ThiefHott Too much of everything

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

mark.waltz As a kid, my grandfather introduced me to reading, and I recall being enthralled with Zane Grey stories of the old outdoors involving logging camps, fast moving trains and how those businesses were run. Of course, I did not end up in that business, but many decades later, when I see films that deal with that subject, I am instantly intrigued. Watching this film at the start, you begin to wonder where the "Carnival Boat" title comes into play since this surrounds a rough and tough, danger always a risk, logging camp. It turns out that the carnival boat is basically a lesser version of "Show Boat's" Cotton Blossom, traveling up and down the river which is along side the mountain pass where the aging Hobart Bosworth has been logging for decades. He's not ready to retire, but logging company owner Charles Sellon convinces him to step back and find a successor to take over his management position. That turns out to be his somewhat irresponsible son (William Boyd) who is quick to a fight, but one of the best loggers on the team. He's also a bit irresponsible, so it will take some tough life lessons to get him to settle down.A very young Ginger Rogers, about a year out of her pairing with Fred Astaire, and fresh from Broadway, gets an adequate if unremarkable musical number as the headliner on the Carnival Boat. Her pairing with Boyd is a bit odd as he appears to be about 15 years older than her, and she appears to be barely past her teens. But she gets to show a bit of the feistiness she would later thrive on in her dozens of classic screwball comedies. The tragic Marie Prevost has a small part as the blowsy waitress on the Carnival Boat who flirts simultaneously with logging camp workers Edgar Kennedy and Harry Sweet who provide the comic relief as partners in tree cutting. Their scenes are genuinely pretty funny. Shots of the trees falling, cranes lifting them up onto the trains and then the trains speeding down the tracks to the dumping spot are quite riveting. This has a lot going on in its very short running time, but features a decent script and believable characterizations, even if Boyd and Rogers' pairing is a bit off putting at times.

MartinHafer Before gaining huge fame as the cowboy star Hopalong Cassidy, William Boyd was a movie star in his own right--starring in a bunch of films in the 20s and early 30s. Many of them were B-movies, like "Carnival Boat". By B, I mean that they were meant as the second, less film offered at a double-feature. This second film was always cheaply made, lasted only about an hour and usually went straight to the action-- and all this is true of this film.Buck is the foreman with a logging company. However, his father is concerned that Buck isn't exactly a tough boss--and often lets the men slack off. He's even more upset when he tells Buck not to allow the men to frequent the visiting show boat, as it will only get them into trouble--yet later that same night, he finds Buck and his men there! Buck is there to see his girlfriend, Honey (Ginger Rogers) but Dad will have none of it--his son is a disappointment. Can Buck prove himself to Dad? And, if Buck wants to marry Honey, is there any way Dad would ever accept a singer from one of these dreaded boats? Hint--the answers to these probably won't come as major surprises.Overall, this is an entertaining film that certainly has little in the way of pretense. It's at its best with some of the action scenes-- such as the deftly handled runaway train sequence. Worth your time but far from a must-see picture.By the way, in addition to Boyd later getting a makeover in order to become a cowboy, Ginger Rogers is seen here in her pre-makeover days. She still sports brown hair and obviously hasn't undergone the voice coaching she must have had as her star continued to rise in Hollywood.

Spondonman It's an early and primitive RKO Pathe film from the young Ginger Rogers - the next year she teamed up with Fred and never looked back. And William Boyd still had a couple of years to go before he became Hopalong Cassidy for the rest of his life.Story relates the trials and tribulations of a logging company which is visited by a showboat containing an entertainment troupe; Ginger and Boyd love each other much to the opposition and disgust of his father wonderfully hammed by Hobart Bosworth. It's pretty much run of the sawmill stuff, except maybe in watching the cavalier attitude workers had to moving gargantuan pieces of timber around in some scenes, whenever it was timber anyway. The runaway train sequence was taken at warp speed - but you should know how it'll all end. That's right, Ginger was worrying about her (tree) feller for nothing!I didn't see a carnival and only a little bit of boat but it's short and almost sweet with a harmless inconsequentiality to preclude serious criticism; worth an hour of my time.

WeatherViolet After performing in five feature films and four short subjects for Paramount at its Long Island, NY, studios, by day, and performing on Broadway by evening, Ginger Rogers heads to Hollywood, in 1931, to sign with Pathé Studio, a forerunner to RKO-Radio Pictures. "Carnival Boat" becomes Ginger's third at Pathé, and her first feature film of 1932.Although a pre-platinum Ginger receives star billing, and her character's festive entertainment vessel the title, most of the action of this film transpires at a lumber camp, with much conflict occurring among lumberjacks for the succession of power pending the retirement of Jim Gannon (Hobart Bosworth).Well, an abrasive Hack Logan (Fred Kohler), for one, places himself in contention for the foreman position and, especially, in contention against Gannon Jr. (William Boyd), whose father, Jim, stands in contention against Jr.'s fancying Honey (Ginger Rogers), the star performer of the "Carnival Boat," a steamship paddle-boat, which floats along the waterway and docks near the lumber camp.Fighting for the top lumbering position begins with the saws and escalates onto the roofs of railroad cars, piloted by a runaway locomotive down the mountain track, which certainly provides compelling footage, which certainly stands the test of time to captivate audience attention.Honey, all the while, stands by Jr., who continues to champion their romance, as (Ginger) sings, "How I Could Go for You" aboard the entertainment vessel, where a good time is had by one and all except for the disapproving Sr., who seems prepared to cry "Timber!" at any given moment.Marie Prevost has a role as "Babe," with Edgar Kennedy as "Baldy," a lumberjack. William Boyd, the film's leading man, doesn't seem to appear anywhere near the credit list here although his moniker does roll across the screen below Ginger's.