When I was just a young, burgeoning movie music fan during the 80's and 90's, delving into the scores from the earlier era known as the Golden Age of Hollywood seemed daunting. For one, my focus then was on what was current, especially since all my favorite composers were still engaged in numerous projects. Every year I could look forward to hearing new music from John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Alan Silvestri, Danny Elfman and others, so my soundtrack coffers were full, so to speak. Also, looking back through decades of movie history, hundreds of titles, I didn't know where to begin. And sadly, due to my own unfamiliarity with classics from that era and the folly of arrogant youth, I already assumed that I wouldn't connect with any of it. Objectively I understood that gilded age as the foundation for what I loved in film scores, but there was no subjective insight, no personal link. This changed when I was introduced to 1957's THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jimmy Stewart and featuring music by Franz Waxman.
My dad led the introductions between me and this movie. I don't recall my exact age then, but I remember living in the house in Rocky Mount, which meant I was in high school. With a myriad of towns and homes dotting the landscape of my life, it's starting to look a little blurry from this distance. Anyway, he'd recorded it on our reliable Betamax machine, from a local channel airing, with all attempts made to cut out commercials during the broadcast using our wired(!) remote with one single pause button. I wish I could remember if he said there was any particular reason to show me the movie. Before this, he had shared PATTON and THE BLUE MAX so that I could hear great examples of what Jerry Goldsmith composed prior to STAR TREK in 1979. Upon watching THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS, I understood exactly why he loved this movie, same as THE BLUE MAX - it was all about flying.
Of course, there is more to the story than that element. It essays the historic achievement of Charles Lindbergh's non-stop transatlantic flight from Long Island to Paris, in 1927, piloting a small single-engine plane called
The Spirit of St. Louis. I was surprised to learn later that the movie wasn't a box office hit, mostly due to how production costs had ballooned as a result of the complicated flying sequences, far exceeding what they could gross in theaters. I found it a riveting film. James Stewart confidently, effortlessly owns every frame, same as always. And directly from the opening bars, the music by Waxman courageously soars, with a gorgeous and noble melody that persistently climbs and powerful brass chords announcing success. The theme elevates every sequence it underscores, whether it's the first test flight of
The Spirit or Lindbergh's elated sighting of Ireland after many tedious hours crossing the Atlantic. It's a melody that seems to embody the daring and persistence of Lindbergh, but not in an aggressive fashion, while also echoing the untethered sensation of flight. I hoped that there was a soundtrack available on record.
Eventually, following a measure of patience and effort, I stumbled across a copy of the soundtrack album. I can't recall exactly which brick & mortar store, unfortunately. For sure it was at least ten years later, probably once I moved to Chicago and checked out the downtown Tower Records. I wasn't likely to find such a older, out of print niche title in a North Carolina record store - sorry, North Carolina, but the truth hurts. So, this album held the distinction of being the first "golden age" era film score in my collection and Franz Waxman emerged as my gateway composer into Hollywood's movie music of yore. Listening to the THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS apart from the movie allowed me to better appreciate its expansive orchestral textures. Approaching it from the vantage point of what I'd been exposed to musically thus far, I felt it had a kindred spirit in Jerry Goldsmith's THE BLUE MAX, both themes charting an exhilarating acoustic flight path. Waxman's ST. LOUIS could be heard as the possible precedent for BLUE MAX, which followed along only nine years later, in 1966. This is a topic I wished I could have hashed out with my dad, to be able to A/B the two themes, to play the soundtrack albums back to back on a long road trip... I'm still interested in hearing his thoughts and opinions on stuff I like.
In delving further into that bygone era, I discovered many wonderful musical treasures, or at least discoveries that were new to me but well-known territory to soundtrack fans who preceded me. Of course I developed into a fan during the years when the sonic palette for movies was expanding, when synthesizers bolstered the orchestra and when challenging, avant garde techniques from the classical concert world had been integrated. This was my milieu, colored with the asymmetrical rhythms of Alex North, unexpected percussion from Jerry Goldsmith and unearthly electronic sounds by Christopher Young. I initially doubted whether I would connect with music that seemed conservative by comparison.
But in recent years, I've enjoyed a multitude of scores by Waxman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, Hugo Friedhofer and more, often thanks to many newly released, contemporary recordings of the music being performed by stellar orchestras and soloists. This is the bedrock for the art form. There is a straightforward quality to it, like listening to rock and roll from its embryonic days, along with an unselfconscious nature as well. This was before there was a definable "film music" sound, although usually Max Steiner's KING KONG (1933) is credited as being ground zero for the template. And prior to Korngold's bright fanfares, no one knew what a Robin Hood or pirate film score should sound like. There didn't yet exist cliches to avoid or homages that were required, other than hewing close to a post-Romantic classical idiom. Movie music following this era, from the 1960's onward, either consciously shifted in an opposite direction (contemporary pop or classical styles) or referenced back to it (for nostalgia or a conscious homage).
 |
| Franz Waxman |
Of course, there is a greater degree of theatricality to the Golden Age scores, more than what modern audiences are accustomed. The greater the sense of realism that today's movies achieve, the less they need evocative music to help elucidate a point, in fact they seem to avoid it (unfortunately). But in the early days of the industry, the best artists and craftspeople had often honed their talents beforehand in live theater or on the concert stage. This included the composers hired. Newman, Steiner, Waxman, Korngold and their peers brilliantly applied their sonic skills to movies in a similar fashion to how they would write for Broadway or a symphonic tone poem. As artists they seemed to treat movies no differently than the concert stage, it was just another forum for their music. I think this is why there is a specific exuberance to scores from this era that is difficult to match. They traded the proscenium stage for projected images on a screen. What they wrote was allowed to actually be realized as fully-formed pieces of music. The constant among the various forums was the rapt audience awaiting entertainment.
So, as the real-life aircraft,
The Spirit of St. Louis, was the sturdy vehicle that transported Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic Ocean, THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS as both movie and score, helped me journey into the landscape of Hollywood's past. Lindbergh's odyssey essentially carried him from the New World, that of New York, back to the Old World, that of Paris, France. If I keep this metaphor flying, I could equate a parallel that the music Franz Waxman composed for THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS ferried me from the "New World" of what had been my modern movie music at the time (the 80's and 90's) back into the "Old World" of classic Hollywood cinema. It was new ground for me. But now I could explore its established, "classical" musical avenues and enjoy alongside the "neo-classical" and post-modern avenues on my current film score shores.
