 The design of the show boat is true to what a real show boat of that  era might have looked like. This is partly because  Jerome Kern (qv) and Oscar Hammerstein II (qv) wished it that  way in their original stage instructions for the play, partly  because of Edna Ferber (qv)s concern for historical accuracy, and  partly because of director James Whale (I) (qv)s sense of period  design.