Abstract

In the early 1920s, publishers and film producers increasingly coordinated the release and marketing of books, releasing film adaptations within a few months or even simultaneously with the publication of popular novels. Photoplay editions that featured images from a film adaptation also proliferated. These new collaborative production and marketing practices allowed for considerable cross-marketing in bookstores and movie theatres. In the process they also led to the creation of intermedial meaning between versions of the same story. Film producers took advantage of the greater latitude afforded to books when it came to controversial material. They alluded to the most controversial story elements from novels in their marketing campaigns even when they were not able to depict such scenes due to censorship concerns. Publishers and booksellers, in turn, capitalized on the growing visibility of the motion picture to sell both initial and subsequent editions of novels. This was nowhere more evident than in the profusion of books and films that centered on the behavior of modern youth when it came to such behaviors as sexuality, marriage, birth control, partying and the consumption of alcohol. This paper examines the publication and marketing practices for several popular novels that were rapidly adapted as motion pictures, including The Beautiful and Damned (1921), Manslaughter, (1922) and Flaming Youth (1923). It considers how they used new patterns of publication and marketing not only to enhance their sales, but also to create intermedial meanings that exceeded the boundaries of texts as they existed in either medium.

Presenters

Sara Ross
Director of Film Graduate Program/Associate Professor in the School of Communication, Media and the Arts, Media and Performing Arts, Sacred Heart University, Connecticut, United States

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

2024 Special Focus—Traveling Concepts: Publishing Systems and the Transfer and Translation of Ideas

KEYWORDS

Marketing, Film Adaptations, Intermediality, Flappers

Digital Media

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