Research Catalog

Chicago : with the Chicago tribune articles that inspired it / by Maurine Watkins ; edited, and with and introduction by Thomas H. Pauly.

Title: Chicago : with the Chicago tribune articles that inspired it / by Maurine Watkins ; edited, and with and introduction by Thomas H. Pauly.
Author: Watkins, Maurine
Publication: Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, c1997.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	PS3545.A828 C5 1997	Off-site

Additional Authors

Pauly, Thomas H.

Description

xxxii, 158 p. : ill.; 22 cm.

Summary

"This one's got the makin's: wine, woman, jazz, a lover," says Jake Callahan, a reporter in Maurine Watkins's Chicago, a Broadway smash hit in 1927. Jake, speaking of his great fortune at finding the story of "the most beautiful murderess," precisely characterizes Watkins's satirical take on murder and its aftermath - a view she formed while covering two similar and equally sensational murder trials for the Chicago Tribune. Watkins opens this comedy with a brutal dramatization of the same situation the women in her articles faced: a vengeful Roxie has slain her lover for mistreating her. And then the fun begins. A boring, run-of-the-mill murderess until her frank confession creates an opportunity for profit, Roxie begins a transformation to rival that of Pygmalion's statue.
She is the perfect answer for Jake, who has been "prayin' for a nice, juicy murder." Rosie's attorney, too, seeks to profit from her plight. "Go out for sympathy through the press," advises Billy Flynn, who circulates a press release - supposedly written by his client - fabricating Roxie's journey "from convent to jail." Flynn also encourages Roxie to cooperate with Jake's competitor, Mary Sunshine, whose sentimental reports upstage Roxie's crime in the same way that Watkins's humorous articles did for the murderesses she was covering.

Subjects

Genre/Form

Note

Reprint of the play Chicago, originally published in 1927, with the author's newspaper articles of the criminal trials that inspired it.

Bibliography (note)

Processing Action (note)

Contents

Introduction -- Cast list from the original production of Chicago -- Chicago -- Watkin's Chicago Tribune articles.

ISBN

0809321297 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^97010047^

OCLC

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library