Hollywood's Tennessee

by Palmer, R. Barton; Bray, William Robert

• ISBN13: 9780292719217
• ISBN10: 0292719213
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

No American dramatist has had more plays adapted than Tennessee Williams, and few modern dramatists have witnessed as much controversy during the adaptation process. His Hollywood legacy, captured in such screen adaptations as A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Suddenly, Last Summer, reflects the sea change in American culture in the mid-twentieth century. Placing this body of work within relevant contexts ranging from gender and sexuality to censorship, modernism, art cinema, and the Southern Renaissance, Hollywood's Tennessee draws on rarely examined archival research to recast Williams's significance. Providing not only cultural context, the authors also bring to light the details of the arduous screenwriting process Williams experienced, with special emphasis on the Production Code Administration the powerful censorship office that drew high-profile criticism during the 1950s and Williams's innovative efforts to bend the code. Going well beyond the scripts themselves, Hollywood's Tennessee showcases findings culled from poster and billboard art, pressbooks, and other production and advertising material. The result is a sweeping account of how Williams's adapted plays were crafted, marketed, and received, as well as the lasting implications of this history for commercial filmmakers and their audiences.

Author Biography

R. Barton Palmer is Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University in South Carolina and is editor, with David Boyd, of After Hitchcock: Influence, Imitation, and Intertextuality. William Robert Bray is Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro and is the founding editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Williams, Broadway, and Hollywood	p. 1
The Glass Menagerie: A Different Kind of Woman's Picture	p. 37
Bending the Code I: A Streetcar Named Desire	p. 61
Bending the Code II: The Rose Tattoo	p. 99
Bending the Code III: Baby Doll	p. 123
Tennessee Williams and '50s Family Melodrama	p. 151
The Williams Films and the Southern Renaissance on Screen	p. 201
Tennessee Williams and the End of an Era	p. 241
Filmography with Principal Cast Members	p. 275
Select Small-Screen and Television Productions, with Principal Cast Members	p. 283
Some Notes on Produced and Unproduced Works	p. 287
Key to Collections	p. 293
Notes	p. 295
Bibliography	p. 327
Index	p. 339
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