MUSIC BY MAX STEINER

MUSIC BY MAX STEINER: The Epic Life of Hollywood's Most Influential Composer. Steven C. Smith. Oxford University Press; 2020. 

Gone with the Wind, Now Voyager, King Kong, Of Human Bondage, Charge of the Light Brigade, White Heat, The Fountainhead, Johnny Belinda, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Mildred Pierce, Since You Went Away, Casablanca, The Letter, Dark Victory, Jezebel, Angels with Dirty Faces, A Star is Born (1937) -- this barely scratches the list of the 241 scores composed by the great Austrian-born Max Steiner. This excellent, well-researched, and very thorough biography examines Steiner's family and early life in Vienna, his early years working on Broadway, the first pictures that he began scoring, up to his triumphs on such as Gone With the Wind (for which he did not win an Oscar and should have) and scores that did win Academy Awards, such as Since You Went Away, Now, Voyager and The Informer. Steiner clearly understood the importance of underscoring to bring out the emotional sub-text in motion pictures, a style that was later implemented by many other composers in Hollywood. At first, some people thought it was strange to hear, say, a symphonic orchestra in the middle of the desert, but eventually audiences came to appreciate the music blaring from the speakers while the actors did their thing onscreen. Music By Max Steiner looks at his various, often troubled, marriages, his problems with the studios and producers such as Selznick, his gambling and profligate spending which left him deeply in debt until, lo and behold, he actually composed a hit song with his theme from A Summer Place. The book also looks at the sad, tragic and all-too-brief life of his handsome only son, Ronald, who committed suicide at 21 (and was possibly gay). Steiner's music has complemented many great movies and enriched movies that even Steiner wished he hadn't had to work on, but although he occasionally wrote a less-than-compelling score, that didn't happen very often. My favorite Steiner theme: the sensitive and lovely waltz that signifies the relationship between Olivia de Havilland and George Brent in In This Our Life. (Author Smith doesn't comment on this, but with so very many movies to choose from it's inevitable that some of your favorites will be overlooked.) The book gets rather technical at times but that shouldn't blunt your enjoyment even if you're not a musicologist. 

Verdict: Excellent biography of a gifted composer whose life and work richly deserves to be re-examined. ****.                                                                                                                                                                                                         

A HEART AT FIRE'S CENTER

A HEART AT FIRE'S CENTER: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann. Steven C. Smith. University of California Press. 2002.

Even when I was a child, the music of Bernard Herrmann that I heard during such films as Mysterious Island, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Psycho and Vertigo reverberated in my memory. This is a superb, highly-recommended biography of the late, great film and concert/opera composer that is scrupulously researched and highly detailed while always remaining immensely readable. Herrmann, who was actually of Russian descent and not German, is depicted as an essentially decent, very talented composer who became increasingly irrational and bitter as he got older; a difficult person to deal with even if his emotional heart was sound. Smith looks at his early life and compositions; his work on Citizen Kane with Welles; his association with Alfred Hitchcock, which led to some of his greatest scores and an unfortunate break-up; his three somewhat volatile marriages; and his increasing disenchantment as he attempted to get his beautiful opera Wuthering Heights mounted in a venue he felt worthy of it. Smith examines Herrmann's musicianship and style as well as his “comeback” of sorts with Brian de Palma's Sisters and other thrillers, leading to his work on his final score for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Herrmann may not always have been an easy man to take, but he had convictions and he stuck to them, no matter whose feathers got ruffled. A fascinating book of a fascinating figure. Herrmann always felt that film music should work with and bolster the visuals and never call attention to itself; ironically, Herrmann's music riveted the attention because of its sheer excellence.

Verdict: Great Biography. ****