Fine Romance

How do we compare a Broadway musical to its Hollywood counterpart? A Fine Romance: Adapting Broadway to Hollywood in the Studio System Era answers this question by exploring the symbiotic relationship between a dozen Broadway musicals and their Hollywood film adaptations. From enduring classics like Oklahoma!, Brigadoon, and West Side Story to lesser-known gems such as Cabin in the Sky, Call Me Madam, and SilkStockings, author Geoffrey Block examines some of the best loved stage and screen musicals of all time as well as neglected works that deserve our attention and respect.Block delves into what happens during the transfer of stories from stage to film, the critical criteria that motivates decisions to alter or preserve stage elements when adapting to film, and the dramatic and musical consequences at play in these artistic and commercial choices. In telling this story, A Fine Romance engages with aesthetic and critical concerns while also considering the social issues around Broadway and Hollywood film through the lenses of race and ethnicity, class,gender, and sexual identity. Beginning with the stage debut of Show Boat in 1927 and concluding with the release of Bob Fosse's cinematic re-envisioning of Cabaret nearly a half century later in 1972, the romance between Broadway and Hollywood was frequently turbulent. Differing commercial and aesthetic models and goals of Broadway and Hollywood created both conflicting and harmonious collaborations. Attempts at economic and artistic domination, irreconcilable differences, and occasional broken promisesensued. At other times, the screen and stage creative teams aligned, resulting in well-crafted, much admired, and frequently breathtaking films.

In this lively and illuminating book, Geoffrey Block reveals the often productive but sometimes fraught relationship between the Broadway musical and the Hollywood studio system that brought it to the big screen. The volume is packed with new information and revealing analysis that will make the reader want to return to it time and again. A showstopper among the scholarship on the American musical!, A quarter of a century ago, Geoffrey Block's Enchanted Evenings opened a door for the serious study of American musical theater. Now, this pioneering and prolific scholar has produced another compelling and meticulous exploration of the musical, bringing unusual empathy and enthusiasm for both stage and screen, and again offering a vivid and inspiring model for future work., Geoffrey Block's A Fine Romance makes meticulous, detailed comparisons between the stage and screen versions of 12 musicals that shaped American popular culture. The film versions of these musicals brought their stories, songs, and dances to more audiences than the theater versions ever could. Rather than assuming the inferiority of the film versions because of their commercialism or broad appeal, Block gives them an open-minded treatment. He notes that the medium of film is different from the stage and reveals the many ways that artists took advantage of this to create film adaptations that merit serious treatment and admiration. In reading the book I gained a deeper appreciation of the versatility of the musical as a genre.

Geoffrey Block is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music History and Humanities at the University of Puget Sound. He is the series editor for Oxford's Broadway Legacies and has published widely on American musical theater and film. His previous titles include Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from “Show Boat” to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber and The Richard Rodgers Reader.