The relationship between the American theater and Hollywood goes back much further than the muchballyhooed talent raids made on the stage with the advent of the talkies. Since the mid-1910s, the American theater—particularly Broadway plays and (later) musicals—has been a significant source of story material, writers, directors, producers, and actors for the movies.
Originally, during the years of the nickelodeons, the legitimate theater and the movie industry had little in common. Plays had rather complex plots and were geared toward an educated, affluent audience. Movies that were no longer than two reels in length were limited in their storytelling ability and appealed to the poorer masses who couldn’t afford the price of admission to a play. This division between the theater and the movies was changed forever when ADOLPH ZUKOR bought the rights to show the French production of the filmed play Queen Elizabeth (1912), starring the renowned Sarah Bernhardt. He premiered the movie in Broadway’s Lyceum Theater and made a fortune. His movie company, Famous Players, with the motto “Famous Players in Famous Plays,” began the successful Hollywood onslaught into the domain of the legitimate theater.
Feature-length motion pictures that told intricate stories competed directly with the theater. Their lower admission price was a considerable advantage. Theater road shows were severely affected by the new competition as large, new movie theaters (as opposed to nickelodeons) and ornate movie palaces were built across the country. Robert McLaughlin reports in his book Broadway and Hollywood that in 1912 there were 205 road-show companies on tour in the United States. By 1918, that number had dropped to 41, and by the mid- 1930s, the figure fell to an average of 20 road shows, a number that has remained relatively constant up to the present.
Producing plays without a guarantee of significant roadshow income made the financing of plays a good deal more difficult. Enter the motion picture companies, which realized that Broadway was no longer their competition but a relatively inexpensive proving ground for future film stories and talent. During the 1910s and 1920s, a great many hit plays were purchased and filmed with reasonably good box-office results, and stage stars such as the Barrymore clan were lured to the coast in great abundance. To be on the inside track of new plays and new stars, film studios had representatives at opening-night performances of virtually every major (and most minor) Broadway plays. By the early 1920s, many studios began to put up their own money to produce plays in New York, thereby obtaining the film rights for much less than they might have to spend in an open bidding war with other studios.
Then came the talkies. The demand for directors who understood the power of the spoken word led to the hiring of a great many Broadway directors such as GEORGE CUKOR and ROUBEN MAMOULIAN. Legitimate stage actors were hired in huge numbers. Actors such as PAUL MUNI, EDWARD G. ROBINSON, HUMPHREY BOGART, MELVYN DOUGLAS, LESLIE HOWARD, and KATHARINE HEPBURN represent just a few of the countless performers who were discovered on the stage. Upward of 25 percent of the plays produced during the 1930s were bought by the movie studios. Making a film based on a hit Broadway play improved the status of motion picture companies, and it also ensured a certain measure of commercial success.
While many powerful and controversial plays were watered down in their film adaptations, especially during the 1930s and 1940s, the challenge of television in the 1950s made movie moguls rethink their relationship to the theater. The film industry slowly began to realize that the controversial elements in stage plays might be just what was needed to draw audiences away from the pap on TV. Suddenly, there were filmed adaptations of surprisingly sophisticated and controversial plays such as A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), The Member of the Wedding (1953), and The Country Girl (1954). At the same time, movie companies also attempted to outmaneuver TV by making big-budget musicals. Many of these, such as Oklahoma! (1955), South Pacific (1958), and West Side Story (1961), were based on hit Broadway musicals. Movies based on Broadway plays and musicals continued to comprise a significant portion of Hollywood’s output during the 1960s and early 1970s, with productions such as The Sound of Music (1965), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Fiddler on the Roof (1967), and a prodigious number of Neil Simon comedies.
The rights to big Broadway musicals were expensive, and the cost of producing the films was high. Though Funny Girl (1968) and Cabaret (1972) were both critical and box-office hits, a series of major flops such as Finian’s Rainbow (1968), Sweet Charity (1969), Hello, Dolly! (1969), On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), and Man of La Mancha (1972) cooled Hollywood’s ardor for Broadway musicals.
But even as Broadway temporarily lost some of its appeal to Hollywood, Off-Broadway provided not only fresh, innovative story ideas but also a fresh crop of writers and movie stars. For instance, the Off-Broadway movement brought Beth Henley’s play Crimes of the Heart to the screen in 1986, gave playwright John Patrick Shanley the opportunity to write Moonstruck (1987) (and win a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his efforts), and provided the stepping stone for David Mamet to script the celebrated The Untouchables (1987) and write/direct the successful House of Cards (1987) and Things Change (1988).
Among recent actors to achieve Hollywood stardom after their Off-Broadway successes are WILLIAM HURT, Christopher Reeve, AL PACINO, Jeff Daniels, and Sam Shepard, who is also an acclaimed playwright.
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