‘Use The Songs to Sell Your SHOW!’ Sam Goldwyn, The Eddie Cantor Musicals and the development of product-centred marketability

Abstract

This article advances understanding of Hollywood's relationship to advertising and commerce by demonstrating that deeply embedded product placement is an older practice than current scholarship recognises. Focusing on a series of musical comedies, produced by Samuel Goldwyn and released through United Artists in the early 1930s, it argues that the development of product-centred marketing was shaped "Use the SONGS to sell your SHOW!": Sam Goldwyn, the Eddie Cantor musicals and the development of product-centred marketability