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Why so much hype?

Captivating movie !

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

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.

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.

Up and coming star Ginger Rogers takes a distinct second place to the special effects in a story about the men in a logging camp and the women on a Carnival Boat they should avoid. Ginger's partnered with William Boyd who was not yet Hopalong Cassidy.Boyd is the son of the camp foreman Hobart Bosworth who is feeling the effects of his age. He'd like to see his son succeed him as foreman of the camp, but Fred Kohler has an impressive record for the job and he's not squeamish about what he has to do for that promotion.At the same time Ginger works a Carnival Boat which provides the men of the woods some amusement and like the saloons of the old west relieves them of their wages. Boyd likes Ginger, but Bosworth doesn't feel she's a suitable bride for his son.I think you can probably figure out where and how this is all going to end. The plot is trite, but the special effects that include a runaway logging train and a river log jam are really first rate for their time. It makes Carnival Boat something to see if one can.

The impressive logging operations, the exciting runaway-train and log-jam sequences overcome this movie's routine double plot. First, Bill Boyd is in love with showgirl Ginger Rogers, who performs on a carnival boat that stops at the logging camp. His father, Hobart Bosworth, doesn't think much of her and he fears also Boyd will leave logging, dashing his hopes for Boyd to become boss when he retires. Second, Fred Kohler is also vying for the job of boss and even resorts to tactics to make Boyd look bad. When this fails, he even considers murder when both try to break up a log jam at a dam with dynamite. The film is briskly paced and beautifully photographed. Edgar Kennedy and his logging partner, Harry Sweet, provide the little comedy relief there is, and there is a couple of realistic looking fight sequences.