Sucker

Today, the performance of film music is a staple of symphony concert programming. In 1943, it was an anomaly. That year, Steiner was invited to conduct the New York Philharmonic for a potential audience of twenty thousand at Lewisohn Stadium. But for Max, the concert proved a humiliating disaster, due to the orchestra’s open hostility toward a “Hollywood” composer, and the addition to the program of 27-year-old Frank Sinatra. More teen idol than respected singer at the time, Sinatra inspired Beatles-like screaming from his fans throughout the concert, upstaging Steiner. A series of personal calamities followed: the death of Max’s beloved father, a health crisis of his own, and seemingly insurmountable debt. Again, music was Steiner’s salvation. The 1944 film Since You Went Away—his last collaboration with Selznick—earned Max a third Oscar. But shortly after its release, Steiner was devastated by news that Louise wanted a divorce.

Fighting for Steiner

By 1938, Steiner was showing the strain of nonstop work. At home, the presence of his demanding father put strains on Max’s marriage. And although he scored many of Warner Bros.’ most prestigious releases—Dark Victory and the epic western Dodge City are among the works analyzed here—Steiner balked whenever he felt “demoted” and forced to score “westerns and prison pictures.” In March 1939, David O. Selznick decided that he wanted Steiner to score Gone with the Wind. In a revealing letter included in this chapter, Steiner begged Jack Warner to permit this loan-out, “to regain the prestige” he felt he had lost. In Warner’s reply—also included—the mogul praised Steiner as “the best musical composer in the industry,” while reminding him that “the public” were their “most important judges.” Indeed, many of the films Steiner disparaged are now considered classics.

Exodus

The year 1936 would bring the most significant changes in Steiner’s life since his arrival in Hollywood. He was eager to accept an offer to be musical director at David O. Selznick’s new studio—but RKO refused to let him go. After months of intransigence on both sides, Max got his way. Steiner was thrilled to reteam with a producer who emphasized quality over quantity, with each title under Selznick’s personal supervision. For his part, Selznick knew that while his own movies were being shot, Steiner could be loaned—at considerable mark-up—to other studios. This mutually beneficial arrangement led to the happiest year of Max’s life: an Oscar-nominated score for Selznick’s The Garden of Allah; and, most fatefully from a professional perspective, a loan-out to Warner Bros., for its biggest release of 1936.

Startling, Unusual Sensation

Before leaving RKO in late 1932, David O. Selznick greenlit the studio’s most costly and ambitious production: King Kong. The result was a landmark in Hollywood special effects and storytelling; its influence continues today, in the fantasy/action films that dominate the industry. Just as significantly, Kong inspired a Steiner score that is still cited by many directors, screenwriters, and composers as the work that first made them aware of the power of film music. This chapter aims to provide a definitive account of the score’s creation, from Steiner’s use of lyrical melodies and startling dissonance to humanize and add credibility to the title character; through the challenges of recording music whose orchestral richness tested the limits of 1933 sound technology. King Kong’s box office success, at the height of the Depression, temporarily saved RKO. It also launched Steiner into a new era of creative experimentation.

Falling Star

This chapter dissects the demise of the Hollywood studio system, caused by several factors including the incursion of television. Warner Bros.’ legendary music department became, to quote Steiner, “a ghost town”; Max was among the few composers remaining on staff. Amid constant pressure to economize, Steiner continued to do fine work. He earned Ayn Rand’s praise for his musical depiction of nonconformity in The Fountainhead, created incendiary accompaniment for James Cagney’s valedictory gangster film White Heat; and devised an evocative “glass effect in music” for The Glass Menagerie. “Steiner has written a beautiful score,” Tennessee Williams wrote Jack Warner, “one that blends perfectly with the moods of the play.” Steiner also innovated as musical supervisor of the stereo-surround blockbuster This Is Cinerama, whose panoramic image foreshadowed IMAX. But most of his assignments were cheap, forgettable programmers, and his battles with Louise over Ronald grew increasingly bitter.

Yours, Herman Hupfeld

Amid Casablanca’s many justly celebrated aspects is its soundtrack—the subject of much of this chapter. Surprisingly, Steiner hated the 1931 song “As Time Goes By,” which producer Hal Wallis insisted be featured in the underscoring (Max wanted to pen an original tune for Bogart and Bergman). But Steiner’s consummate professionalism is demonstrated by the ingenious ways he adapted Herman Hupfeld’s melody into one of the movies’ greatest love themes, in a score with many other musical highlights. This chapter also examines the ways in which Steiner’s music became part of Hollywood’s propaganda efforts during World War II, from the controversial, pro-Russia Mission to Moscow (which required the personal approval of Josef Stalin), to the sublime Americana of The Adventures of Mark Twain, one of Steiner’s most underappreciated scores.

Breaking Point

GWTW restored Steiner to the top rank of film composers; and in 1940, Jack Warner assigned him to a series of A-pictures that remain jewels in that studio’s crown. In assessing scores for such movies as The Letter and Sergeant York, this chapter details the instrumental experimentation Steiner used to create fresh sounds (an aspect of his work often neglected). Max also was overjoyed to become a father: son Ronald, he hoped, would continue the Steiner musical dynasty. But years of nonstop work, worsening financial problems, and failing eyesight led the composer to suffer a breakdown in 1941. According to Louise, Steiner—usually a kind and generous man—exploded in a rage, striking his wife with a glass ashtray and hitting her in an apparent mental breakdown. Their subsequent separation initiated years of personal unhappiness, amid one of the most creative periods of Steiner’s life.

The South Is Dead

No Steiner project would be more difficult or emotionally draining than Gone with the Wind. This chapter explores how the composer wrote and/or supervised more than three hours of orchestral music in less than two and a half months (while concurrently writing three other film scores), amid constant and often contradictory direction from Selznick. The producer was more combatant than collaborator: “the whole thing had a nightmare quality,” recalled one participant. Due to a near-impossible deadline, Steiner was forced to have members of his team compose several GWTW music cues. These collaborators always worked under Max’s direction, using Steiner-composed leitmotivs. The chapter uses multiple examples of these cues to draw the distinction between the kind of “ghost writing” by uncredited composers that was common in Hollywood, and GWTW, a case in which Steiner remained the primary creative force behind this, his best-loved score.

Working Night and Day

As musical director of RKO, Steiner oversaw music in all of the studio’s productions. At the same time, he was writing full scores for RKO’s most important releases. Workaholic by nature, Max loved the creative challenges dictated by such future film classics as Of Human Bondage and John Ford’s The Lost Patrol (a failure when previewed, until Steiner’s music added the missing element of tension). But his round-the-clock schedule was pushing the 46-year-old toward collapse. Finally, during the exhausting production of The Gay Divorcee, starring Astaire and Rogers, Steiner snapped, writing a sarcastic memo to RKO president B. B. Kahane. The twist-filled story of Steiner’s firing and rehiring is told here for the first time. Work was not Max’s only source of anxiety: Adolf Hitler was now chancellor of Germany, and Steiner feared for the safety of his parents in nearby Austria.

Where Does the Music Come From?

The dawn of sound film has been mythologized and misreported (for example, The Jazz Singer was not the first movie with sound). This chapter offers an extensively researched look at Hollywood’s approach to sound and music between 1929 and 1931. During this period, most filmmakers were reluctant to include any music in movies, unless it was clearly motivated by an onscreen performance (by a singer, jazz band, etc.). Contrary to this approach, Max Steiner believed that underscoring would not only be accepted by audiences but could improve a film’s emotion and pacing. Using much previously unpublished material, this chapter follows Steiner’s swift rise from RKO staff orchestrator to studio musical director, and his first attempts to include music that was not always tied to onscreen action—including his work on 1931’s Best Picture winner, Cimarron.