A Fine Romance: Hollywood/Broadway (The Magic. The Mahem. The Musicals.) [Hardcover]

Darcie Denkert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2005

•Every fan of musicals will want this book

•Sparkling text, glowing photographs, innovative design

•Royalties from the sale of this book are being donated to The Motion Picture & Television Fund, Hollywood’s charity of choice, and The Actors’ Fund Broadway’s favorite charity.

For everyone who loves movie musicals, for everyone who loves Broadway musicals, this entertaining illuminating book provides insights on exactly what happens when stage meets screen. Do sparks fly—or do they fizzle? Are there fireworks—or waterworks? Each show, each movie, has its own history, its own juicy stories, its own dark side, its own ironic twists. Spectacular photographs—many published here for the first time—let theater buffs and movie lovers alike witness these intricate, intriguing sagas. Why was Gypsy a smash on stage and not nearly as successful on screen? Why did it take twenty-seven years for Chicago to travel from Broadway to Hollywood? All the answers, all the pictures, all the razzle dazzle that is show business make the marriage of movies and stage musicals truly A Fine Romance.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

From the time she was a little girl growing up in New York City, Darcie Denkert has been enamored with the musicals of Broadway and Hollywood. Although by her own admission she couldn't sing or dance a lick, her love of the theater and the magic of the movies refused to release their grip on her imagination. It was this passion that drove Denkert to become a prominent entertainment attorney, first as a New York theater and movie lawyer, then as the top legal and business affairs executive for the entertainment divisions of MGM, and its subsidiary United Artists, in Hollywood. She ultimately became president of the studio's Entertainment Business Group and MGM ON STAGE-a division she was instrumental in creating as a vehicle to adapt films from MGM's stunning motion-picture library to live stages on Broadway, in London's West End, and around the world. A Fine Romance, Denkert's first book, has been a three-year labor of love for her, reflecting her joy in and fascination with the history and artistry of Hollywood and the lore and lullabies of Broadway.

She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the well-known entertainment attorney Allen Susman, and their adopted Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Sunshine.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Billboard Books (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823077748
• ISBN-13: 978-0823077748
• Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 10.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,220,436 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving a Musical to the Big Screen, September 23, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Fine Romance: Hollywood/Broadway (The Magic. The Mahem. The Musicals.) (Hardcover)

Being an observer of plays and movies with a particular interest in musicals I've long been puzzled by the difficulty there seems to be with moving a musical from Broadway to Hollywood. Why does a smash hit like Gypsy, sometimes called 'The best damn musical ever,' basically flop on screen?

Darcie Denkert is an expert on both Broadway and Hollywood. In this book she has carefully researched a series of the most famous musicals that were made into movies. Sometimes, like with Gypsy, the play simply doesn't translate into the big screen. The scene at the train station, for instance when Rose is shifting her attentions to Louise after June left in the play works well. The train station doesn't look like a train station, it looks like a set. The orchestra is visible, the song works. In the movie, at a real train station, you don't just burst into song. And the stars, great movie stars, just didn't fit.

This is the kind of information that only an insider with a foot into each camp could get and then put into a book. Referring to Gypsy again, the author also tells us how the stories got written, who did what, how did the music get written, what did they do in the screenplay to adapt it?

The book covers 6 big plays: My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Gypsy, The Sound of Music, Cabaret, and Chicago, and 8 smaller ones. This format gives all the space that is needed to completely tell the story. Gypsy, for instance gets 38 pages, and they're big pages. To we outsiders, not plugged into either Broadway or Hollywood, this is an absolutely fascinatin book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars dancing queen, March 24, 2007

By 

Darryl K. Clark "pywakkit" (springfield, missouri) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Fine Romance: Hollywood/Broadway (The Magic, The Mayhem, The Musicals) (Hardcover)

darcie denkert has done a fabulous job talking about the great shows of broadway and their translation to the screen. i love this book--the illustrations are insightful and the text is very well thought out. it should be a great addition to any college course on musicals.

it is also a great thing to see a woman's voice come through on this subject that is dominated my many great writers such as ethan morrden and mark steyn.

go, darcie!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous and Fun, Fun, Fun, October 15, 2006

By 

David Cady (NYC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Fine Romance: Hollywood/Broadway (The Magic. The Mahem. The Musicals.) (Hardcover)

I couldn't agree more with the other two reviews. This is a marvelous book that any musical and/or movie musical fan will devour. And the design, layout and pics are all sensational. If only "A Chorus Line" had been included, the book would be perfect. (Maybe Denkert was precluded from writing about it for some reason.) In any event, this is a reader-friendly (not to mean dumb) coffee table book that won't break your wrists or the bank.