In theatre, music has always played a specific and well-defined role: certainly in vaudeville and revue and all related forms, in operetta and Broadway musical comedy and theatre. But rarely in the rest of the theatrical world; definitely not in its more serious forms. This is not the case at all with film. From the earliest days, music was there, supporting the drama, heightening the comedy, shaping the emotions of the audience as much as the images, action and, after 1927, dialog. So celebrating the role of music and, in particular, of the classic Songbook in Hollywood cannot reasonably be limited to a survey of film musicals, comedies and other parallels of essentially Broadway forms, but needs to include everything Hollywood, and not the least, deadly serious romances, adventures, dramatic properties that classic Broadway wouldn't have dreamed of setting to music. In Hollywood, if there was a way that music could be used to advance the story, hook the audience, or shape its reaction it was done; sometimes clumsily, often brilliantly, usually unobtrusively, almost always effectively, and nearly omnipresently.