... meant that people needed entertaining more than ever. Money was scarce because of the depression, so people did what they could to make their lives happy. Movies were popular, parlour games and board games were also big. People gathered around radios to listen to the baseball and young people danced to the big bands. This time would be a make or brake time for the developing musical. Part of its success rested in its ability to create fantasy realms of song and dance that audiences could escape into and imagine as their own reality. So long as the Hollywood studios could produce these fanciful productions with talented stars, depression audiences continued to pay money to escape from the reality of the world around them. Hollywood during the 1930's developed a complex star system to balance the economic needs of the time. Studios took the role of star-controllers in that they commanded control ...

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