Abstract
During the mid-1920s, Warners recruited Broadway’s biggest stars, including John Barrymore and Al Jolson. Barrymore was at the height of his acting career when he starred in Warners’ 1924 photoplay of Clyde Fitch’s Beau Brummel. This play, written for Richard Mansfield in 1890, was radically revised to accommodate Barrymore’s distinctive star image and acting style, enabling him to showcase his versatility by using classicism, naturalism and expressionism. It was Mansfield’s Don Juan, however, that became Barrymore’s box-office hit in 1926, partly due to its synchronized soundtrack of music and sound effects. Of course, Jolson’s movies proved even more profitable, notably The Jazz Singer (1927) and The Singing Fool (1928), as did many Broadway-themed talkies, such as Tenderloin (1928) and Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929).
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Shingler, M. (2018). The Best of Broadway at Warner Bros., 1924–1929. In: When Warners Brought Broadway to Hollywood, 1923-1939. Palgrave Studies in Screen Industries and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40658-3_4
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