave town, the river is blocked by a massive log jam that threatens to destroy the dam. Buck risks his life to dynamite the key logs in the log jam and get the river flowing again. Hack tries to strand Buck next to the dynamite when it explodes, but Buck escapes unharmed and ends up rescuing Hack when he is trapped between two logs. With his treachery exposed, Hack is out of the running for boss logger. Honey has missed the carnival boat and decides to stay in the camp and marry Buck.

Cast

* William Boyd as Buck Gannon *

as Honey *

as Hack Logan *

as Jim Gannon * Marie Prevost as Babe *

Edgar Kennedy Edgar Livingston Kennedy (April 26, 1890 – November 9, 1948) was an American comedic character actor who appeared in at least 500 films during the silent and sound eras. Professionally, he was known as "Slow Burn", owing to his ability to por ...

as Baldy * Harry Sweet as Stubby *

Charles Sellon Charles A. Sellon (August 24, 1870 – June 26, 1937) was an American stage and film actor. Sellon appeared in more than 100 films and stage acts between 1901 and 1935. He played the blind Mr. Muckle in W. C. Fields' comedy '' It's a Gift' ...

as Lane * Eddy Chandler as Jordon

Production

The film was shot on a budget of $217,000. Some scenes were filmed on Stages 10 and 12 at RKO 40 Acres in

Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. It is mostly surrounded by Los Angeles, but also shares a border with the unincorporated area of Ladera Heights, Californi ...

while others were shot on location in the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...

. Ginger Rogers' wardrobe was designed by Gwen Wakeling.

Music

* "How I Could Go for You" - Bernie Grossman and Howard Lewis * "Run Around" - Max Steiner (cut from final film)

References

External links

* * * 1932 films American black-and-white films RKO Pictures films Films directed by Albert S. Rogell American adventure films 1932 adventure films 1930s English-language films 1930s American films Films shot in Los Angeles County, California English-language adventure films {{1930s-adventure-film-stub