Tuesday, December 6th | 4 Movies
Whether or not we’re fully conscious of it as we watch a movie, music is an indelible part of our cinematic experience. With TCM’s presentation of the award-winning documentary Max Steiner: Maestro of Movie Music (2021), we’re treated to an in-depth look at a film pioneer who, more than anyone else, shaped the art of scoring for motion pictures. Along with two screenings of the film, the evening’s program also includes three of his most enduring works.
Austrian-born Max Steiner (1888-1971) was a prolific and tireless artist who worked on more than 300 film scores in his long career, an innovator who introduced the notion that an original non-diegetic score (as opposed to music internal to the context of the film) could be an essential element of a film, conveying and adding to the narrative. His most universally recognizable work is “Tara’s Theme” from Gone with the Wind (1939), but the music he wrote, orchestrated and conducted throughout his career underscores our film viewing across four decades, a remarkable range that includes period pieces (Little Women, 1933), film noir (The Big Sleep, 1946), war pictures (Battle Cry, 1955) and romances (Rome Adventure, 1962).
The documentary provides excellent background on the history of film music, dipping back into the silent era to detail how live performances were integral to motion picture presentations. The filmmakers follow Steiner’s progress through this era, from conductor at his father’s Viennese theme park and London’s vaudeville houses to music publishing copyist and theater orchestrator in New York. After a stint as music director in some of the city’s grandest movie houses, where full orchestras accompanied silent screenings, Steiner achieved his greatest success in the 1920s as a conductor for top Broadway musical comedies, working with such composers as Gershwin, Kern, Romberg and others. All of it proved to be essential training for his future in Hollywood.
With the advent of sound, motion picture studios mined the theater for artists to contribute to the changing medium. With his background, Steiner was the perfect recruit. At the age of 41, he was “discovered” by movie mogul William LeBaron and signed to a contract as orchestrator at RKO for their musical pictures and, not long after, as head of the studio’s music department. From this position, Steiner began to urge reluctant producers to use music as background to dramatic scenes rather than simply performed by on-screen players.
“It took a couple of years…for people to realize that actually music could play an important role in heightening the drama or providing a sense of emotion to a story,” film music historian John Burlingame says in the documentary. “And it was Max Steiner, more than anyone else, who pioneered that idea in the early 1930s.”
A man who once said he never ran out of tunes, Steiner soon added composing to his studio duties, writing a score, uncredited, for key scenes in the Oscar-winning epic Cimarron (1931). He was quickly sought for dozens of more scoring tasks. When David O. Selznick took over as RKO’s head of production, Steiner found a worthy ally, one who also saw the great potential for entire film-length scores. In one of their earliest collaborations, Symphony of Six Million (1932), the composer innovated the technique of taking a simple piano theme played by a child early in the story and integrating it into the soundtrack throughout the film, a motif that illuminated the inner life of the protagonist.
With his growing reputation and Selznick’s enthusiastic backing, the stage was now set for his greatest triumph and most acclaimed use of music to that point. King Kong (1933), the grandaddy of all killer ape movies, is still generally considered the best of the Kong franchise created by producer-director Merian C. Cooper at RKO. The movie is justly famous for its advanced (for the time) stop-motion animation and special effects, exciting set pieces, surprisingly tender emotions and, of course, Fay Wray’s scream. But the real landmark set by the production may well be Max Steiner’s score, which forever changed how film music was created, employed and regarded.
“Listen to RKO’s King Kong sometime: listen to it,” Ethan Mordden wrote in “The Hollywood Studios.” “Steiner’s sweep and terror should be counted among Kong’s special effects.”
The documentary examines Steiner’s original score and scribbled comments to look at how he matched his musical themes and motifs with shots and sequences in the finished film, a new practice in his day that has become standard for the craft. It reveals how he kept the music entirely in the service of the drama, capturing the thoughts and feelings of the characters, even the giant gorilla himself.
“It’s Steiner’s score that gives Kong his soul,” Burlingame says. “He becomes sympathetic as a result of the music.”
The industry took notice of his achievement and began planning full scores for all releases. Studios clamored for his services. He found the most appreciation for his talents at Warner Bros., where he signed on as staff composer in 1937. His sound became synonymous with that studio, and he would do some of his best work there over the next 30 years.
Call it a soap opera if you must. Dismiss it as a mere “woman’s picture” at your own peril. But Now, Voyager (1942) is one of the most entertaining and expressive melodramas of the decade, thanks to witty and memorable dialogue (“Let’s not ask for the moon, we have the stars.”), effective costume design (for more on fashion’s key role in this film, read this TCM article) and one of Bette Davis’ best performances (her seventh Academy Award nomination). She shows her full range, with notable restraint, as a repressed woman who transforms her miserable life through travel, romance, a sense of purpose and a gorgeous makeover – with a little help from psychiatry.
Much credit must also go to Max Steiner’s score, putting the “melo” in the “drama” and shaping the film’s lush romanticism. He was Davis’s favorite composer, scoring 20 of her pictures, most of them her finest work during her peak years at Warner’s, including Jezebel (1938), Dark Victory (1939), The Old Maid (1939) and The Letter (1940). His work on Now, Voyager earned him his second Academy Award. He would use the main theme from this picture again in his score for Mildred Pierce (1945).
Following that picture, he went to work on Casablanca (1942), still considered one of the greatest films of Hollywood’s classic period. The movie’s love theme, “As Time Goes By,” was a 1931 song the studio owned and insisted on using. Steiner didn’t write it; in fact, he found it “the lousiest tune you can imagine” and complained that it hampered his ability to create a leitmotif for the central romantic relationship. As it turned out, he found ways to use the melody in many colors and instrumentations to underline not just the romance but the tension and excitement of the story.
In 1946, with Steiner in great demand not only at his home studio but at others willing to pay a premium for his work, Warner Bros. musical director Leo Forbstein sent a memo to studio executives urging them to sign him to a new contract, justifying a salary increase by suggesting he could “sneak in an extra picture or two for Steiner to do during each year” rather than hiring someone else. It was a sign of both the value the studio placed on him and Steiner’s tireless work schedule and willingness to take on all challenges. Steiner’s contract with Warner Bros. expired in 1953, although he would continue to work with the studio on various projects until 1965.
Max Steiner: Maestro of Movie Music airs twice on December 6. It is well worth checking out, along with the three examples of his work, to learn all about an artist who has earned a vital place in film history by forever changing how Hollywood films were conceived, produced, seen – and heard.
