Original subtitles

Blake, set her back!

Set her back?

We're behind schedule now.

There's a mermaid in starboard!

A mermaid?

I can't even see the bend in the river, and

you can see a mermaid to starboard. Quick!

Blake, you're a good pilot, but you haven't got an eye for women.

Now reverse the engines. That's an order.

Kearney. What are that? Reverse the engines.

© BF-WATCH TV 2021 Before you lay a hand on us,

I'll nail you river rats to your own guttles.

You better think about saving the Enterprise. Well,

we just can't leave them in the middle of the river.

If you won't save our trunk first, sir, we'll catch the next boat. Guy,

get that bosun seat rigged. Aye, sir.

All right, in the bow! Rig the bosuns, champ!

Here, Connie, bring that line in. All right, straight now.

My way!

All right, all the way.

This is piracy, sir! We river rats call it Shanghai!

Juliet, don't let them do this!

Now, why don't you all get in the yawl like a nice old gent?

Not without his trunk! Well, he didn't seem very worried about you.

He knows I can take care of myself, and I can't. Oh, you can't, huh?

Ow!

There's no Messiah without his cross.

Does that really mean so much to you?

No, but it does to him.

All right, well, that looks like I'm the one that's

really hooked. All right, Connie, let me down.

All right, you heard what he said. He wants it down. Let her go.

The night air will mild you, my customs, right there,

Trump, my customs. An actor, Carney, just an actor.

Not just an actor, the greatest actor in the world.

Now, are you warm enough?

May I present myself, Captain, and my gratitude.

Sir Oliver Garrett of the Royal Repertory Company.

That's what went down. A showboat.

Boy, you're a hard man to get aboard. Glad to know you, sir.

Are there any other survivors?

I dare say they reached the shore without their trunks.

And now we require hot baths, some beef bouillon, a bottle of port,

and two of your best cabins adjoining, of course.

Anything else?

Yes, my good man, my wife.

Uh, uh, uh, Carney! Carney, uh,

see that these fine people get cabin number one

and two. Yes, sir. This way, if you please, sir.

All right, get this truck up topside. Bring it up, bring it up.

I've alerted the boiler room, and your bath water will be up shortly, my lord.

You're being very helpful, Mr. Carney. Oh, it's a pleasure, my lord.

How long will you and your lady be traveling upriver with us, my lord?

As far as the Enterprise can take us, or vice versa.

I don't quite grasp your meaning, sir. As far as we can go, perhaps the whole way.

Good cheers.

You want steam? Will you ask Carney where the steam is?

I've been asking him for it ever since we fast-kelled in the Benz.

He won't even answer me on the two.

Huh?

Well, Mr. Carney will give you steam, partner.

Either that or you'll be in the boilers. Now, tend to them.

What do you think you're doing down there? He ain't doing nothing down here,

Captain. Where the place is he?

Well, he's with his lordship.

He's with his lordship, but not for long.

Then we played Covent Garden, Mrs. Siddons and I.

That was before my marriage to Lady Garrett, of course.

Oh?

You know, Carney, you would make a superb second gravedigger.

I would, sir?

The water has moistened some of my posters.

They dry much better hanging on the wall.

You look disturbed, Captain. Anything I can do for you?

Well...

As a matter of fact, I was wondering if there was anything else we could do for you.

Oh, there is a slight draft, but Carney can put up a shutter. Yes,

I see he's repaired your trunk already. A versatile fellow,

as fine a valet as I've ever had.

We pay him to be the ship's engineer. What a waste of a natural talent. Yes.

I wonder if we could borrow him this afternoon just to get up a little steam. Oh,

yes, of course. Proceed, Carney. Thank you, Your Lordship.

Lower register, Carney. From the diaphragm.

From the diaphragm.

I shall remember, sir.

And you'll have my dress clothes in time for dinner.

That I will, sir. Steam, Mr. Carney.

Steam, Captain. Right, from the diaphragm. From the boiler!

Will you join me in a cup of tea, Captain? I might as well. I paid for it myself.

Juliet, bring some more tea, please.

Now, as to these cabins, are they the best you can give us?

Couldn't we have something a trifle more spacious? Yeah, well,

I'm glad you brought that up.

You see, Mr. Blake, my partner, keeps the books,

and he likes to get passage in advance.

Of course, of course. As soon as my papers are dry, I'll give you a check.

Bank of England, all right?

Well, yeah, I've heard they're all right, yes.

Don't you have any funds closer than that?

How do you like your tea, Captain? Weak or strong?

I like it hot.

Lady Garrett Brew's the most delectable tea. Somehow or other,

she manages to get a tang into it. Yes, I can understand that.

She has very trim lines.

Yes. I'd like to make you an offer for her. What?

All the enterprise.

I'm sorry.

I didn't know you were interested in it. Well, I shall have to replace my showboat.

Your craft would do admirably. You know, I'm afraid the Enterprise isn't for sale.

Well, we don't need to buy her then. We can come to some partnership arrangement.

Sugar.

No.

For a showboat? No.

But Captain, you'll be rich and famous.

Across your decks will come the finest people.

The carriage trade all your river towns.

Milk.

No.

No, no, I'm afraid my partner would never agree to running a showboat.

He only runs half the boat.

We can make some proposal more advantageous to him.

I'm sure he has an eye for a bit of profit.

You know, for a shipwreck whose gear isn't even dry yet, you're pretty well set up.

Lady Gareth and I will be on board permanently, of course,

but we won't distract from your normal business.

By day, you'll be a riverboat. By night, a showboat.

You're moored in some port every night anyway. Dead time.

What happened to the boat? You know very well.

She sank. Yes, I know she sank, but how?

Did the boilers explode? I see that you're

commended for your gallant rescue, Captain.

Will you have a trumpet?

Why...

Crumpet.

Your cook has been most cooperative.

What did you say was the name of your boat? Marmalade.

Well, as a matter of fact,

I was about to change her name to the Royal Floating Theatre. Yes.

Want more tea?

No, no, thank you. No, but her registered name. Her registered name.

Oh, it slips my mind, you know, details.

Well, what was the name of her captain? The one who went down with the ship? Yeah,

yes, the one that went down with the ship.

His name was, uh, his name was... I can't remember names, dates, places.

Well, then how do you remember your lines?

I am an actor, sir, not a clerk.

I am not expected to remember petty details.

Dear, we can be frank with the captain, can't we?

Her name was the Floating Hippodrome.

Captain Smiley Showboat.

Why didn't you say so?

We actors are strange people, Captain.

Vanity, I suppose.

It was not the kind of engagement I was accustomed to.

Forty years in the theater.

But this is a new country.

I had hoped to bring some culture to the new frontier.

What's this?

My check, sir.

Well, there's enough money down here to pay for

your passage to Canada and buy the boat to boot.

You're a smart young man.

You can persuade your partner.

I'm afraid you don't know my partner.

See, all he's interested in is just the three cents

a mile passage. Keep it. My guarantee. All right.

All right, fine. Well, tell you what, the next town we come to,

we'll go to the bank and we'll get this whole thing straightened out.

Good show town. Your next port?

Louisville. Louisville? Oh, no, no, we won't be in Louisville for five days. No,

you'll be going ashore in hatches.

Thanks for the tea.

In the fog, I thought we'd pass Natchez.

Well, he's just not going to put us ashore in Natchez.

I'll think of something.

They're too ready.

Juliet, the way he looked at you...

He did.

Didn't he?

The way you looked at him, that's what worries me. Come in, Blake.

Captain?

We can't go ashore at Natchez, and I would like the bank draft back, please.

Oh, I wasn't going to try and cash that.

You think we're fakers, don't you?

You think we've just been trying to take you, putting on a big act.

Well, you know what actors are supposed to do, act.

They're supposed to pretend that they're somebody else.

I didn't come here to pretend.

Does your husband know you're here? Or did he send you up here?

No.

No, he doesn't know you're here. No, he didn't send you.

No, he's not my husband.

He tells everybody that we're married to keep other men away from me.

How do you feel about that?

I never minded.

Till now.

Now, let's just stop this stage business now.

What do you want?

You want free passage?

How far do you want to go?

How far would you like to take me?

You know, you're quite an actress, Lady Garrett.

And I'm not a lady.

Oh?

I mean, the title is just make-believe.

Well, a lot of things in the theater are make-believe.

His lordship.

All the time it's just a hand bone from Captain Smiley's slideshow.

Don't you call him that. He is a great actor.

Yeah, he is.

Captain Smiley didn't know how to treat a great actor, and neither do you.

Yeah, now just a minute. You just tell him to leave my crew alone.

I almost wrecked a boat on the sandbar when I was trying to get that trunk aboard.

And now he's got my whole crew yelling from the diaphragm.

He just makes loud noises so we won't hear the sound of his heart breaking.

Oh, come on, come on, now turn off the tears now, will you?

I may work on water, but water doesn't work on me. Now, how far do you want to go?

Captain, we're broke.

Stranded.

We haven't even got the three cents a mile passage upriver.

If you put us ashore and we go to a hotel, they'll hold his trunk,

and if they do that, you might just as well have let him drown,

because that trunk is all he has in the world next to

me. He's got every memory, every dream he ever had.

I don't understand it. I don't understand how a beautiful young girl like

you can end up with an old man like you hanging around your neck.

Let's sit on the stand, Captain.

He's my father.

Those footlights are excellent. Let's go on here.

We'll use this door for entrances and exits, and later on we'll cut one there.

How can you do this to him?

Doesn't look much like a theater yet,

but once we've built a proscenium arch and cut

an exit in that wall... He's a wonderful man.

If it weren't for him, we'd have no place to stay.

I thought we'd give our first performance in Louisville. That's five days away.

We'll skip Natchez, of course.

You mustn't do this unless you can go through with it.

What do you mean? Of course I can go through with it. Forty years in the theater.

Father, look at me.

Do you think I want charity, my dear? It's the only way I can pay our way.

But, Father...

Can you really go out on that stage again and face a strange audience?

One audience is like another.

Father, can you really do it?

Can you really go on? Can you really do another show?

What's his Lordship so nervous about? Well,

you'd be nervous too if your daughter was going for a buggy ride with Grey Holden.

Ah, Carnius, more than that. He's got the shakes.

Well, all great actors get nervous before a big show. Even I'm nervous,

and I'm only pressing his costume.

You are really stage-struck, aren't you? From

the diaphragm, Mr. Blake, stage-struck.

All right, boys, come on, drop her in.

Lower it down. Come on, Joe. Come on. Lower it down.

Come on. All right, there you go.

Dyer off!

What?

Let me talk you out of this.

Not a chance. Now, what's that old saying? The show must go on.

What's wrong with that? As long as there's a profit in it for Blake.

But what if something goes wrong?

What can go wrong? Come on.

Well, you see, Natchez is really two towns.

Now there's Natchez under the hill, that's where the river rats are. But up here,

Natchez on the bluff, this is where the money is.

Now then, you just stay here in the carriage and show us a nice smile.

My little ankle.

That's for the men. I'll take care of the women.

I'm sure you will.

Yeah.

How are you? That's the young riverboat, Captain, I was telling you about.

Very responsible young man.

So many young bucks on the river today are fly-by-nights.

No responsibility for a man's cargo. Well,

I might not trust Captain Holden with my daughters,

but I would trust him with my cotton.

He travels in mighty good-looking company.

Captain Hogan, just who's that young lady?

Well, I'll tell you all about her in due time, in due time.

But we were expecting you alone, Captain.

Captain, we are having a ball tonight. You all got to stay.

Yeah? Well, now, we're having a party ourselves on board the Enterprise. Yes,

it's a theater party, and you two ladies are going to be my special guests.

We're having a show. A show?

Oh, we were looking forward to having you dance with us, Captain.

If you're not otherwise engaged.

Well, now, now, Bertie Bell, you see,

we're going to have some dancing ourselves on board the Enterprise tonight,

on the deck, under the stars in that big old fat Mississippi moon.

Just the two of us. I mean, the three of us.

Papa! Papa!

Captain Holden, madam. Mr. Beauregard, my new cotton broker.

Well, Mr. Beauregard, sir, it's a pleasure.

I imagine we'll be doing a lot of business together. Something.

I, uh, found the impression you were running a riverboat. Yes, by day, sir, by day.

But at night, we offer entertainment to satisfy the most discriminating.

A cultural gathering spot for cotton planters, bankers, and brokers, sir. Oh,

it's good for business and a sheer delight for the ladies.

Sir Oliver Garrett? Yeah, yes, and Lady Garrett. Oh,

I want you all to meet her lovely ladyship.

Her ladyship? You haven't gone and left that old Garrett on your boat.

Well, yes, what's wrong with that?

And that husband that travels with him?

No, no, no, dear, that's his daughter.

Oh, y'all don't believe that.

Where do you know the Garrets from? You ever seen them play?

No, but we've heard plenty. They were here just last week, tried to play natches.

Try?

People said, heard it was just awful, hooted right off the stage.

Why, it was the talk of the town.

Passing off that young hussy as his wife, trying to make himself look younger.

She's a lady, sir. A lady.

That's more than I can say about some people I know.

Perhaps we better wait until after your show to discuss shipping our cotton.

Perhaps we should, sir.

Wait and see what condition your boat's in.

Those rowdies from under the hill come to your show,

they may tear your boat apart the way they did Captain Smiley's.

I hope we have room for your cotton, Mr. de Lesseps.

Mr. Beauregard, you?

Oh, but Granny, we do want you to come to our barn. We was planning on it.

Well, sometimes plans have a way of not working out.

Oh, um, Captain, we, uh...

You are going to meet your friend before you go. Yes, you insist.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Oh, great. Now, you know, I just can't stand formal introductions,

especially when everybody's so sweet and pleasant like these wonderful people here.

Yeah.

By the kind of you, ma'am, to offer those words.

I wouldn't say them if they weren't true.

Now, would I, Greg?

Well, that's true. You are a stickler for truth. That's a fact.

That's why I was so interested in your discussion about the showboat folk.

They do seem like dreadful people, don't you think?

That's the talk. We know people who were there.

But you weren't there, dear, were you?

Oh, no, we don't associate with show people.

That's a pity. I think we'd better get going.

Oh, Captain, you are going to introduce the lady before you go, aren't you?

Well... Oh, Gray, why not, being that we're leaving?

Yes, yes, of course. How careless of me.

And this is Lily Bell and Bertie Bell and their father, Mr. de Lesseps and Mr.

Beauregard. May I introduce to you, Lady Garrett.

It's been such a pleasure.

He's not angry with you?

Of course not. What for?

Oh, I should have told you the whole truth.

Well.

I just kept hoping if he had another chance.

Forget it.

There's still Natchez under the hill. We're not beat yet.

He didn't belong on that honky-tonk showboat of Captain Smiley's.

Who are you calling honky-tonk, Captain Gray, holding web? Captain Smiley.

Sir Hambone. Oh, I fired him, him and his highfalutin Shakespeare,

all the time shaking from stage fright.

I hear your boat went down, huh? Shame you didn't go with it.

Stubborn old fool. He could have got picked up by the rest of us,

but he wouldn't leave his trunk.

You should have let him drown. You're a bigger fool than he is.

What'd he do, throw that good-looking wench at you? Showtime's 8.30!

Food and drinks for everybody.

You ain't taking my customers out of here to eat and drink someplace else. Well,

now, I'll tell you what I'll do now here. We'll split it right down the middle, huh?

Give us half of everything. To see Sir Hambone Garrett? Well, now,

don't you listen to Captain Smiley Sour Grapes here now.

Now, we'll make a separate side deal, you and I. I'll give you 50% of everything.

Over Blake's dead body, your partner don't split with nobody.

I'll give you half of my half.

Well, maybe if he let his young wife dress up in something fancy,

then you'd have an attraction.

Sheila, she'll give you a great show. With her clothes on.

He's got her covered up to her neck. If she's got legs,

he's sure keeping them secret.

Do you mind holding this for a moment, please? Oh, hey!

Where's your lordship?

Where's your audience?

Well, I lost them. I lost the cotton shipment, too. Yeah, I heard.

What passengers we did have got tired waiting and all went ashore.

Yeah.

We're going to be eating it for the next month.

And they'll be eating it if you can dig up the money to pay the crew.

After you pay for the pigs and the whiskey and for

my share in the profits in the cotton cargo,

which we are not carrying. We had no contracts for that cotton.

We had an agreement. And I figure you owe me for the profit I might have made.

I thought I might borrow the money somewhere.

Who from?

From you.

Sure, sure, Greg.

At the usual collateral? That means you take over the enterprise, huh?

Well, I don't want to be harsh about these things.

I'm just taking your own philosophy.

Take everything that comes?

You'd stay on as captain. Oh, you'd be willing to give me a job, huh? Thanks.

Well, business is business.

Business is business.

Why didn't you let me open at Louisville?

What would have happened in Louisville?

I don't know.

Perhaps the same thing.

Only by then you would have had five more days of free boardroom and passage.

I'll pay you back, sir, every farthing.

Well, what?

I don't know why I said that.

One gets in the habit.

Well, get out of it.

And get off my boat.

My boat.

Before Blake takes it over and holds your trunk.

We'll go. And take your royal red curtain and pack it.

I know.

I'm through.

Is it back up?

It's a tradition with the Garretts.

The curtain always goes at the bottom of the trunk.

Hurry it up.

This was Hamlet's dagger.

This was the chalice that held the poisoned wine.

Yeah, that's for me.

I used it in Romeo and Juliet. Didn't have a very happy ending either, did it?

They were all great tragedies, and they were great triumphs.

Through these curtains, I have taken calls to a king, a command performance.

Magnificent, they said, my Brutus, my Hamlet, Othello the Moor, Macbeth, King Lear.

Where do the years go?

Into the trunk.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

And tomorrow, and tomorrow.

Weeks in this petty place from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time.

And all I...

Have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

Out!

Out, brief candle!

Lice with a walking shadow.

A poor player who struts and frets his art upon the stage and then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Act five, scene three.

How'd you get stage fright?

I'm too old. I've lost my touch.

Not too old.

Not from what I just saw.

You know your river.

Every channel, every bend, every shoal. Do you

think you could run your boat alone, Captain?

Every captain needs a pilot.

But every pilot needs a captain.

Blake's gonna find that out.

I'm a boat without a captain or a pilot.

My Romeo was great because of my Juliet.

No.

Not this little girl of mine who thinks she's fallen in love with you.

Her mother.

She was fair Desdemona to my Othello.

My wicked Lady Macbeth, my Ophelia.

Do you think it's enough for an actor to stand up and hear

the applause with no one there to share it with him?

Flattery can fool you.

It's like the river, it's treacherous.

It's a risk every actor must take.

She was my partner.

My faith, my confidence in myself, my courage.

She always told me the truth.

Every night, tremendous, thunderous applause.

And we'd stand there, hand in hand, and we would take our calls.

We were a team. We shared a dream.

And now, without that dream, Every stage has become a nightmare.

Forty years on the boards.

And I'm afraid, Captain.

I'm afraid.

That was great, Gerard. That was a great act.

That was not an act. That was the truth.

I was only trying to tell you what is frightening me.

Don't give me your troubles. I don't want to even hear my own troubles.

You?

A young man with troubles?

Look, you're in the dream business. Give me a dream, will you? I'm losing my boat.

You're supposed to be an actor, an entertainer.

Well, entertain me!

Oh, Debbie!

Father.

Father, you were great.

Even Gray knew you were great.

Will you stop this? You're tearing him apart. He can't do it anymore.

Yes, he can.

I just saw him do it. He's a fine, fine actor.

I know he's a fine, fine actor, but in front of an audience. What's an audience?

I'm an audience.

What's the difference? One person or a hundred? It's an audience.

You don't understand.

I have no choice.

He's got to do it.

Father, now listen to me.

This isn't any longer a question of just you and me.

We've involved somebody who's going to be ruined because of us.

You've got to try.

Well, I'm coming back here with an audience if

I have to Shanghai everybody in the riverfront.

Our captain may have to go down with his boat,

but I'm not having mine slipped out from under me because of a little stage fright.

Now you get this curtain back up.

And you be behind it when it opens.

All right, Mike, grab these lines. What do you want these for, to hang yourself?

Just string along, boys, just string along.

Thought we threw you out once. Do you want an encore?

Showtime!

Don't you ever give up.

Captain Hambone, showboat, tickets, one dollar. No, no,

make that two dollars the first. Now, don't push and don't shove, folks.

There's plenty of room for everybody.

Who says?

Captain Hambone says.

And he says that everybody in this place is going to come down to

the Enterprise and behave themselves like gentlemen and ladies.

They're going to buy food and drink.

They're going to pay for it with cash. All right, throw him out on his head.

Just a minute, I'm not finished.

You want to bet?

And anybody gives me a fighter on here,

I'm going to pull the saloon right down into the river. You're crazy.

Maybe you'd like your head bashed in. You afraid to bet me, Captain Smiley?

What do you want to bet on? That I can pull this saloon down.

You do it and I buy everybody here a ticket for your show. Yeah.

And the food and the drinks are on me.

Yeah?

That's the deal!

All right, the tickets are on me. Me and Smiley. Stop! Showtime!

Showtime!

¶¶

The lords and ladies.

Blow wind, come wrack!

At least we'll die with harness on our back.

Steam!

Gold.

Bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, she strike upon the bell, get thee to bed.

Is this...

A dagger, which I see before me, the handle toward my hand.

Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not...

False vision, sensible to feeling as to sight?

Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation,

proceeding from the heat-oppressive brain?

I see thee yet.

In form as palpable as this, which now I draw.

I go, and it is done.

The bell invites me.

Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell which summons

thee to heaven or to hell. Listen to him up there.

He could play Natchez forever.

You don't talk too much.

You know, Julie, you were honest with me, so I think I'd better be honest with you.

Now, show business is fine.

But... This is just a one-night stand.

Well, that's life on the river.

Different town every night.

Different girl.

Well, I just wanted you to know...

I didn't want you to get any wrong ideas.

Oh, I understand.

You do?

Well, in that case, honey, you just...