Hip Hooray and Ballyhoo
Several companies producing musical films, such as Paramount, RKO, and Warner Bros., were hit by the Great Depression, although not driven to bankruptcy, and their response to this was to cut back on the production of musicals. Instead, Warner Bros. produced films that reflected the Great Depression, such as Public Enemy and Little Caesar, which are gangster films. Darryl F. Zanuck, second-in-command to the studio head of Warner Bros., knew that they needed a tough story to revive the backstager musical. Zanuck assigned a team of screenwriters to adapt Rope's novel, which is a story that involved a homosexual love affair between a director and a leading man. To provide songs to such particular numbers, Zanuck brought Harry Warren and Al Dubin in as their new songwriting team. They were assigned to Hollywood to write new songs for a film version of the Broadway musical Spring is Here.
Keywords: musical films, Great Depression, production, backstager musical, Hollywood, Broadway musical, gangster films, songs
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