The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations (Oxford Handbooks)

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. Cover The Oxford Handbook of MUSICAL THEATRE SCREEN ADAPTATIONS Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Contributors About the Companion Website Introduction Notes 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 The Stage-to-Screen Musical Up to On the Town (1949) After On the Town: The Age of the Broadway-Hollywood Adaptation Decline: The 1970s to the 1990s Renaissance in the New Millennium Conclusion Notes Chapter 2: Refashioning Roberta: From Novel to Stage to Screen Adapting to Broadway From Novel to Film Roberta as a Film Adaptation of a Stage Musical Concluding Remarks on the Roberta Film Adaptation Notes Chapter 3: Getting Real: Stage Musical versus Filmic Realism in Film Adaptations from Camelot to Cabaret Filmic Realism and Musicals in the Later 1960s Camelot and the Idealist-Reality Divide Transplanting Idealisms: Finian’s Rainbow and Man of La Mancha Realism within the Dynamic of Adaptation Getting Real through Choreography: West Side Story, Sweet Charity, and Cabaret Notes Chapter 4: The Party’s Over: On the Town, Bells Are Ringing, and the Problem of Adapting Postwar New York On the Town Bells Are Ringing Conclusion Notes Chapter 5: Into the Woods from Stage to Screen Once Upon a Time Music Moments in the Woods Happily Ever After (final quotes) Notes Part II: THE POLITICS OF ADAPTATION Chapter 6: Li’l Abner from Comic Strip to Hollywood Al Capp’s Dogpatch The Broadway Musical Dogpatch in Hollywood Adapting the Comic Strip Notes Chapter 7: Fidelity versus Freedom in Miloš Forman’s Film Version of Hair Introduction How to Read a Musical Genesis of the Script Screenplay Revisions ‘Aquarius’ ‘Easy to Be Hard’ Conclusions Notes Chapter 8: ‘An Elegant Legacy?’: The Aborted Cartoon Adaptation of Finian’s Rainbow ‘Sounds Like a Wonderful Idea’: Recruiting a Prestigious Team ‘Bees Are Buzzing, Butterflies Are Flitting Around’: A New Whimsical Prologue ‘A New Shiny Pair of Black Jodphurs’: Satirizing the Racial Message ‘Oh dem Golden Slippers’: Sacrificing Politics to Celebrate Farce and Fantasy Reworking the Details: Balancing the Political and Commercial Tension ‘Frank was fine and highly cooperative’: Adapting the Score for a Star ‘If This Isn’t Love’: Selling Out to Showcase Sinatra Abandoned Late in Production: Reasons for an Immediate Shut Down A Successful Adaptation? Lingering Problems with Finian’s Rainbow Broader Reflections: The Nature of Adaptation Notes Chapter 9: Little Shop of Horrors: Breaking the Rules All the Way to the Big (Enormous, Twelve-inch) Screen Green Thoughts The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) Genesis of the Stage Musical Little Shop of Horrors (1982, Musical) Turning to Film Little Shop of Horrors (1986, film) Notes Chapter 10: The Fascinating Moment of Godspell: Its Cinematic Adaptation in the Shadow of Jesus Christ Superstar and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass Godspell on Stage at Carnegie Mellon To New York: Godspell at La MaMa Enter Stephen Schwartz: Godspell at the Cherry Lane Moving to the Screen The Adaptation: The Film Version versus the Stage Script Reception Notes Part III: BIOGRAPHY AND IDENTITIES: RACE, SEXUALITY, AND GENDER Chapter 11: dapting Pal Joey: Postwar Anxieties and the Playmate Adapting Joey Pal Joey and the Crisis in Masculinity The Playmate Femme Fatale? Joey’s Charm: The Swinging Bachelor Notes Chapter 12: ‘Too Darn Hot’: Reimagining Kiss Me, Kate for the Silver Screen Replacing the Ensemble: Community and Reflexivity in Kiss Me Kate Erasing Paul and Hattie from Kiss Me, Kate Lois Lane: Representing Sex under the Production Code Reframing Emancipation on Screen Notes Chapter 13: ‘A Humane, Practical, and Beautiful Solution’: Adaptation and Triangulation in Paint Your Wagon Triangulation in Lerner and Loewe Musicals Adaptation in Paint Your Wagon Relationships and Sexuality Feminism versus Chauvinism Conclusion Appendix Notes Chapter 14: ‘A Great American Service’: George M. Cohan, the Stage, and the Nation in Yankee Doodle Dandy ‘The Story of George M. Cohan by Himself’ The Stage and the Nation ‘With the American Spirit at a Crisis’ The Legacy of Yankee Doodle Dandy Notes Chapter 15: Cole Porter’s List Songs on Stage and Screen Notes Part IV: STARS AND ADAPTATION Chapter 16: Loud, Pretty, Strong, White [Repeat]: The Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy Operettas at MGM (1935–1942) Notes Chapter 17: ‘Is This the Right Material, Girl?’: How Madonna Makes Us Like Eva, but Not Necessarily Evita Notes Chapter 18: Brigadoon and Its Transition to MGM Dance Musical: Adapting a Stage Show for Star Dancers Dancing to ‘The Heather on the Hill’ ‘There But for You Go I’: Reclaiming Gene Kelly’s Singing Self in Brigadoon Notes Chapter 19: ‘I’m Once Again the Previous Me’: Performance and Stardom in the Barbra Streisand Stage-to-Screen Adaptations Casting Streisand in Hollywood Adaptations Adapting and Staging the Films for Streisand Adapting the Scores Conclusion Notes Part V: MULTIPLE ADAPTATIONS OF A SINGLE WORK Chapter 20: The Shifting Sand of Orientalism: The Desert Song on Stage and Screen The 1926 Stage Original: Chic Meets Sheik The Story: Pierre Loves Margot, Who Thinks She Loves Paul, Who Is Lusted after by Azuri, Who Detests the General, Who . . . Orientalist Discourse in the 1920s Musical Orientalism in The Desert Song 1929: A Faithful Rendition in a New Medium 1932: A Vitafone Short Unrealized Treatments, 1936–1942 1942: Home-Front Propaganda Nazis in the Desert: The Musical American Propaganda Cultural and Gender Constructions Music of the Cabaret and the Desert Reality versus Romance? 1953: A Technicolor Fantasy Viva la France! Orientalist Fantasies Authenticity Songs in the Desert El Khobar = Kal-El? The 1955 Television Version Shifting Sand Notes Chapter 21: ‘You Will Know That She Is Our Annie’: Comparing Three Adaptations of a Broadway Classic Framing the Adaptations Annie, Born 1977, 1982, 1999, and 2014 Musical Profiles Tomorrow: Narrative Agency through Song (Un-)‘Easy Street’ Music in Will Gluck’s Annie Conclusion Notes Chapter 22: The Many Faces of Rio Rita The 1929 film The 1942 Film Conclusions Notes Part VI: STUDIOS, AUDIENCES, TECHNOLOGY Chapter 23: Lost in Translation: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel on the Silver Screen The Ups and Downs of ‘R&H’ Contractual Negotiations The ‘Battle of Scopes’ A Clash of Stage and Screen Location Shooting Filming Carousel Notes Chapter 24: Carol Burnett and the Ends of Variety: Parody, Nostalgia, and Analysis of the American Musical On Parody as Adaptation ‘Hold Me Hamlet’ La Caperucita Roja Cinderella Gets It On Parody as Time Capsule Notes Chapter 25: Flamboyance, Exuberance, and Schmaltz: Half a Sixpence and the Broadway Adaptation in 1960s Hollywood Half a Sixpence and the Cycle of Prestige Adaptations Half a Sixpence and the Hollywood Renaissance Aesthetic Conclusion Notes Chapter 26: The Producers and Hairspray: The Hazards and Rewards of Recursive Adaptation Initial Sources Structure and Adaptation in The Producers Structure and Adaptation in Hairspray Running Times and Audiences Casting Strategies in Musical Film Adaptations Conclusion: Finding an Audience for Stage-to-Screen Adaptations Notes Chapter 27: Rescoring Anything Goes in 1930s Hollywood Paramount, Music Publishing, and Studio Songwriters Anything Goes from Stage to Screen On Fidelity Notes Select Bibliography Index "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"-- Provided by publisher Hollywood's conversion to sound in the 1920s created an early peak in the film musical, following the immense success of The Jazz Singer. Until the near-collapse of the genre in the 1960s, the film musical enjoyed around 30 years of development, with The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis, Singin' in the Rain, and Gigi showing the exciting possibilities of putting musicals on the silver screen. This handbook traces how the genre has evolved, starting with screen adaptations of operettas such as The Desert Song and Rio Rita, and looks at how the 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