This chapter concludes the volume with a study of Hollywood’s commercial approach to making musicals. Focusing on the 1936 movie adaptation of Anything Goes, the chapter looks at its production environment, one in which interpolations were common, song sales mattered more than wit, and risqué content was frowned upon, a combination that proved deadly for Porter’s score. Although some of Porter’s songs were retained, the studio’s music department head Nathaniel Finston assigned Leo Robin, Richard Whiting, and several others to write some new numbers for the film. In the context of a Hollywood in which studios capitalized on purchasing publishing companies and then copyrighting new songs by (usually, staff) Hollywood songwriters to in-house publishing firms, it is unsurprising for the chapter to conclude that faithful film adaptations are unlikely. Hollywood was devoted to commercial music while Broadway was divorced from it; and fidelity to Broadway’s canonized songwriters ran contrary to the commercial goals of Hollywood’s tunesmiths. Such tensions run throughout this book and help to explain the culture behind the unsettling but fascinating phenomenon of the stage-to-screen musical adaptation.
Using Groups to Change the Department Head Role: An organization development case
