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“With All Its Original Stage Enchantment”

Richard Barrios

in A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film

Broadway musicals were a ready source for the early musicals, and RKO's smash Rio Rita led the way. Some of the adaptations were close, while others strayed wildly from the originals. Among the ... More

Broadway musicals were a ready source for the early musicals, and RKO's smash Rio Rita led the way. Some of the adaptations were close, while others strayed wildly from the originals. Among the Broadway stars repeating their stage roles were Irene Bordoni in Paris, and Ziegfeld diva Marilyn Miller in Sally. Such films as No, No Nanette bore less resemblance to the stage success than it did to the thriving backstage genre. Composers DeSylva, Brown and Henderson found their works transferred more successfully than did Rodgers and Hart or Cole Porter. By the time of the most lavish Broadway adaptation, Whoopee!, musicals were in decline, yet with Eddie Cantor, Busby Berkeley, and Technicolor it scored a notable success.Less

Of Viennese Nights and Golden Dawns

Richard Barrios

in A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film

Filmed operettas were more prominent in the early sound era than they would ever be again. The first, The Desert Song, showed both the advantages and pitfalls of putting these works on film. Opera ... More

Filmed operettas were more prominent in the early sound era than they would ever be again. The first, The Desert Song, showed both the advantages and pitfalls of putting these works on film. Opera star Lawrence Tibbett scored with The Rogue Song, as did director Ernst Lubitsch with The Love Parade. Others could be pompous (The Vagabond King), trivial (The Lottery Bride), or horrendously racist (Golden Dawn). With Viennese Nights, Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II created a viable operetta especially for the screen, although not with financial success.Less

“You Were Meant for Me”

Richard Barrios

in A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film

The Broadway Melody, produced by MGM, is the first true musical film. Unlike other films preceding (and following it), it was constructed with meticulous care directed toward both ... More

The Broadway Melody, produced by MGM, is the first true musical film. Unlike other films preceding (and following it), it was constructed with meticulous care directed toward both the technology and the audience. The film's huge success can be seen as the watershed that established sound film as viable entertainment, instead of a Jolson-style showcase or stunt. The film's use of early two-color Technicolor was extremely influential, as was its use of a newly-written musical score by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. Its central performance, by Bessie Love, was vital in forging new paths for vocal acting on the screen. While its backstage story spawned scores of imitators, it would retain a powerful hold on its audiences' affections.Less

On with the Show!

Richard Barrios

in A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film

The earliest rivals of The Broadway Melody were compelled to grapple with a distinctive group of artistic and technical challenges. Warners' The Desert Song, the screen's first operetta, and Fox's ... More

The earliest rivals of The Broadway Melody were compelled to grapple with a distinctive group of artistic and technical challenges. Warners' The Desert Song, the screen's first operetta, and Fox's Movietone Follies of 1929 were both hampered by various delays. Universal's Show Boat suffered from its juxtaposition to the triumphant stage musical. Syncopation, from the new company RKO, was filmed so quickly and cheaply that it beat most of its rivals to the screen. Broadway was an uneasy hybrid of stage melodrama and screen musical. Warner's On With the Show!, the first sound film shot entirely in Technicolor, was the definitive backstage film and a huge success, most notably with Ethel Waters singing “Am I Blue?”Less

Finding a Voice

Richard Barrios

in A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film

A rundown of the individual elements and artists that would join together to form the musical film. To create the songs, studios bought music publishers and hired songwriters to create lower-common ... More

A rundown of the individual elements and artists that would join together to form the musical film. To create the songs, studios bought music publishers and hired songwriters to create lower-common denominator versions of Broadway and pop hits. Music arrangements and sound recording slowly improved, as did photography and editing. Two-color Technicolor was hugely popular, then became a liability through its limited palette and loss of quality control. The personnel drew from both stage veterans and film people: directors such as Lubitsch and Mamoulian, stage and opera stars like Jolson and Lawrence Tibbett, and silent-film performers with acceptable voices, such as Bebe Daniels and Gloria Swanson.Less

Hollywood, Revued

Richard Barrios

in A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film

Another distinctive trend was the all-star revue film, as produced by most of the major studios. Each would serve as a guidepost to its company's reigning aesthetic as it addressed the new world of ... More

Another distinctive trend was the all-star revue film, as produced by most of the major studios. Each would serve as a guidepost to its company's reigning aesthetic as it addressed the new world of sound films. With The Hollywood Revue, MGM triumphed through a wise use of stars and production knowhow. With Show of Shows, Warner Bros. failed through a misspent budget and indifferent material. While Fox's Happy Days was tepid, Paramount on Parade was witty and resourceful. Universal's King of Jazz, by far the most spectacular of the revues, found artistic success at the expense of diminished audience favor. Seldom, after 1930, would such work ever be tried again.Less

A Suitable Job for a Woman: Color and the Work of Natalie Kalmus

Sarah Street

in Doing Women's Film History: Reframing Cinemas, Past and Future

This chapter examines Natalie Kalmus's role as an ambassador for Technicolor Corporation during the 1930s and 1940s. Kalmus became involved in Technicolor through her husband Herbert Kalmus, who ... More

This chapter examines Natalie Kalmus's role as an ambassador for Technicolor Corporation during the 1930s and 1940s. Kalmus became involved in Technicolor through her husband Herbert Kalmus, who founded the company in 1915 with Daniel Comstock and W. Burton Westcott. She was credited as “color consultant” on most Technicolor films from the late 1920s to 1949. Drawing on her papers by the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles, this chapter considers Kalmus's record and somewhat controversial legacy as a woman commanding an extremely important place in the history of color film. It explores how, as a public figure and advocate of color, Kalmus wielded influence beyond film production, advising women to wear particular colors to go with their hair and mood. It shows that Kalmus was exemplary of a mode of employment created and perpetuated by gendered assumptions about color expertise.Less

Regime Change

Alan K. Rode

in Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film

As the Depression deepened, all the studios laid off workers and closed theaters. The Warners reduced all their employees’ salaries. Zanuck was fed up and quit after a confrontation with Harry ... More

As the Depression deepened, all the studios laid off workers and closed theaters. The Warners reduced all their employees’ salaries. Zanuck was fed up and quit after a confrontation with Harry Warner. Hal Wallis was appointed head of production. Wallis’s life and deportment are outlined, as is the beginnings of his tumultuous relationship with Curtiz. The Mystery of the Wax Museum was an artistic tour de force, a horror film directed by Curtiz. He explained the camera technique that he used,as his ruthless work ethic alienated Fay Wray and others in the cast. He ceased paying child support toMathildeFoerster for his son Michael, so she traveled to the United States and sued him in court.He finally settled the case just before it went to trial.Excerpts from Michael’s diary underscore the director’s indifference to his namesake son.Curtiz sent for his daughter Kitty. She was a troubled and rebellious, and he proved to be an ineffectual parent. His career continued with The Kennel Murder Case, Female,and Goodbye Again. Curtiz believed that he needed much better material to emerge as a director of consequence.Less

Blood and Soil

Frank Noack

in Veit Harlan: The Life and Work of a Nazi Filmmaker

This chapter deals with Harlan’s debut as producer-director in late 1941. After canceling his contract with Tobis, his home studio since 1937, he gets a production unit of his own at UFA and starts ... More

This chapter deals with Harlan’s debut as producer-director in late 1941. After canceling his contract with Tobis, his home studio since 1937, he gets a production unit of his own at UFA and starts work on Die goldene Stadt (The golden city), Germany’s second film in Agfacolor. While his Prussian epic Der grosse König is finally released, after heavy cuts and reshoots, half a dozen of Harlan’s former colleagues as well as theater critics who had spotted his talent early on are among the first Holocaust victims, and his Jewish first wife, Dora Gerson, has to go underground. Die goldene Stadt, released at the Venice Film Festival in 1942, becomes a sensational commercial success throughout Europe, helped by the fact that in Nazi-occupied areas audiences have no access to Hollywood’s Technicolor films. In his diaries, Joseph Goebbels explicitly links his monopoly on color stock to the Wehrmacht’s military successes.Less

Putting Oz into The Wizard of Oz

Michael Sragow

in Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master

Fleming was brought into the production of MGM’s bold new undertaking, an adaptation of Frank L. Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Understandably, Fleming was both excited by the potential of ... More

Fleming was brought into the production of MGM’s bold new undertaking, an adaptation of Frank L. Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Understandably, Fleming was both excited by the potential of the project and wary, as shooting had already started under other directors. To the delight of some of the actors and the irritation of others, Fleming was a powerful force on the set. and the friendship that he struck up with the young Judy Garland during the shooting of the movie proved to be lifelong. This chapter explores the production of The Wizard of Oz and features many anecdotes from the set.Less

Noir En Couleur: Color and Widescreen

Robert Miklitsch

in The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s

The decline of American film noir is historically coincident with the advent of the “red menace” and the “blacklist” as well as the transformation of the motion picture industry occasioned by new ... More

The decline of American film noir is historically coincident with the advent of the “red menace” and the “blacklist” as well as the transformation of the motion picture industry occasioned by new technologies such as Technicolor and CinemaScope. However, a close examination of color and widescreen in select feature films of the period—Black Widow (1954), House of Bamboo (1955), Slightly Scarlet (1956), and A Kiss before Dying (1956)--suggests that film noir in the 1950s in fact adapted to the rapidly changing industrial landscape of Hollywood and, in the process, engaged such “classical” and topical issues as the femme fatale, femininity, and the “murder mystery” (Black Widow), homosexuality, interracial romance, and the occupation of Japan (House of Bamboo), criminality, gangsters, and female sexuality (Slightly Scarlet), as well as class, the homme fatal, and the female detective (A Kiss before Dying).Less

Niagara: Colored Marilyns

Robert Miklitsch

in The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s

Niagara (1953) is in many ways the definitive 1950s color noir. One reason is Marilyn Monroe, whose exorbitant sexuality can be read either as yet another instance of the femme fatale or the ... More

Niagara (1953) is in many ways the definitive 1950s color noir. One reason is Marilyn Monroe, whose exorbitant sexuality can be read either as yet another instance of the femme fatale or the transgressive force of female fantasy in the 1950s. Another reason is Henry Hathaway, who is one of the most underrated figures in classic American noir and whose direction in Niagara is the key to a renewed appreciation of his corpus and its unique synthesis of “mystery narration” and “documentary realism.” Yet another reason is the photography of Joe MacDonald, whose Technicolor cinematography brilliantly utilizes color and lighting to plumb the mysteries of the film’s donnée, a marriage on the brink of destruction.Less

Dual-Band Cameras

Ray Zone

in 3-D Revolution: The History of Modern Stereoscopic Cinema

Camera configurations using dual-band or two cameras to photograph 3D motion pictures are described in the different configurations used for the 1950s 3D movies.

Sutton Place

Allan R. Ellenberger

in Miriam Hopkins: Life and Films of a Hollywood Rebel

During the run of Jezebel, Hopkins buys the Sutton Place townhouse of the late literary agent Elisabeth Marbury. While it is remodeled, she returns to Hollywood to make She Loves Me Not, with Bing ... More

During the run of Jezebel, Hopkins buys the Sutton Place townhouse of the late literary agent Elisabeth Marbury. While it is remodeled, she returns to Hollywood to make She Loves Me Not, with Bing Crosby and Kitty Carlisle, who relates the kind treatment Hopkins showed her during the making of the film. With one more film owed before her Paramount contract expires, the studio loans Hopkins to RKO to make The Richest Girl in the World. She is hired to play Becky Sharp in the first full-length Technicolor film, and then she signs a four-year contract with producer Samuel Goldwyn. Hopkins hears from her father for the first time in twenty-five years, and her rocky relationship with her mother and her sister’s emotional problems are examined. Hopkins is introduced to, and develops a close friendship with, writer Gertrude Stein, who helps her start a collection of classic paintings. Problems plague the production of Becky Sharp.Less

A Barbaric Rose

Murray Pomerance

in Cinema, If You Please: The Memory of Taste, the Taste of Memory

This chapter works through the color-printing process of the Technicolor Corporation, used in the mid-1940s, to explore the contradictory registers of dream and practicality to which film-watching ... More

This chapter works through the color-printing process of the Technicolor Corporation, used in the mid-1940s, to explore the contradictory registers of dream and practicality to which film-watching moments offer entrance. It provides an analysis of a key color effect in Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946), in which a transition from the monochromatic to the vibrantly colorful emphasizes the use of cinematic color beyond the perfunctory. It is argued, with reference to oil painting, that the brilliant and radiant pink of a single rose in this scene represents the potential of color to emotionally penetrate the viewer, not by supplementing the narrative, but by intruding upon and beyond it.Less

“Sounds Must Stir the Fantasy”: Underscore as Special Effect in The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Nathan Platte

in Adapting The Wizard of Oz: Musical Versions from Baum to MGM and Beyond

Chapter 4 discusses the musical underscore in The Wizard of Oz. Contemporary discourse on the musical soundtrack has emphasized its role in underscoring—literally and figuratively—the film’s ... More

Chapter 4 discusses the musical underscore in The Wizard of Oz. Contemporary discourse on the musical soundtrack has emphasized its role in underscoring—literally and figuratively—the film’s extraordinary content, often stressing its “special” and “effect”-like qualities. Studio publicists plugged the score’s idiosyncratic length and complexity, and Herbert Stothart also drew connections between music and elaborate illusions: “music and sound must be highly imaginative, unreal while super-realistic. Here sounds must stir the fantasy. . . . The difficulty is to blend music and the special sound effects.” Elsewhere Stothart averred that the striking hues of Technicolor warranted special musical treatment. From studio records, contemporary newspaper accounts, the conductor’s score, and the film itself, musical gestures are identified in the underscore that work as and in tandem with special effects.Less