Hollywood Composers
While filming the dramatic scene at the end of "Dark Victory" (the part where you know that she's going upstairs to die), Bette Davis stopped and asked the director, "Who's scoring this film? Max Steiner?" The director said he thought so. "Well," Bette declared, "either I am going up those stairs or Max Steiner is going up those stairs, but not the two of us together."
The great actors in Hollywood understood that a good music score was as important a part of each film as their own presence on screen, and that often looked like competition. While Max did go up the stairs with Bette (to the delight of fans everywhere), she wouldn't have seen it all put together until she saw the finished film. She wasn't going through her lines with the music softly playing in the background. From this side of the screen, they were an unstoppable duo. Like a marriage, where the man and woman are good alone but even better together.
When was the last time that you sat through all of the credits at the end of the movie? When we sit down to watch something for the first time, both the opening and end credits receive church-like silence. No one dares to speak before the Roman-numeral copyright date appears. If this system fails, we don't get five minutes into the film before someone asks, "Who wrote the music?"
It matters. Once you've watched through our list of "Movies to Know", you will know what we mean. What would Errol Flynn have been without Korngold? Who would want to sit through all of "Gone with the Wind" without Steiner's music? Or the airport scene at the end of "Casablanca", when Humphrey Bogart tells Ingrid Bergman that they'll "always have Paris"? Just try to imagine "It's A Wonderful Life", when Jimmy Stewart is standing on the bridge, crying to God for help, without Tiomkin's fabulous score. Herbert Marshall's piano music in "The Enchanted Cottage" (okay, well, Roy Webb did give it to him). We won't even try to imagine Gene Tierney without Raksin's "Laura".
Some of the movies on our list are there because of the musical scores. In fact, if it weren't for the incredible music, there are several that we wouldn't even watch more than once. But you need to see them, at least once. Because the music is worth the time. A lot of these original movie scores are now available on CD, too, so have fun hunting through Amazon.com.
And the next time that you watch a movie, don't leave before the credits are over. You'll want to know who wrote the music. While you're at it, why not make note of the Editor who put it all together? It takes a lot of talent to put together a classic film. Learn who does what, and movie-watching will never be the same again.
Hitchcock & His
Composers
Max Steiner
Rebecca (1940, Laurence Olivier)
Alfred Newman
Foreign Correspondent (1940, Joel McCrea)
Franz Waxman
Suspicion (1941, Cary Grant)
Rear Window (1954, Jimmy Stewart)
The Paradine Case (1947, Gregory Peck)
Dimitri Tiomkin
Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Teresa Wright)
Dial M for Murder (1954, Grace Kelly)
Strangers on a Train (1951, Farley Granger)
I Confess (1953, Montgomery Clift)
Miklos Rozsa
Spellbound (1945, Ingrid Bergman)
Roy Webb
Notorious (1946, Cary Grant)
Bernard Herrmann
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, James Stewart)
Vertigo (1958, James Stewart)
North by Northwest (1959, Cary Grant)
Psycho (1960, Anthony Perkins)
The Trouble with Harry (1955, John Forsythe)
The Wrong Man (1956, Henry Fonda)
Marnie (1964, Sean Connery)
Rebecca (1940, Laurence Olivier)
Foreign Correspondent (1940, Joel McCrea)
Suspicion (1941, Cary Grant)
Rear Window (1954, Jimmy Stewart)
The Paradine Case (1947, Gregory Peck)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Teresa Wright)
Dial M for Murder (1954, Grace Kelly)
Strangers on a Train (1951, Farley Granger)
I Confess (1953, Montgomery Clift)
Spellbound (1945, Ingrid Bergman)
Roy Webb
Notorious (1946, Cary Grant)
Bernard Herrmann
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, James Stewart)
Vertigo (1958, James Stewart)
North by Northwest (1959, Cary Grant)
Psycho (1960, Anthony Perkins)
The Trouble with Harry (1955, John Forsythe)
The Wrong Man (1956, Henry Fonda)
Marnie (1964, Sean Connery)
Notorious (1946, Cary Grant)
Bernard Herrmann
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, James Stewart)
Vertigo (1958, James Stewart)
North by Northwest (1959, Cary Grant)
Psycho (1960, Anthony Perkins)
The Trouble with Harry (1955, John Forsythe)
The Wrong Man (1956, Henry Fonda)
Marnie (1964, Sean Connery)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, James Stewart)
Vertigo (1958, James Stewart)
North by Northwest (1959, Cary Grant)
Psycho (1960, Anthony Perkins)
The Trouble with Harry (1955, John Forsythe)
The Wrong Man (1956, Henry Fonda)
Marnie (1964, Sean Connery)