Jerome Kern: the Hollywood years 1934 thru 1945

Description of Activity

Jerome Kern started writing songs and incidental music for Broadway and West End productions before the First World War. By the late 1920s his many successes had been crowned by the innovative ‘book’ musical, Show Boat (1927), and it was not long after that he was invited to work in Hollywood. But composing for the screen is different to working for the stage. For Jerome Kern - used as he was to being at the centre of the development, rehearsal, try-outs, revisions etc of any project - just being commissioned to provide a fixed number of songs, after which the production team took over, was always going to be a compromise. Nevertheless, despite this, Kern produced an amazing array of songs in the 1930s and 1940s for the screen, quite the equal of his stage work.
In this online talk, I will remind and perhaps introduce you to Kern’s screen output, some of it less known than his stage work. Youtube clips of Astaire & Rogers, Irene Dunne, Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Deanna Durbin, Van Johnson, Jeanne Crain and Linda Darnell will illustrate the talk.

Period	26 Jan 2022
Held at	JW3, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	National