You’d think there be a month that went by that I didn’t think about the Oscars. Alas, I’m just that shallow. Even though an Academy Award is no indication of quality, the Oscars are how I taught myself about the history of film music and I don’t like holes in my Oscar collection. Yet after 35+ years of burdening myself with such a foolish obsession, my collection is still minus too many excellent Oscar scores. I doubt the collection will ever be complete when it comes to nominated scores. There are too many B- and C-films from the early years in which either A) the tracks no longer exist or B) the scores simply don’t deserve any notice whatsoever so why bother obtaining the music.

I still hold out hope that I can at least those Oscar-winning scores that are still missing will eventually be plugged up. There are some major names in the list below and some major scores that are deserving of a release, either in their original form (if they even exist) or in a rerecording. I count a total of 13 scores still in need of a release. So rather than break my “9 on the 9th” rule, I eliminated four for various reasons.

• Michel Legrand’s SUMMER OF ’42 (1971) is basically a monothematic score of that famous tune and probably doesn’t justify a full release, though I’d gladly take it.
• The ballet from Brian Easdale’s THE RED SHOES (1948) has been recorded numerous times, but the only release of the full score is an awful pressing on the Soundtrack Factory label that basically pulls the cues off the video, complete with dialogue and sound effects. Considering that most of the score outside of the ballet concerns source cues and snippets of the ballet music, I doubt we’ll ever see a commercial release of this. Still, it would be nice to have Sir Adrian Boult’s recording of the ballet, the main title, the Heart of Fire sequence and a couple of others unencumbered properly remastered.
• I recently discussed Miklos Rozsa’s excellent score for A DOUBLE LIFE (1947), so I won’t repeat myself so soon after that post.
• And given the ire on the message boards, I doubt many film music fans want a full copy of Gustavo Santaolalla’s BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005). For most fans, the instrumental tracks on the compilation soundtrack are enough. Still, I’d like to see the complete score that was supplied to Academy members released.

BYU’s recent release of Max Steiner’s SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944) checked another winning score off the list. As for the rest of the nine (listed in chronological order), all are worthy scores that are deserving of future release, for history’s sake…if not for my collection.

ANTHONY ADVERSE (1936)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s first Oscar actually was awarded to Warner Bros. music director Louis Silvers, due to some funky Academy ruling at the time. (Because, you know, the composer has nothing to do with the music.) The film was a big hit in 1936 but has yet to be released on any format beyond VHS. Korngold’s score was rerecorded on Varese Sarabande years ago in a lackluster performance with John Scott and the Berlin Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and a couple of tracks were incorporated in the Erich Wolfgang Korngold: The Warner Bros. Years anthology. As to be expected, Korngold’s music is glorious and needs to be heard either in Korngold’s sparkling original performance or hopefully William Stromberg and John Morgan will tackle it on a future Tribute Film Classics rerecording.

ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY (1941)

Bernard Herrmann’s only Oscar came from this adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet’s THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER, the title by which the film is more commonly known today. While perhaps not quite as groundbreaking as CITIZEN KANE (which Herrmann was also nominated for that same year), Herrmann’s ironic twist on Americana is arguably more enjoyable. Herrmann’s suite has been recorded numerous times. (Seek out Herrmann’s performance for the liveliest recording of the suite.) While some of the unique audio techniques from the original score would be difficult (if not impossible or pointless) to replicate on a rerecording, the score deserves to be better known. The folks at Tribute were working on recording the score, but for reasons I can’t remember the project had to be scrapped. Here’s hoping it gets revived in the future.

NOW, VOYAGER (1942)

Max Steiner’s second of three Oscars (which included 1935′s THE INFORMER and 1944′s SINCE YOU WENT AWAY) is the epitome of his melodic, melodramatic style. Bette Davis’s spinster gains self-esteem and exchanges cigarettes with Paul Heinreid thanks in no small part to Steiner’s famous love theme. The DVD contains four cues from the scoring sessions, which whets my whistle to hear the entire score. If it’s ever released, it will be on the BYU label, who now have exclusive access to Steiner’s archive. But the acetates are in rough shape and I’m not even sure an engineering whiz like Ray Faiola could clean them up enough. Perhaps this is another chance for the folks at Tribute to shine.

THE HEIRESS (1949)

Unlike his scores for OF MICE AND MEN and OUR TOWN, Aaron Copland never pulled any music from his Oscar-winner to incorporate in a concert work. He felt the score couldn’t stand on its own. Or perhaps director William Wyler’s tinkering with his main title music had something to do with it. Copland was so incensed by Wyler’s treatment of his music that he tried to get his name removed from the credits. He never even picked up his Oscar statuette. In 1994, Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony recorded a new suite from the film arranged by Arnold Freed, but the suite and the performance leave much to be desired. The original acetates (which includes the original main title) are housed at the University of Texas in Austin. If you can get past the scratches and groove noise, Copland’s distinctive voice shine through. Copland was wrong. The score stands on its own and is ripe for rerecording.

A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)

The original tracks for Franz Waxman’s second Oscar (following his earlier win the year before with SUNSET BOULEVARD) are reputedly lost, though a bootleg of them has floated around for years. Waxman’s lush, romantic music completely envelopes the love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift and numerous excellent performances of various suites from the score exist. Director George Stevens mangled Waxman’s efforts, calling in other composers such as Victor Young to supplement and rewrite certain cues. Like Copland, Waxman wanted his name taken off the credits. The dirt and the dynamics behind the score are fascinating and deserve to be preserved in their entirety.

THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954)

Love him or hate him, Dimitri Tiomkin knows how to crank out a tune, note his soaring, majestic main theme for this John Wayne disaster-in-the-sky flick. The score is a cornucopia of the Tiomkin’s highs and lows—from thickly orchestrated, nail-biting action cues to ridiculous Mickey Mousing—which, if not to everyone’s taste, is oddly endearing. A bootleg of this exists as well, but I’m sure clearances with Wayne’s production company (who I assume own the rights) would be a nightmare. Still, Screen Archives seems to have a good relationship with the Tiomkin estate. (I’m particularly looking forward to the upcoming release of THE FOURPOSTER.) So if anyone gets their hands on it, I bet it’s them.

THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (1967)

Most film music fans see Elmer Bernstein’s Oscar as a consolation prize for not having won for THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or HAWAII, all of them richly deserving but beat out by far more popular “tunes” (Ernest Gold’s EXODUS, Maurice Jarre’s LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and John Barry’s BORN FREE, respectively). But Bernstein’s work on MILLIE is far more than just silent movie pastiche surrounding the musical numbers. Bernstein brings real wit and musical invention to the score. Putting the score on CD would probably require some creative combining of the cues, many of which are short, and I’m sure clearing the rights to the original MCA album would be a bitch. Still, I keep hoping an expanded version with the score and songs comes our way in the future.

LIMELIGHT (1952/1972)

Charlie Chaplin’s tale of a washed-up music hall comedian is arguably his most personal. In 1952, the film only played in New York and was eventually pulled from theaters because of Chaplin’s political problems during the McCarthy era. When the government denied to renew his visa, Chaplin was locked out of the country when he went abroad and the star never returned to the U.S. except to pick up an honorary Oscar in 1972. That year, LIMELIGHT finally opened in Los Angeles, thereby qualifying it for the Oscar. With Nino Rota’s score for THE GODFATHER disqualified due to pre-existing music, voters had no problem awarding the Little Tramp his third and only competitive Oscar. The score is anchored by one of Chaplin’s most famous tunes, “Eternally.” And while the score is fragmented and unabashedly sentimental, it deserves to be preserved for posterity. The DVD of the film contains an isolated score extra that plays the entire score on its own without syncing to the film. A new way to experience the score. As with many of these titles on this list, I’m sure releasing the score would be a rights nightmare. For now, the DVD as close to a CD release as we’re bound to get.

THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR (1988)

Dave Grusin was my choice for the Oscar in 1988 but I didn’t think he stood a chance in hell for Robert Redford’s sophomore directing effort. The haunting, Mexican-flavored score is one of Grusin’s best and only exists commercially in a truncated 5-movement suite on the composer’s 1989 Migration album. While that performance is fine, it misses the delicacy of the film’s original tracks. The score is quite short and would probably need to be paired with something else. Bob Townson at Varese Sarabande seems to have a good relationship with Grusin, so I’d look for it on that label if it ever happens.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. (Othello, Act 3, Scene 3)

Jealousy certainly does make monsters of us all. In A DOUBLE LIFE (1947), Ronald Colman stars as an actor whose latest role as the jealous, murderous Othello begins to take over his psyche, blurring reality. George Cukor’s direction is tight, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin’s script is clever, and Colman gives the performance of a lifetime, winning himself an Oscar in the process. With lines that blur between sanity and madness, Miklós Rózsa‘s greatest challenge was composing two distinct styles that had to blend together as Colman’s character moved further and further into madness.

Cukor suggested using the brass music of Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrielli as the springboard for the onstage Shakespeare scenes. Instead Rózsa wrote quasi-Baroque music in concerto grosso style, first featured in the bustling, muscular main titles.

Click Track: Main Titles

On the other end of the spectrum, Rózsa, who was nearing the end of his film noir period, composed gritty genre music for the paranoid scenes. To help him score these scenes, Rózsa interviewed psychiatrists for information about the sounds of the mentally ill. The pounding, dissonant music perfectly captures Colman’s deepening madness.

In one brilliantly scored scene during the opening night party, the stage music echoes and undulates in Tony’s (Colman) mind as he hears lines from the play repeated over and over in his head. Broken up by background cocktail piano, the music becomes more maniacal. He slaps his hands to his ears to stop the incessant buzzing inside his head, until (through wonderful sound effects) the lounge piano comes back into the foreground and “real life” returns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhhWLHVBezc

There is very little music in the film and what there is is spotted judiciously. Even though the score may not be as well known as some of the composer’s other work, this does not diminish the power and the impact the music has on the film. Rózsa justly deserved his Oscar, even over such fine scores as THE BISHOP’S WIFE (Hugo Friedhofer), FOREVER AMBER (David Raksin), LIFE WITH FATHER (Max Steiner), and especially Alfred Newman’s epic CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE.

Click Track: Suite

In 1948, Rózsa went to work at M-G-M for the next 14 years. Though his tenure at M-G-M gave us classics such as IVANHOE, BEN-HUR, KING OF KINGS and many others, A DOUBLE LIFE once again shows that Rózsa was just as adept at scoring contemporary dramas, before he became weighted down by all the M-G-M pomp and pageantry.

I have very few film music holy grails that I am itching to see released. A DOUBLE LIFE is one of them.

Alfred Newman—my guide, guru and guardian angel, at least when it comes to film music. Why? Three words—the Newman strings. Nearly everything you want to know about Newman’s film music can be found in his treatment of the string section of the orchestra. And no string section ever sounded quite like the one that Newman perfected over his 20-year career at 20th Century Fox.

What made the Newman strings so exceptional? No doubt, it had a great deal to do with Newman’s talent as a composer. But kudos should also be shared by his orchestrators, particularly Edward Powell. But arguably Newman’s greatest effect on the strings came from his position on the podium.

By all accounts, Newman was one of Hollywood’s finest conductors. And his position as head of the Fox music department gave him unprecedented power to shape and mold his studio’s orchestra to his liking. Like the orchestras of rival studios M-G-M and Warner Bros., the Fox orchestra had a unique sound, and the lion’s share of the praise rightfully goes to Newman.

For this month’s “9 on the 9th” post, I wanted to look at the ways in which Newman worked with the strings—whether conducting his own music or that of another composer—and how his use of violins, violas, celli, and basses defined the musical timbre over at Fox. There are many more examples than the nine I’ve listed here, but it’s a good place to start. The scores are listed in alphabetical order.

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s skewering of the stage contains some of cinema’s finest dialog and arguably Bette Davis’ finest hours on film. Because the dialog zings along with one great line after another, Newman stays out of the way for much of the film, choosing instead to focus on those rare moments of the characters’ internal reflection. In the finale of the film, Newman takes Eve’s (Anne Baxter) tender theme from the beginning of the film and supplies it with as much ferocious drive as the character has shown over the last two hours as she tramples over her “friends” on her way to the top. The theme begins with a reminder of Eve’s earlier sweetness and innocence in the violin solo. As the entire violin section takes over the melody, the theme becomes bolder and a bit desperate as another young ingenue arrives on the scene to take Eve’s place.

ANASTASIA (1956)

The fate of Russia’s Romanov dynasty is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century. And the fate of young Anastasia, who supposedly escaped from her family’s fate at the hands of a firing squad, provided even more drama. In this adaptation of Marcelle Maurette’s play, Yul Brynner plays a Russian businessman who tries to pass off a mysterious woman as the Grand Duchess. The film brought Ingrid Bergman back into Hollywood’s good graces (and copped her an Oscar) after she ran off with Roberto Rossellini years earlier. In this haunting cue, “Anastasia” walks the banks of the Seine in despair. The first four notes of Newman’s famous theme are passed between the woodwind solos before the violins take over a full statement of the theme proper. Using one of his trademarks, Newman utilizes the entire string section, with all four instruments handing off sections of the theme and countermelody.

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING (1959)

I first fell in love with Newman’s music hearing the “London Calling” cue on Charles Gerhardt’s Classic Film Scores compilation devoted to the composer. Newman’s beautiful melody quite simply broke my heart, and still does to this day. The film is Hollywood soap at its slickest in this glossy tale of Madison Ave, but Newman’s music blows away the suds to give the film real emotion. Johnny Mathis’ crooning of the title song is equally smooth, but the melody is even more effective as an instrumental piece. Gerhardt’s handling of the cue is stellar, but next to Newman’s prowess on the podium, it’s sounds like syrupy soup. Forgiving the disparities in sound quality, Newman’s version downplays the sugary orchestrations and still captures the Fox sound, even without Edward Powell’s participation as orchestrator. No one, not even Gerhardt, has been able to replicate that unique quality that Newman brought to the conducting of his own music. While other conductors have performed other Golden Age greats like Korngold, Steiner, Waxman, and even Herrmann in some facsimile of their original recordings, Newman has by and large eluded modern conductors. These two examples show us just how important Newman’s position as a conductor was.

DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (1951)

The two sides of the Biblical character of Bathsheba (Susan Hayward)—lover and seductress—are given musical voice in this cue. Minor keys and chromatic intervals slink side by side. Flute, oboe and tambourine seductively ooze their way under King David’s (Gregory Peck) skin, but as his passion takes over, the violins bring a yearning desperation to his love. The cue is an excellent example of Newman’s trademarks weaving of woodwind and string solos with sectional work, each one seamlessly building on the other until the entire orchestra reaches an intense, passionate climax.

THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (1959)

In 1956, playwrights Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett turned Anne Frank’s famous diary into a Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning stage hit, which they later adapted for George Stevens’ 1959 film version. Since Steven wanted to escape the subject’s doom and gloom, Newman’s music “attempted to evoke the memory of a happier past, the hope for a happier future, the longings of oppressed people and the love of family, one for the other, and most of all, the great dignity and courage of the Frank family and their friends in the face of disaster.” Arguably, the most emotional moments occur between Anne (Milly Perkins) and Peter (Richard Beymer) as they explore young love. Knowing what we do about their outcome makes those scenes painfully poignant and Newman’s music wrings every last tear out of us in the process. In the heartbreaking climax, the two young lovers kiss as the strings yearn heavenward to a full-blown statement of “Anne and Peter’s Theme,” and the French horns seem to cry out a gut-wrenching “Peter, Peter” as approaching Nazi sirens cut off all hope of a future together. In moments such as these, Newman extends the original melody into new thematic and harmonic territory, prolonging our pain and empathy into an orchestral cry of frustration and anger at the senselessness of it all. If any film embodies the best of the Newman strings, this is it.

THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965)

The filming of George Stevens’ big-cast telling of the life of Christ was not a happy one. Weather conditions made filming difficult, the film moved from Fox to United Artists, Stevens spent the entire budget before filming even began and it eventually became the most expensive movie ever filmed in the U.S. up to that time. Stevens, who had so famously maligned Franz Waxman’s music on A PLACE IN THE SUN, created even more havoc for Newman and choral supervisor Ken Darby on this film. (Check out Darby’s fascinating memoir of the experience, Hollywood Holyland, for all the inside dirt.) By this time, Newman was no longer at Fox and the sound of the orchestra, particularly in the hands of orchestrators Jack Hayes and Leo Shuken is decidedly different. Arguably more attuned to today’s contemporary ears than some of Newman’s earlier work, the strings perform the passionate main theme in a typically straightforward manner with Newman, by and large, eschewing excess emotion and grandiose religiosity. Instead, the music, no matter how many instruments are performing it, conveys one man’s personal vision of the story—intimate and non-judgmental, as all religious feeling should be.

A MAN CALLED PETER (1955)

Whether biblically based (DAVID AND BATHSHEBA, THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD) or fictional (THE SONG OF BERNADETTE, THE ROBE), Newman scored his share of religious films over the course of his career. PETER is a religious biopic based on the life of preacher Peter Marshall (Richard Todd), who later served as chaplain of the U.S. Senate. Newman weaves in quotes of hymns and other period tunes among the lilting music for Peter’s Scottish upbringing. But it is the love theme for Peter and Catherine (Jean Peters) that embodies Newman at his best. Even when repeating the same thematic patterns, once again alternating between solo and tutti passages, Newman generates forward movement and passionate tension through his sudden modulations and subito pianissimo dynamics.

THE SNAKE PIT (1948)

While I’ve focused primarily on Newman’s more lyrical examples, occasionally the strings were asked to express something more mentally and emotionally challenging. In this raw look at one woman’s (Olivia de Havilland) experiences inside an insane asylum, Newman was called upon to portray the searing effects of electric shock in music. The harmonies are unsettled and the strings dig into their bridges, wailing at the top of their tessiture, while the woodwinds likewise scream in horrifying pain. The sound is mighty unpleasant, as it should be, and incredibly powerful when matched with the visuals. There must’ve been a run on rosen by the end of that recording session.

WILSON (1944)

Darryl Zannuck’s big-budget biopic of the controversial 28th President was a flop at the box office. But the larger budget gave Newman the opportunity to do prodigious research into recreating the period musical aura of Wilson’s (Alexander Knox) political campaigns. The score is chock full of arrangements of period tunes. But amid the expected political posturing of the brass sits an exquisite moment for the Newman strings. As Wilson’s wife (Ruth Nelson) lays on her deathbed, Newman arranges “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” into a heartbreaking elegy for the dying First Lady. In the hands of a master like Newman, even the happiest of tunes take on a whole new character—one of memory, pain and unbearable sadness.

WHAT ARE YOU FAVORITE NEWMAN STRING MOMENTS?

The post-war era saw a rise in religious-themed films that peaked in the 1950s, with Biblical-inspired tales such as DAVID AND BATHSHEBA and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and fictional stories such as THE ROBE and BEN-HUR. However, Warner Bros., which had made its fame on gangster pictures, was not a studio that seemed comfortable exploring questions of faith. And without the star power of a Gregory Peck, Richard Burton or Charlton Heston, FATIMA has never occupied the same ranking in cinema history as some of the bigger budget titles. Still, the film is an interesting introduction to the story (it would make a great musical) and is worthy for Max Steiner‘s rare excursion into religious-themed film music.

Like an earlier “vision” film, THE SONG OF BERNADETTE, FATIMA focuses on the effects of religious phenomena, rather than spectacle. As such, Steiner relies on his years of scoring Warner Bros. melodramas to get to the heart of the characters. The score has just the right touch of piety, awe and wonder without ever feeling oppressive. As with many religious flicks, “awe” becomes “ah” in the use of wordless choir, though thankfully Steiner never overplays the vocal heft.

Click Track: Main Title

Energetic mandolin music (reminiscent of Steiner’s work on the swashbuckling FLAME AND THE ARROW a couple of years earlier) gives color to the Portuguese locale and Gilbert’s skeptical Hugo gets a charming theme of his own. Amid all the polyphonic piety, Steiner gets to flex his musical muscles with some fine action music as the Administrator’s (Frank Silvera) soldiers attack the crowd waiting on the Cova for the appearance of the “Lady”. But the success of the score rests on the dramatic writing for the visions and the solar miracle at the end of the film.

Click Track: The Vision

What keeps the score from being top-drawer Steiner is the overuse of Gounod’s “Ave Maria”. While early film music—and Steiner’s career in particular—liberally borrowed classical and popular tunes to clue audiences in to particular places and emotions, by the early ’50s the practice was becoming a bit careworn. And no matter how cleverly Steiner makes use of Gounod’s famous tune, its familiarity detracts from Steiner’s accomplishment.

Steiner received his 24th Oscar nomination (out of a total of 28) for the score, which highlights the respect commanded by the veteran composer. He was also nominated (along with Ray Heindorf) that same year for his scoring of the musical Danny Thomas remake of THE JAZZ SINGER.

Heathen that I am, I went into my first viewing of FATIMA years ago completely unaware of the story. But I got caught up in the film’s simple telling of a remarkable vision (whether or not you believe its veracity), thanks in no small part to Steiner’s prodigious skill…and, yes, perhaps even Schubert’s famous tune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWM7hlLrk8

He was closer to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg than George Smiley or James Bond. In THE THIEF (1952), Ray Milland stars as Dr. Allan Fields, a nuclear physicist spying for some unnamed foreign country (you can assume Russia). As the Feds close in, he goes on the run, all the while increasingly racked with guilt. The film is an effective film noir with a none-too-subtle propagandist element that is certainly understandable, given the country’s obsession with the McCarthy hearings at the time. Sam Leavitt’s stark black-and-white cinematography and the excellent use of outdoor and indoor locales in Washington, D.C. and New York City contribute to the film’s documentary feel.

What makes this film such a curio is that it is basically a silent movie. There are sound effects and a couple of screams but not one word of dialogue. As such, Herschel Burke Gilbert’s music must convey Fields’ internal dialogue, all the while ratcheting up the film’s tension and drama.

The main titles (reminiscent of DOUBLE INDEMNITY in look and sound) begin with the silhouette of a man walking toward the audience to a dissonant fanfare followed by a low flute theme with very faint strings and timpani keeping time in the background. The French horn takes over in a quasi-dramatic vein, accompanied by pizzicato strings and high violins.

The low flute is effectively used throughout the film to convey Fields’ loneliness, while eight-note runs of staccato sixteenth notes continually signal danger lurking around every corner. A three-note figure expands to a steady fever pitch as Allan searches his apartment for bugs, while Fields’ nightmare sequences weave together the score’s major themes in a dramatic medley. Gilbert uses a fugue for the chase through the back alleys.

Since the film is dependent on the music, it is perhaps not surprising that Gilbert received an Oscar nomination for the score, even though the film did nothing at the box office. (The entire film is available on YouTube through the video below.) But any of the other five potential nominees on Oscar’s shortlist—COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA and MY COUSIN RACHEL (both Franz Waxman), PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE (Miklos Rozsa), THE QUIET MAN (Victor Young), THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO (Bernard Herrmann)—might have been a better choice. He also received Oscar nominations for the title song to THE MOON IS BLUE (1953) and his adaptation of Bizet’s music to CARMEN JONES in 1954.

Gilbert is a relatively little known name, even among Golden Age fans, though fans of television Westerns will be familiar with his music for THE RIFLEMAN. Taken on its own, the score for THE THIEF is effective, if a little obvious at times. But taken in context of the era in which it was written, the fear instilled by the music continues to resonate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdTfv205MM8

Because my quota of clever (such as it is) is already used up for the month, March’s “9 on the 9th” post celebrates, well, marches. (Oy.) Having spent more than my dues in marching bands back in high school, the strict 4/4 march tempo can make me break out in a cold sweat, as do the horrific memories of rehearsing in 100+ degree temperatures in the middle of August on Texas blacktop pavement. (You could literally feel the heat through your sneakers. But I digress…)

You’d think that pretty much everyone would have thrown up their hands in defeat following in the footsteps of John Philip Sousa. Yet film has provided the opportunity for many a composer to lockstep in musical harmony. As usual with these lists, I needed to set some ground rules for myself. Once again I’m forced to keep it to one march per composer or the entire list would have been made up Elmer Bernsteins and John Williamses (not that there’s anything wrong with that, to quote Seinfeld).

Even with those restrictions, this is a mighty hummable group of tunes that is sure to make you twirl your baton. (Interpret that as you will.)

9. VICTORY AT SEA (1952)

It’s not film music, but television, and not a film composer, but a Broadway legend. One of Richard Rodgers‘s rare forays into purely instrumental music was a big hit when this documentary series of naval warfare during World War II aired on NBC. Rodgers contributed short piano compositions of 1-2 minutes in length and Robert Russell Bennett, who orchestrated most of Rodgers’s stage shows, transformed these themes into a proper score, though he only received credit for arranging and conducting. The “Guadalcanal March” is pure Rodgers in its catchy, memorable simplicity, yet its orchestral flair is all Bennett.

8. THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963)

It’s hard for me to take Elmer Bernstein‘s classic march seriously after seeing the classic Simpsons ”Streetcar Named Marge” episode from 1992 in which Maggie tries to rescue her pacifier at the Ayn Rand School for Tots (brilliant name, by the way). Still, Bernstein’s music, whether taken straight or as parody, still works brilliantly—in context of the film and on its own.

7. SILENT MOVIE (1976)

This march simply makes me happy, which is more than I can say for the movie. Mel Brooks’s attempt to make a silent comedy has its occasional funny bits, but the greatest joy comes from John Morris’s music. Few scores put a smile on my face like this one and that sudden modulation at the final statement of the melody (at 2:19) never fails to lift my spirits.

6. EL CID (1961)

This film is one of those lumbering Samuel Bronston epics, with Charlton Heston as the Christian Castilian knight Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar—”El Cid”—who fought the North African Almoravides  in the 11th century and contributed to the unification of Spain. Beautiful to look at but interminably slow, the film is best experienced in terms of Miklós Rózsa‘s colorful music, one of his many masterpieces.

5. THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952)

This Cecil B. DeMille piece of cinematic hokum (and inexplicable Best Picture winner) is still a lot of fun, thanks to Gloria Grahame and a host of campy performances. But it is Victor Young‘s march that bookends the film (in a Betty Hutton vocal version during the finale) and gives the film its rousing oom-pah-pah heart and a sense of childlike innocence.

 4. CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE (1947)

Alfred Newman‘s colorful score combines the robust energy of its Spanish and Mexican locales for the tale of Pedro De Vargas (Tyrone Power), a young Castillian aristocrat who runs afoul of the Inquisition and joins Cortez’s (Cesar Romero) adventures in the New World discovering Aztec treasures. Newman gave his justifiably famous “Conquest” march for the Conquistadors to the USC Trojan Band in 1950, where it has since become their battle cry during football games as well as a staple in pops concerts over the years.

3. THE CAINE MUTINY (1954)

This adaptation of Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel stars Humphrey Bogart at his battiest best as the mentally unhinged Captain Queeg. Giving the film the proper military musical milieu is Max Steiner‘s rousing march, which anchors this Oscar-nominated score in a dramatic tale of intrigue and court-martial.

2. PATTON (1970)

Has any march in the history of film music been so essential to the psychological probing of a character as Jerry Goldsmith’s PATTON? I’d argue that not even John Williams’s “The Imperial March” gets to the soul Darth Vader (or what’s left of it). Those echoing trumpets, memorable piccolo melody, and ponderous lower brass by turns give George C. Scott’s controversial General bravery, humanity and gravitas. Forty-two years later, the theme is timeless.

1. 1941 (1979)

Oh, the many John Williams marches I could have chosen—”The Imperial March,” “The Raiders March,” and on and on… No one will ever be able to convince me that 1941 is anything more than a colossal waste of celluloid, one of the unfunniest movies ever made. But Williams, as usual, rises far above the material, creating one of the most infectious, joyous pieces of music in his career. Those other Williams marches may be far more dramatic. But for sheer musical oomph, nothing beats this crisp martial display. We played this incessantly my final year in high school (and rather badly, I might add). And those descending sixteenth notes at 2:21 (a clever answer to the ascending low strings sixteenths a few seconds earlier) are the one and only time in my life I’ve ever wanted to play trombone.

What are your favorite film music marches?

Forget all the pre-opening manhandling and online vitriol. JOHN CARTER is a thoroughly entertaining, if imperfect, film that should give genre fans plenty to enjoy, whether it’s eye candy leads Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins or the film’s evocative art direction and eye-popping special effects (which probably would have looked less fuzzy in 2D). The script by director Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews and Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) somehow conjures up emotion out of the Red Planet’s dust and alien characters. But Stanton excels in the film’s cracker action sequences with their Pixar sense of dramatic pace. Michael Giacchino‘s score is quite simply breathtaking, a thrilling throwback to heroic film scores of yore.

Giacchino’s heroic main theme is one of his finest, giving the film and the score a musical identity that is sorely missing from recent genre films. Whether mysteriously voiced in the cellos and string tremolos in “A Thern for the Worse” or pumped up to its full brass glory in the rousing Western homage in “Get Carter,” the theme conveys the many facets of Carter’s personality, from disillusioned Civil War vet to confused alien and unlikely hero.

Giacchino gets great mileage out of al parts of the theme, including deconstructing the three-note motif at the beginning of the melody for an aural calling card. In “Gravity of the Situation,” the theme becomes airborne in a Straussian waltz (Richard, not Johann) of buoyant musical wit as Carter gets his Mars legs.

The heir apparent to John Williams once again channels his legendary predecessor in tracks like “Sab Than Pursues the Princess.” As the winged ships battle it out in the sky, percussion battle it out in the recording studio with a churning lower-string ostinato and furious sixteenth-note figures in the violins, woodwinds and xylophone. As John Carter leaps into the air to catch the princess, the musical action suspends in mid-air to a thrilling, heroic rendition of the main theme before returning to its intricate orchestral furor.

Click Track: Sab Than Pursues the Princess

Fans of Giacchino’s action music will find much to appreciate with thrilling set pieces like the nail-biting wedding sequence “The Prize Is Barsoom” (introducing a bold new choral and brass theme in the film’s third act), the rousing “Fight for Helium,” and the surprising epilogue, “Ten Bitter Years.” In “Carter They Come, Carter They Fal,” Stanton weaves together another alien battle with Carter’s memories of his wife on Earth. As the sound effects are dialed down, Giacchino’s strings and wordless chorus take center stage in a gut-wrenching and heartbreaking threnody of pain, loneliness and loss.

Click Track: Carter They Come, Carter They Fal

Whether on metal or drums, Giacchino’s use of percussion in tracks such as “The Second Biggest Apes I’ve Seen” and “The Right of Challenge” gives the score a primal, tribal force that is alien yet familiar. Though apparently even the Tharks have heard of “moaning woman” over 55 million miles away, thankfully Giacchino doesn’t overplay his hand with this overused trend in contemporary scoring.

As enjoyable as Giacchino’s score is on disc, it deserves to be heard in context of the film—booming out of huge multiplex speakers and supplying that vicarious thrill that only great film music can. Stanton allows Giacchino generous visual and dramatic space for his music and the composer delivers. When it all wraps up in a spine-tingling, heroic major chord over the final title card, I defy you not to stick around for the end credits, if only to experience the glory of this fantastic score in a nine-minute suite (the final track on the album) that I’m sure will be featured on film music concerts for years to come. JOHN CARTER is the first great film score of 2012.

I have three friends, whose opinions I respect, who urged me to watch the show over and over again. As my brain cells disintegrate with age and my TV attention span shrinks further and further away from the 21-minute sitcom limit, the thought of devoting hours to what I saw as a stuffy, glorified UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS just didn’t appeal to me. I’m an idiot. Ten minutes into the first episode of Season One of this superb series, I was hooked. Now that I’m a confirmed ABBEY novitiate—monastic and devoted, prostrating myself at the foot of Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess—I’m detoxing until the arrival of Season Three in 2013. Until then, the soundtrack of John Lunn‘s excellent score will hold me over.

Lunn’s music bypasses the expected period throwback to pre-war styles. Instead, the music has a contemporary yet timeless feel to it, if there is such a thing. Because of the episodic nature and length of the series, the album cannot play like a traditional soundtrack from beginning to end. Still, all the musical highlights, primarily from Season One, are here.

The album begins with a tight 7-minute suite of many of the themes, setting the tone for the rest of the album. The main theme, which begins every episode, is highlighted by a straightforward quarter-note melody in the piano and violins soaring over seesawing lower-string triplets, setting the stage for the drama to unfold.

Click Track: Telegram

“Love and the Hunter” sets the music in a muscular three-quarter time for Lady Mary’s brash attempts to find a husband, while the sobbing strings and oboe in “An Ideal Marriage” ironically wed her to her fate. The soaring strings of “Such Good Luck” give voice to her repressed feelings for Cousin Matthew. In “Emancipation,” Lady Sybil’s furtive machinations to help housemaid Gwen find a job as a secretary are embodied by pizzicato strings underscoring a plaintive English horn solo.

The standout theme in the score is the yearning string cue, “Story of My Life,” which underscores the unspoken love between valet Mr. Bates and head housemaid Anna. The melody and harmonies are stepwise in their movements and the cue, which rarely varies throughout the series, is simple in its structure. But it is this simplicity that gives the cue its heartbreaking power.

Click Track: Story of My Life

Lunn deconstructs the main theme throughout the score, utilizing simple three-, four- and five-note motifs to create unity and give the character of Downton an overriding presence, even when the action takes place elsewhere. Piano plays a large role in the score, subtly giving the music an emotional connection not only to the characters but to the character of Downton itself. Though much of the harmonies are dark (though not heavy), cues such as the lilting waltz of “Us and Them” and “A Drive” lighten the proceedings.

The album is rounded out by two period vocal songs—”If You Were the Only Girl in the World” and “Roses of Picardy”—that may seem out of place among the instrumentals. But these are entirely appropriate (and even sung in the show) as examples of the type of salon music performed in homes such as Downton in the days prior to the advent of radio. The album closes with a vocal rendition—”Did I Make the Most of Loving You”—of the score’s main theme.

Since Season Two features a richly textured musical landscape that builds on Season One, I hope there are plans for a Season Two CD in the works. In the meantime, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of Shirley MacLaine to lock verbal horns with Maggie Smith in Season Three. For those who have not fallen under the spell of DOWNTON, the soundtrack album may seem nothing more than some lovely film music. For the rest of us, it is an aural reminder of beloved characters that touched our hearts.

As always, with so many great scores to choose from, narrowing down a list to nine is a typically foolish task. Some composers specialized in Westerns, so to make this list more equally balanced, I only allowed one score per composer. Otherwise, I could have populated the entire list with scores by Elmer Bernstein and Dimitri Tiomkin. So strap on some spurs and saddle up for a wild ride across the rich, fertile ground of Western film music.

9. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)

By all rights, Kevin Costner’s directorial debut should have been a colossal flop. But if you can forgive the actor’s anachronistic mullet and Mary McDonnell’s inexplicable lack of personal hygiene, you will get lost in a truly moving story, beautiful cinematography and a stellar John Barry score. The music is occasionally a tad too lethargic and elegiac, and we’ve heard these rhythms and chord progressions in nearly every late-period Barry score. But Barry’s long-flowing melodies were made for the endless vista of the American plains.

8. HIGH NOON (1952)

Cinema’s answer to the McCarthy hearings set in the American West. Not a frame or word is wasted, all the while Dimitri Tiomkin endlessly recycles and dissects his theme song “Do Not Forsake Me (Oh My Darlin’)” to great effect in the underscore. When once asked how a real-life Slav could convey the American West so well in such classics as RED RIVER, GIANT, etc., Tiomkin replied, “Because a steppe is a steppe!” ‘Nuff said.

7. THE COWBOYS (1972)

The John Williams of today would probably take a different musical approach to a traditional Western such as this. But back in the early ’70s, with Westerns tanking at the box office, the Maestro combined the expected Western harmonies and rhythms with a little period instrumentation and some trademark sweeping Williams-isms to make a sound all his own. The main title is a staple on film music pops concerts and makes for a rip-roaring opener, closer or encore.

6. CHEYENNE AUTUMN (1964)

John Ford’s cinematic apology for his treatment of Native Americans in his earlier films doesn’t always succeed, as a film or an apology. But no one made Westerns like Ford and his firm, sure hand with the genre is evident once again in this film. Ford moved away from the traditional sounds of Max Steiner and Alfred Newman and let Alex North‘s biting harmonic language speak for itself. The music is as harsh as the story it accompanies, but there is a spare, simple dignity that underscores the long, humiliating trek of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-79.

5. THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES (1976)

Only a star of Clint Eastwood’s stature would dare to make a Western at a time when cinema was focused on more gritty urban dramas. But Eastwood’s star power took the film to number one at the box office for two weeks in the weeks surrounding the country’s Bicentennial. Jerry Fielding‘s score mixes his own spare harmonic language with military musical quotes and Civil War-era tunes as Josey Wales, a peaceful Missouri farmer, seeks revenge for the brutal murder of his wife and son by a band of pro-Union Jayhawkers.

4. HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1963)

The American West was made for Cinerama and no film in that clunky photographic process was a bigger hit than HOW THE WEST WAS WON. The film follows four generations of a family as they move ever westward, from western New York state to the Pacific Ocean, between 1839 and 1889. Alfred Newman‘s rousing main title is one of the alltime great film music themes. Newman mixes typical underscoring with period vocal selections (arranged with the help of trusted collaborator Ken Darby) for a patchwork of musical Americana that is as awe-inspiring as some of the stunning visual set pieces throughout the film.

3. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960)

This remake of Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI may be missing that film’s visual poetry, but is certainly entertaining in its own right, thanks in no small part of Elmer Bernstein‘s classic score. With one of the most famous themes in film music, fans of a certain age will remember the melody as the backdrop for Marlboro cigarette ads. But Bernstein’s score bristles with energy, rhythm and vitality that extends far beyond that famous theme. A pure classic from top to bottom.

2. SILVERADO (1985)

If the ’70s saw the dying of the Western, the ’80s were a veritable ghost town. Director Lawrence Kasdan failed to resuscitate the genre, but the film is a witty, tongue-in-cheek homage to the great Westerns of the past, and so is Bruce Broughton‘s fantastic score. Employing every tried and true trick in the book, Broughton creates a Western score that combines musical genre traditions with his own skill as a composer and orchestrator, all the while never once feeling like pastiche.

1. THE BIG COUNTRY (1958)

When it comes to Western film scores, there’s THE BIG COUNTRY and then there’s everything else. Jerome Moross‘ quintessential musical take on the American West is, like many others on this list, so much more than its classic main theme. The muscular score is never shy about stating its intentions, on its own or in the film, and the music bristles with energy and vitality, constant melodic invention and sly wit. One of the alltime great film scores…in any genre.

What are your favorite Western scores?

On his fourth score, Herrmann began his lengthy tenure at 20th Century Fox. And as a self-professed Anglophile, Herrmann’s love for the works of the Brontë sisters shows in his lush, passionate music. The score is full of his signature minor-key harmonic structure and dark orchestrations, especially in the bass clarinets, contrabassoons and muted low brass.

The “Prelude” begins with the yearning love theme, a conflicted melody that twists and turns upon itself, with surprising harmonic choices. The oboe at the end of the track gives plaintive voice to Jane’s simple wishes and innocent inner passions.

Click Track: Prelude

Using the first four notes of the love theme, Rochester’s (Orson Welles) theme is every bit as dark and mysterious as the character. The theme announces itself in rousing fashion as Rochester appears on horseback, while the theme catches up with the character’s past as a mysterious presence sets fire to his room.

Click Track: Rochester’s Past/The Fire

But not everything in the score is doom and gloom. Tracks like “Jane’s Departure” from her indenture at the home of her aunt, and “Dreaming” and “Springtime” sparkle with bustling energy and major-key happiness. But moments like these are quick little flickers of candlelight in the dark, illuminating Jane’s basic, unwavering faith in herself.

Herrmann was the perfect choice to score the film. His dark sonorities capture the shadows lurking in Thornfield Hall and swirling in the mist of the moors. Fans of Herrmann’s opera of Wuthering Heights will recognize Jane’s love theme as the foundation for Cathy’s Act III aria, “Oh, I am burning.”

I never heard the original release on the Marco Polo label, so I can’t address the disparaging comments I’ve read about its sound quality. If there were issues, they have been rectified on the Naxos reissue. The sound is full-bodied and lush, as befitting the music, and Adriano’s conducting of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra brings the score to vibrant life, capturing Herrmann’s intentions without remaining a slave to the tempi and dynamics of the original soundtrack.

If you want Herrmann’s own interpretation, you’ll need Varese Sarabande’s out-of-print Bernard Herrmann at 20th Century Fox box. For those who didn’t purchase that set, and even for those who did, the Naxos reissue makes a worthy, enjoyable alternative. JANE EYRE represents the romantic side of Herrmann—haunted, conflicted, and thoroughly mesmerizing.