Max Steiner
We have been studying the work of Robert Emmett Dolan, one of the many gifted musicians who worked on Broadway and then left Broadway for Hollywood. However, one of the first to make the switch and the man considered by some to be the “father of film music” was a music director, conductor and orchestrator at T.B. Harms in New York named Max Steiner. While at T.B. Harms, he worked with other orchestrators, such as Robert Russell Bennett, Hans Spialek, Stephen Jones, Maurice De Packh, Edward Powell, Conrad Salinger, Alfred Newman, and David Raksin. While his work in New York was first class, he showed no evidence of being a composer of note during his years on Broadway.
Max Steiner (1888-1971), was born in Austria, studied at the Imperial Academy of Music and took private lessons from Robert Fuchs and Gustav Mahler. His colleague and friend, David Raksin, outlined Max’s years of study and work in Austria: “After completing the Academy’s eight-year curriculum-in one year, Max was awarded their gold medal. He was then 15 years old. Within a year he had written the book, lyrics and music of a musical comedy, ‘The Beautiful Greek Girl,’ which ran for another year, with Max conducting the orchestra.”
He worked in London, was forced to depart to New York during WWI and found work on Broadway as a music director and orchestrator at T.B. Harms.
In 1929, Steiner moved to Hollywood and signed with RKO, where he started his career as a composer. As a footnote to the change in career from orchestrator on Broadway to composer in Hollywood, we should point out that it is possible that Steiner was more of a symphonic composer and would thus feel more at home composing for a movie. His first major effort was in 1933, when he wrote the complete score for the movie, King Kong, which contains the great line, “It was beauty killed the beast.” Raksin recalls how the score might never have been written, because RKO in 1933 had laid off most of the music staff and directed Steiner to use existing music tracks. According to Raksin, Steiner reacted to his boss: “Old music tracks!” he cried, “For God’s sake, Ben, what am I gonna use-music from LITTLE WOMEN?”
Again, Raksin recalls: “Into the breach stepped an extraordinary personage named Merian C. Cooper-adventurer, explorer, news correspondent, combat pilot, visionary, co-producer-and KING KONG was his baby. Cooper said the magic words, which I quote: ‘Maxie, go ahead and score the picture … and don’t worry about the cost, because I will pay for the orchestra.’ And so he did, to the tune of fifty thousand dollars-an enormous sum to expend on music then; and to hear him tell it, it was worth every dime. The music meant everything to that picture, and the picture meant everything to RKO, because it saved the Studio from bankruptcy.
Steiner later left RKO to go to Warner Brothers. Between his work at RKO and WB, he wrote music for over 300 films. He was loaned out once, when David O. Selznick asked that Steiner create the score for Gone with the Wind (1939). Rumor has it that Selznick wanted to use classical music and that Steiner decided to write original music on his own (imagine if “Tara’s Theme” had never been written).
Steiner was nominated for 24 Academy Awards and won his first Oscar for The Informer (1935; Best Score) and subsequently won Oscars for Now, Voyager (1942) and Since You Went Away (1944). In addition, he was adept at creating music for westerns, such as Dodge City (1939) and The Searchers(1956); however, he was just as comfortable writing for films like The Big Sleep (1946) and The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948).
Our exploration of the two Irving Berlin movies, Holiday Inn and Blue Skies, brought us into contact with two great performers, Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. We have looked at some of Bing’s work; now we will focus on Fred. Fred and his sister, Adele, started their careers on Broadway as a brother and sister dancing team. Their first show was Over the Top in 1917, with Frank Tours as music director. Their first opportunity to work with Jerome Kern came in 1922, with The Bunch and Judy, a show that brought them into contact with Victor Baravalle, a major music director on Broadway (who would perform those duties for another Kern show in 1927, Show Boat). Baravalle would be music director for three movie musicals in the 1930’s–Show Boat (1936), A Damsel in Distress (1937) and Carefree (1938).
Two years later, in 1924, Fred and Adele would star in George and Ira Gershwin’s musical, Lady, Be Good! We have already heard music from that show in some of our earlier posts. What interests us now is the fact that the orchestrators on that show included Robert Russell Bennett, Stephen Jones and Max Steiner. Fred and Adele followed with a Kern show in 1925, Sunny, and then a second Gershwin show, Funny Face in 1927. Fred and Adele starred in two more shows (a Vincent Youmans failure in 1930, Smiles, and a Schwartz and Dietz hit in 1931, called The Band Wagon). We know what you are thinking; yes, Fred would go on to make movies of The Bank Wagon in 1953 and Funny Face in 1957.
But first things, first, because we need to look at Fred’s career in chronological order. Fred needed a partner in 1932 and found one in Claire Luce, when they were cast in Cole Porter’s The Gay Divorce. Fred kept treating Claire with great respect, until she reminded him that he was no longer dancing with his sister. Fred got the message and put some romance into the routines, especially the number that made The Gay Divorce into hit–“Night and Day.”
Fred got his break in movies, when he was teamed up with Ginger Rogers in the Vincent Youmans hit, Flying Down to Rio in 1933. We have the three important songs for you in the following clips. The first clip contains the beautiful love song, “Orchids in the Moonlight.”
The next clip features Fred’s vocal accompaniment to the title song, “Flying Down to Rio,” with the chorus girls posed on the wings of the planes. The visual effects are excellent, considering the movie was made on a low budget in 1933.
Finally, we have Fred and Ginger’s first dance routine. It may not seem like much, given the better choreography in their later movies; however, audiences loved it, and RKO obliged by producing more Fred and Ginger musicals.