Classical Hollywood Film Cycles by Wallin Zoe;

Author:Wallin, Zoe;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2019-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Hollywood Canteen and the All-Star Format

The defining feature of the cycle and the element consistently raised in the discussions of the films was their all-star format. The inclusion of multiple stars in the films worked to support their rhetorical purpose, emphasizing the extent of the entertainment sector’s contributions. The development of all-star pictures was specifically identified as a forthcoming cycle in early 1943. Motion Picture Herald argued that, having lain dormant since early 1930s features such as Grand Hotel (MGM, 1932), the trend for multi-star pictures had now resurfaced. The episodic comedy Tales of Manhattan (Fox, 1942) had recently been released, soon to be followed by Universal’s historical cavalcade Forever and a Day (Universal, 1943). Other films listed included Thank Your Lucky Stars, Star Spangled Rhythm, Stage Door Canteen, and occult anthology thriller Flesh and Fantasy (Universal, 1943).83 The use of multiple stars for a single film was a practice that was primarily commercially motivated, used to generate publicity and increase the films’ box office draw. A further layer of realism was added in the wartime musicals by having the stars play themselves, at times reenacting their own off-screen wartime activities. The monetization of these charitable activities was supposedly balanced through filmic tie-ins to war bond drives and donations to war organization that sought to verify and extend the patriotic premise of the pictures.

The promotion of the films in the cycle was clearly centered on the many stars the pictures contained. Each of the film posters listed upward of a dozen actors, featured bands, and song titles by name. Stars and musical notes were common motifs across the posters, as were the colors of yellow and red, white and blue. These repeated design elements, which identify the films as belonging to a common cycle, signify the stars as a key component alongside the entertainment promised by the musical genre and a patriotic tone. Besides the occasional glimpse of a uniform, the only poster that referenced the war background directly was that of Four Jills in a Jeep, where the exaggerated cartoon style emphasizes a comic treatment of the situation rather than a serious war drama.84

A picture’s particular use of the multi-star format also became a means to measure its quality and value. Again, the rating of the all-star cast’s entertainment value varied between the different levels of reception. The trade press assumed that the combined star power guaranteed a box office draw that would outshine the narrative failings of the films, while subsequent-run and independent exhibitors reported the disappointment of their customers at the films’ failure to fulfill entertainment expectations. Stage Door Canteen was seen to have most successfully utilized the multiple stars as part of its setting. Bosley Crowther described in a New York Times review how he usually found all-star films depressing, ‘not only because the samples thus distributed are generally short on quality but because the obvious purpose of such pictures is just to knock the audience over with big names … In our book that’s called cheap showmanship’.

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