Full Description
Hollywood's conversion to sound in the 1920s created an early peak in the film musical, following the immense success of The Jazz Singer. The opportunity to synchronize moving pictures with a soundtrack suited the musical in particular, since the heightened experience of song and dance drew attention to the novelty of the technological development. Until the near-collapse of the genre in the 1960s, the film musical enjoyed around thirty years of development, as landmarks such as The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis, Singin' in the Rain, and Gigi showed the exciting possibilities of putting musicals on the silver screen. The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations traces how the genre of the stage-to-screen musical has evolved, starting with screen adaptations of operettas such as The Desert Song and Rio Rita, and looks at how the Hollywood studios in the 1930s exploited the publication of sheet music as part of their income. Numerous chapters examine specific screen adaptations in depth, including not only favorites such as Annie and Kiss Me, Kate but also some of the lesser-known titles like Li'l Abner and Roberta and problematic adaptations such as Carousel and Paint Your Wagon. Together, the chapters incite lively debates about the process of adapting Broadway for the big screen and provide models for future studies.
Contents
Contributors
Acknowledgements
About the Companion Website
Introduction
Part I: An introduction to the Stage-to-Screen Adaptation
CHAPTER 1
"And I'll Sing Once More": A Historical Overview of the Broadway Musical on the Silver Screen
DOMINIC McHUGH
CHAPTER 2
From Novel to Stage to Screen: Adapting Roberta
GEOFFREY BLOCK
CHAPTER 3
Getting Real: Stage Musical vs. Filmic Realism in Film Adaptations from Camelot to Cabaret
RAYMOND KNAPP
CHAPTER 4
The Party's Over: On the Town, Bells are Ringing, and the Problem of Adapting Postwar New York
MARTHA SHEARER
CHAPTER 5
Into the Woods from Stage to Screen
MARK EDEN HOROWITZ
Part II: The Politics of Adaptation
CHAPTER 6
Li'l Abner from Comic Strip to Hollywood
JAMES LOVENSHEIMER
CHAPTER 7
Fidelity vs. Freedom in Milos Forman's film version of Hair
ANDREW BUCHMAN
CHAPTER 8
"An Elegant Legacy": The Aborted Cartoon Adaptation of Finian's Rainbow
DANIELLE BIRKETT
CHAPTER 9
Little Shop of Horrors: Breaking the Rules all the Way to the Big (Enormous, 12-inch) Screen
JONAS WESTOVER
CHAPTER 10
The Fascinating Moment of Godspell: Its Cinematic Adaptation in the Shadow of Jesus Christ Superstar and Leonard Bernstein's Mass
PAUL LAIRD
Part III: Biography and Identities: Race, Sexuality, and Gender
CHAPTER 11
Adapting Pal Joey: Post-War Anxieties and the Playmate
JULIANNE LINDBERG
CHAPTER 12
"Too Darn Hot": Reimagining Kiss Me, Kate for the Silver Screen
HANNAH ROBBINS
CHAPTER 13
"A Humane, Practical, and Beautiful Solution": Adaptation and Triangulation in Paint Your Wagon
MEGAN WOLLER
CHAPTER 14
"A Great American Service": George M. Cohan, the Stage, and the Nation in Yankee Doodle Dandy
ELIZABETH CRAFT
CHAPTER 15
Cole Porter's List Songs on Stage and Screen
CLIFF EISEN
Part IV: Stars and Adaptation
CHAPTER 16
Loud, Pretty, Strong, White [Repeat]: The Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy Operettas at MGM (1935-1942)
TODD DECKER
CHAPTER 17
Brigadoon and its Transition to MGM Musical: Adapting a Stage Show for Star Dancers
SUSAN SMITH
CHAPTER 18
"Is this the right material, girl?": How Madonna Makes Us Like Eva But Not Necessarily Evita
RICHARD ALLEN
CHAPTER 19
The Streisand adaptations
DOMINIC McHUGH
Part V: Multiple Adaptations of a Single Work
CHAPTER 20
The Shifting Sand of Orientalism: The Desert Song on Stage and Screen
WILLIAM A. EVERETT
CHAPTER 21
"You Will Know That She is Our Annie": Comparing Three Adaptations of a Broadway Classic
IAN SAPIRO
CHAPTER 22
The Three Faces of Rio Rita
JOHN GRAZIANO
Part VI: Audiences, Producers, Studios
CHAPTER 23
Lost in Translation: The Strange Case of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel
TIM CARTER
CHAPTER 24
Carol Burnett and the Ends of Variety: Parody, Nostalgia, and Analysis of the American Musical
ROBYNN STILWELL
CHAPTER 25
Flamboyance, Exuberance, and Schmaltz: Half a Sixpence and the Broadway Adaptation in 1960s Hollywood
AMANDA McQUEEN
CHAPTER 26
The Producers and Hairspray: The Hazards and Rewards of Recursive Adaptation
DEAN ADAMS
CHAPTER 27
Rescoring Anything Goes in 1930s Hollywood
ALLISON ROBBINS
Bibliography
Index
