Modernizing Melodrama: The Petrified Forest on American Stage and Screen (1935–1936)
- Submitting institution
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University of Sunderland
- Unit of assessment
- 34 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
- Output identifier
- 9244
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Melodrama Unbound
- Publisher
- Columbia University Press
- ISBN
- 9780231180665
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- March
- Year of publication
- 2018
- URL
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https://cup.columbia.edu/book/melodrama-unbound/9780231180672
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- Building on his previous scholarship on Bette Davis, Martin Shingler’s book offers a different take on the early history of Warner Bros., the studio renowned for introducing talking pictures and developing the gangster film and backstage musical comedy. The focus here is on the studio’s sustained commitment to produce films based on stage plays. This led to the creation of a stock company of talented actors, to the introduction of sound cinema, to the recruitment of leading Broadway stars such as John Barrymore and George Arliss and to films as diverse as The Gold Diggers (1923), The Marriage Circle (1924), Beau Brummel (1924), Disraeli (1929), Lilly Turner (1933), The Petrified Forest (1936) and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Even the most crippling effects of the Depression in 1933 did not prevent Warners’ production of films based on stage plays, many being transformed into star vehicles for the likes of Ruth Chatterton, Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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