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55 SUMMER 2015 / CINEMONTAGE CUT/PRINT Adaptations in the Sound Era: 1927-37 by Deborah Cartmell Bloomsbury Publishing Paperback, 166 pages, $28.45 ISBN # 978-1-6235-6878-8 by Betsy A. McLane T he technical, artistic and economic tumult that roiled through Hollywood with the coming of sound sometimes led to wildly unusual experiments and partnerships. The widespread adoption of literary works and stage plays was one product of the beginning of the talkies. In Adaptations in the Sound Era 1927-37, Deborah Cartmell presents this phenomenon through innovative research and a non- judgmental eye, producing a book that is both scholarly and accessible to the general reader. Her exploration relies on not only the films and their sources — popular criticism from the era, box office figures and later reassessments — but also and primarily on analysis of original press kits, which in those days were better known as press books. This ballyhooing and purple-prosed primary evidence supports her ideas and her writing gives an authentic, occasionally amusing voice to a relatively lost period of film study. As they brought in sound technologies and the experts who knew how to use them, the studios demanded visible (or audible) results from their investments, and audiences were, at least initially, captivated by Hollywood's latest novelty. This meant words; and where better to find words than in the non- copyrighted writing of English literature's classics? Such sources abounded and Cartmell categorizes her study of them into chapters on William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Gothic (Horror), Biopics and Films for Children, with an emphasis on the differences between pre- and post-Hays Code — the set of industry moral guidelines established by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) that was applied to most US films released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. Literary adaptations were nothing new for the movies. Some of the very first experiments in filmmaking involved Shakespeare, and approximately 200 film versions of his plays had been made by 1914, mainly in Britain, France and the US. Silent film of course allowed Shakespeare's hallowed English to be translated into intertitles of any language, but with sound, film could at last capture the poetry's magic — at least theoretically. One of the era's big unknowns was whether silent movie stars would be able to retain their box office power once given voices. Immortalized, if over-simplified in Singin' in the Rain (1952), and more recently serving as the storyline for The Artist (2011), this very real problem was tackled head-on with Shakespeare by no less than Hollywood's reigning couple: Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. They were paired in Taming of the Shrew (1929), directed by Sam Taylor, which was Hollywood's first sound Shakespeare adaption. The case study of this Shrew is representative of Cartmell's meticulous approach. She notes, "This film marks an important point in the history of screen adaptation and in Shakespeare and screen studies." Although released in both silent and sound versions, it was touted in publicity materials as "the first to bring Shakespeare to the screen," apparently wiping out any trace of the entire silent Shakespearean oeuvre. It was actually not even the first attempt at a Shakespeare talkie. The earliest is a 1900 French version of Hamlet, starring Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet, often cited as one of the first examples of sound and moving image synchronization created with the Phono-Cinema-Theatre system. While the Shrew press materials take great pains to point out that Shakespeare's original words are now available to the masses ("not one bit of the glorious Shakespearean dialogue has been sacrificed"), an even greater selling point is the debut screen pairing of real-life wife and husband Pickford and Fairbanks. Behind the scenes, their marriage was almost over, but, as Cartmell observes, the fan magazines were mad for "real-life" Hollywood romance, and so the film's tagline declares, "The big three — Mary, Doug, and Bill," the last being the Bard himself. The film was a box office flop and Pickford, somewhat embarrassed by her own performance, soon retired from acting to run United Artists. Shrew's failure stopped Hollywood's attempts to sell Shakespeare until 1935, when Warner Bros. risked Max Reinhardt's opulent version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, co-directed with his former pupil William Dieterle. Even with James Cagney in "The Look Who's Talking When Movies Opened Their Mouths classics? Such sources abounded and Cartmell categorizes her meticulous approach. She notes, "This film marks an important point in the history of screen adaptation and in Shakespeare and screen studies." Although released in both silent and sound versions, it was touted in publicity materials as "the first to bring Shakespeare to the screen," apparently wiping out any trace of the entire silent Shakespearean oeuvre. It was actually not even the first attempt at a Shakespeare talkie. The earliest is a 1900 French version of Bernhardt as Hamlet, often cited as one of the first examples of sound and moving image synchronization created with the Phono-Cinema-Theatre system. take great pains to point out that Shakespeare's original words are now available to the masses ("not one bit of the glorious Shakespearean dialogue has been sacrificed"), an even greater selling point is the debut screen pairing of real-life wife and husband Pickford and Fairbanks. Behind the scenes, their marriage was almost over, but, CONTINUED ON PAGE 59