Sound on Film

1888
Edison and Muybridge meet in West Orange, New Jersey to discuss uniting Muybridge's zooprxiscope with the phonograph goal : "to combine, and reproduce simultaneously, in the presence of an audience, visible actions and audible words" - problems - phonograph couldn't project to audience, projector was limited to a few dozen stills.

1889
On his return from the commercial launch of the cylinder player, Edison was greeted by a new invention by his assistant, WKL Dickson, the Kineto-phonograph, a lantern machine attached to a phonograph - the picture was of Dickson saying "Good morning, Mr. Edison, glad to see you back. I hope you are satisfied with the kineto-phonograph".

1890
Before any motion picture apparatus had been perfected at his labs, Edison predicts that moving pictures and the phonograph would provide home entertainment for families of wealth

1890
In notes for a book of science fiction, to be co-written by George Parsons Lathrop, son-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edison wrote of a time when "well-to-do owners of phonographs would also have visual reproductions of operas and stage productions to accompany their recordings. The phonograph publishing houses would employ their own companies of stars to make 'kinetographic phonograms" for family use.

1891-2
Edison labs develop perforated film strip to be used for "peep show" vending machines that would show a one minute short film. Popular from 1893-96.

April 1894
First public demonstration of Edison's kinetoscope given in New York City.

1895
1st musical accompaniment - a piano accompaniment in France at an early exhibition by the Lumière Brothers.

Lumiere family experiments with traveling show where pitchmen would recite a dramatic narration and usually sing to accompany the story told by the pictures, also had invite-only shows in Paris accompanied by pianist.

1896
Large-screen motion picture projection introduced; introduction of motion picture projectors that find their way into vaudeville houses like Koster and Bial's in NYC, where Edison introduced his Vitascope projector. Managers note a doubling of receipts, and an initial influx of a more "select" crowd.

Many early movie houses use musical accompaniment to drown out the noise created by the film projector and to keep people from making a ruckus while in a dark room watching a silent movie. The music often had nothing to do with onscreen action - most often a combination of marches, anthems, patriotic tunes, opera, popular and symphonic music.

The first public performance of a sound film given in Berlin. Oskar Messter presented movie film synched with Berliner discs. Performers unknown, probably the filmplay was actors miming to the recording. Later scenes from an operetta (unnamed) filmed by Giampetro and Fritzi Massary, synched sound recording was probably on a cylinder.

1900
Vaudeville performers go on strike to protest agent fees being taken by managers. The managers fill programs with motion pictures. The strike is broken and film becomes a regular part of performances.

The first operatic sound film, excerpts of works by Verdi and Gounod sung by Victor Maurel and Cossira, shown at the Paris Expo. The first talkies are also shown- Sarah Bernhardt in a scene from Hamlet and other piece by French authors, as well as ballet films featuring Rosita Mauri and Zambelli using synch record technique.

c. 1900
Vaudeville houses would sometimes accompany a short 10-min film with music between live shows to clear the house between performances.

early 1900s
Theater owners hire organists to improvise accompaniment to silents; larger theaters hire orchestras.

1906
The first sound-on-film machine patented by Eugene Lauste of London. The camera did not successfully record sound until 1910 and did not prove itself reliable till around 1913 - but then the need or interest seemed to vanish in the bustle surrounding WWI.

Storefront theaters, called nickelodeons (named for the price), proliferate in working class neighborhoods. By 1908 over 600 in NYC

1907
The first original piece of film music composed, by Camille Saint-Saëns for the Film d'Art Company's "L'assassinat du Duc de Guise."

1909
Edison Company begins issuing "Suggestions For Music" sheets.

1912
Music played durring films begins an era of standardization. "Cue sheets" developed which categorized music by various moods -- love, hate, passion, frenzy, comedy, chase, sinister, furioso, cartoon, weird, agitato, sad, happy, mysterious, etc. For example, the villain usually entered to the "misterioso theme", usually "The Slimy Viper".

Ernst Luz (1878 - 1937) develops "Motion Picture Synchrony", a selection system for film music based on color. As the musical director of the Loews chain of theaters, Luz oversees an army of 1600+ musicians and 50 organists. His elaborate system assigns colors to the theaters' collection of sheet music, while schematics of each new film are created, suggesting with corresponding colors, what music to play.

1913
Sam Fox publishes Moving Picture Music Volumes by J.S. Zamecnik and flourished as a silent-film-music storehouse. Some of the most popular titles: "Regatta Races" "Hearts and Flowers" and "Exhibition".

1918
Early examples of composers hired to create a score for a specific film--Charles Wakefield Cadman, "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" and Arthur Honegger, "Napoleon."

1919
Guseppe Becci's Kinobibliothek is published - a collection of arrangements of works of the 'masters' that could be used for films.

Some examples of popular songs appropriated for use in films: "Asleep in the Deep" - ship sinking; "Fate Theme" from Carmen; "Bridal Chorus" from Lohengrin for marriages; Beethoven's moonlight Sonata; William Tell overture for rainstorms and later for westerns; "Ride of the Valkyries" for high drama, esp. in Grifffith's "Birth of a Nation" to accompany KKK on horseback.

1920s
With growth of film industry, single piano players in bigger theaters were replaced by orchestras with sound effects men.

1921
The first full-length feature talkie, "Dream Street," originally made as a silent, is released with sound later added to two sections using synch disc.

1922
Optical sound-on-film introduced.

The first sound-on-film movie, a monologue by Ellery Paine - "Gettysburg Address," is shown in a private demonstration by Prof. Joseph Tykocinski-Tykociner at Illinois U.

The first public sound-on-film demonstration, given at the Alhambra Kino, Berlin using the Tri-Ergon method.

1923
Mortimer Wilson¹s score for the "Thief of Bagdad," with Douglas Fairbanks is groundbreaking in its style and composition and one of the first to be scored specifically for a film.

At the Rialto Theater, NYC, the main feature was "Bella Donna" with Pola Negri. It was supported by the first demonstration before a paying audience of sound-on-film movies, a series of brief musical shorts made by the Phonofilm system developed by Lee De Forest.

1924
An example of composers hired to create scores for specific films - American "Bad Boy of Music", George Antheil for Fernand Léger's "Ballet Méchanique."

1925
The first Phonofilm musical feature film, "Sigfried," by Fritz Lang, is shown.

1926
Vitaphone developed by Lee De Forest and others at Western Electric and adopted by Warner Bros.

Warners announces intro of Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. Not for ability to make talking pictures, but, "The invention will make it possible for every performance in a motion picture theater to have a full orchestral accompaniment to the picture regardless of the size of the house."

At the opening of the "Refrigerated Warner Theater" at B'way and 52nd Street, Warners presented "Don Juan" (d. Alan Crosland, w/ John Barrymore), with an elaborate recorded orchestral score perf. by the NY Philharmonic. Show opened with a program of shorts featuring opera stars and the orchestra as well as a speech by Will Hays, then president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, announcing "the beginning of a new era in music and motion pictures." Of Hays filmed speech, Columbia U. Physics Prof. Michael Pupin said "No closer approach to resurrection has ever been made by science." (see Variety 10/27/26)

1927
First best picture Oscar winner, "Wings," employs a partial soundtrack on disc, including sound effects. Orchestras worked around tracks. Disc rarely in synch with film.

Example of composer hired to create a score for a specific animated film - Paul Hindemith, Krazy Kat at the Circus.

Fox introduces its competition to the movie sound market, the Tri-Ergon system, used in the film "What Price Glory?"

The first soundstage built in Hollywood by Warner Bros. for filming "The Jazz Singer."

Premiere in NY of the first real feature talkie, "The Jazz Singer," at the Warner Theater on Broadway, using Vitaphone system. Dialogue heard is ad-libbed.

1928
Example of a composer hired to create a score for a specific film - Dimitri Shostakovich, "The New Babylon."

Nancy Carroll sings ³A Precious Little Thing Called Love² (Coots, Davis) in the part-talkie, "The Shopworn Angel," released by Paramount, with a score arranged by Irvin Talbot. First , or one of the first, songs sung in a non-musical. Studio execs declare that the music made a popular success of the otherwise unsatisfactory film.

The first all-talking feature, "Lights of New York," premiered in NYC.

First movie title song: ³My Man² sung by Fannie Brice.

The first feature-length sound film in color, The Viking, premiered in US with synch music and sound effects.

"Sonny Boy" becomes the first million seller promoted via a talkie. The trend toward song-plugging takes a giant step forward with the popularization of the song "Sonny Boy" through its inclusion in the film "Singing Fool" with Al Jolson.

Disney's animated "Steamboat Willie" introduces Mickey Mouse and features a sequence with a musical goat. The term "mikeymousing" is derived from the use of music in this film; it describes a score that calls attention to itself by paralleling on-screen antics with an equivalent, obvious and often humorous musical accompaniment.

1929
Ernst Lubitsch's "The Love Parade" is an early example of an attempt to stage musical numbers for film.

"Rio Rita," an operetta by J. McCarthy and H. Tierney is one of the first stage musicals filmed. Stars Bebe Daniels and John Boles.

Max Steiner arrives in Hollywood. One of the first composers to score music for a large-scale sound feature, "King Kong." He is also hired to write music to fill the silences in English-language films that were being dubbed in Spanish.

Disney releases "Skeleton Dance," featuring Grieg's "March of the Dwarfs".

One of the first American film musicals , Harry Beaumont's "Broadway Melody," is also that year's best picture. It is the granddaddy of all backstage yarns that Hollywood returns to for inspiration over and over again.

King Vidor's "Hallelujah!" marks the director's groundbreaking realization that the sound recording and filming could be done separately and combined later.

Rouben Manoulian's "Applause" is first film to use multiple channel recording technique.

Sound reproduction was often flat and muddy due to lack of experience of sound engineers, inadequate equipment and poor recording techniques.

1930s
Music is commonly used as a complement to the setting of a scene. Actors would often be cast as performers and do a song at a nightclub scene, or a popular or sometimes original song would be performed at a club setting where the film's characters would socialize.

Film companies take a cue from Madison Avenue and begin looking for promotable theme songs for their films. Early examples include Max Steiner's theme for "Now, Voyager" and Eric Korngold's for "King's Row." 1944's "Laura" would become one of the most famous.

1930
In "The Blue Angel," Marlene Dietrich plays a cabaret femme-fatale, and performs "Falling In Love Again" - one of the many successful pieces created for her by the great Friedrich Hollaender.

Various sound-on-film and synch disc systems thrive worldwide and coexist.

1931
Reuben Mamoulian mixes sounds of a heartbeat with eerie noises and reversed sound techniques to underscore the transformation scene in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

In "The Public Enemy," the shots and moaning wounded are off camera, letting the sound illustrate the horror. At a time when sound was thought to be demeaning the art of film, this element (later praised by Scorsese) elevates it to an essential role.

Alfred Newman's lonely blues theme in "Street Scene" becomes the prototype for representing the sophisticated "Big City" on screen.

1932
4-channel sound mastering introduced.

The original "A Star is Born," released. This story about the ups and downs of a singer¹s career will be remade three more times. (1937, 1952 and 1977) and remain a major movie theme.

1933
Just as the musical begins to lose steam, two films, "42nd Street" and "Flying Down to Rio," re-energize the genre with the choreographer Busby Berkely and the dancing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Disney releases "The Three Little Pigs," from which "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" emerges as a national favorite.

Max Steiner's score for "King Kong" uses a number of musical sound effects invented by the composer.

1934
Max Steiner's score for "The Lost Patrol" becomes the first dramatic musical background to be nominated for an Academy Award. Loses to Louis Silvers' arrangement of Victor Schertzinger's songs in "One Night Of Love."

1935
Each of the songs written by Irving Berlin for "Top Hat" goes on to be a hit.

Franz Waxman's popular score for "The Bride of Frankenstein" epitomizes his European romantic approach to film music. Highlights include chase music, a funeral march and a timpani section suggesting the beating of a heart.

The first film with stereophonic sound - Abel Gance¹s "Napoleon," is shown. The French film, made in 1925 is combined with stereophonic dialogue and sound effects using a system patented in 1932. Also sections are in a proto-cinerama, with three projectors, two of the prints tinted red and blue, so when projected create the French Tricolor.

For Erich Korngold's first assignment, to score "A Midsummer Night's Dream," he develops a technique where the actors, as well as the orchestra is conducted on stage so that the lines are spoken in a rhythm that complements the score.

1936
Arthur Bliss's score for "Things To Come" marks one of the first collaboration between director and composer in developing a film. Writer HG Wells later praised the score as being an integral part of the creative design.

1937
For Miklos Rozsa's first foray into film scoring, he writes songs for Marlene Dietrich in "Knight Without Armor."

The first full-length animated feature, "Snow White," is released

1938
Sergei Eistenstein's "Alexander Nevsky" opens with a score by Classical composer Sergei Prokofiev who worked closely with the director on the design of the film and music. Prokofiev sees rushes at end of each day and returns in the morning with the score.

1939
As another cycle in the popularity of the musical was ending - with the departure of Busby Berkeley from Warner Bros. and the splitting up of Astaire and Rogers - MGM becomes the next musical powerhouse with the release of, "The Wizard of Oz." Oz features the hit, "Over The Rainbow", a song nearly cut from the film. The decision to keep the song began the career of MGM musical producer Arthur Freed.

Only 30 minutes of "Gone With The Wind's" 222 are without Max Steiner¹s music. Steiner claims the music is meant to remain in the background, not overwhelm the action.

Ghostly music in evidence in Alfred Newman's "Cathy" theme in "Wuthering Heights."

1930s - 1940s
The industry developed a formula that they used over and over, discouraging new or innovative music. Aaron Copeland wrote "The producers often claim, ³ŒIf I can't understand it, the public won't.¹ As a result of this the typical Hollywood composer is concerned not with the reaction of the public, as you might think, but with that of the producer."

1940s
Studios began hiring lyricists to provide words for instrumental themes in the hopes that the songs would make the Hit Parade. One of the more successful was songwriter Victor Young who produced at least one potential song in nearly every film he scored.

1940
First US stereophonic sound films - "Santa Fe Trail" and "Four Wives," both using "Vitasound".

Disney releases "Fantasia," a series of animated sequences set to classical music, with an orchestra conducted by Leopole Stokowski. It is the first musical film, and first animated film with stereophonic sound. The multiple stereo sound track remains the most complex ever conceived. At the premier more than 150 speakers were placed throughout the theater, including in the floor.

Miklos Rozsa's score for "The Thief of Baghdad" attracts attention for its blending of "orientalisms" with his own lush style.

1941
"All That Money Can Buy" (aka "The Devil and Daniel Webster") features many examples of different uses of music in film. A fiddle scene with Walter Houston playing "Pop Goes The Weasel" and a weird ballroom sequence with music by Bernard Herrmann stands out.

Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" opens, with one of the first film scores by Bernard Herrmann.

1943
Alfred Newman's Academy Award winning score for William Perlberg's "The Song of Bernadette," contains an innovative use of strings in a sequence showing a chase through woods and the demonstrates the ability of a score to evoke emotions.

Max Steiner's theme to "Now, Voyager" is set to words by Kim Gannon and, as "It Can't Be Wrong" is a top hit for six months (sung by Dick Haymes, who at one time was married to Rita Hayworth).

"The Gang's All Here" features a Berkeley dance number with huge bananas and Carmen Miranda singing "The Lady With the Tutti Frutti Hat".

1944
The theme from the film "Laura," which becomes a popular hit song, is used in the film as an integral part of the plot, it is played to evoke the presence of "Laura", not as a love theme. Originally, director Otto Preminger wanted to use Gershwin's "Summertime", but its use was not approved by Ira Gershwin. Then Preminger chose Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" but composer David Raskin felt the melody was wrong. Instead Raskin's own song was used. "Laura" is one of the first screen songs to achieve international acclaim. The score from Laura also uses an electronic device called a Lenatone to create an electronically altered piano sound.

1945
Woody Herman's recorded version of the theme from "Laura" is released.

Soundtrack to "A Song To Remember," featuring the music of Chopin, is immensely popular; Perry Como's Till The End of Time based on Chopin's "Polonaise in A Flat" is a hit. Later Como's "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows", also based on a Chopin piece, "Fantaisie Impromptu in C sharp minor", also sells big.

Miklos Rozsa's score, much of it performed on the electronic theremin, for "Spellbound" wins an Oscar. The sound of the theremin would later be associated with sci-fi movie sounds.

Nino Rota begins a career scoring Italian films. He is known for his work with Fellini, and for films like "La Strada, La Dolce Vita, Romeo and Juliet" and much later, "The Godfather."

1946
"Spellbound." (MiklosRozsa/Hitchcock)

1947
Bernard Herrmannn's score for "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" offers and example of film music designed to create a subtle yet effective emotional response.

1946-1948
Rozsa's scores for Mark Hellinger's "The Killers" (1946), "Brute Force" (1947) and "The Naked City" (1948) exemplify the dark, often brutal themes in these film noirs; the motif used for "The Killers" ultimately became the theme for the TV show, "Dragnet."

1948
The music for the film "Easter Parade" incorporates several popular Irving Berlin songs - marking an early example of "hit" packaging.

1949
"The Third Man," by Anton Karas, uses a simple zither and a few tunes to carry an entire movie.

Aaron Copland score for "The Red Pony" captures the flavor of the Western.

1950s
Introduction of magnetic sound vastly increases number of channels able to mix.

1950
First major post-war instrumental hit - Anton Karas on zither, "Harry Lime Theme" from "The Third Man," sells over 4 million copies.

Sparked by film "Jolson Sings Again," the 7" ep of Jolson on Decca sells over 1 million copies.

1951
The music for "An American In Paris," by George Gershwin, becomes the prototype for that busy car-traffic scene in countless movies.

Alex North's landmark score for "A Streetcar Named Desire" adapts the jazz, ragtime and blues sounds of New Orleans.

Dore Schary, producer of "The Red Badge of Courage," had this to say about film music, "Each time the music has the sense of warmth and nostalgia, it creates a mood that is helpful to the picture. As soon as the music gets highly inventive, it hurts the picture.... I think all music in pictures has to be cliché to be effective.... In Marine pictures, you play 'Halls of Montezuma.' In Navy pictures, you play 'Anchors Aweigh.' In [Red Badge of Courage] the music that's effective is the sentimental-cliché music. It's a fact. Let's not debate it."

1952
Soundtrack to "An American In Paris," music by G. Gershwin, with pianist Oscar Levant, on MGM sells over 1 million copies.

Dimitri Tiomkin's score for "High Noon" starts a craze for "Main Title Songs". The theme song, sung by Tex Ritter, incorporates elements of "typical Western music" and provides a running commentary on the action throught the film.

Alex North's score for "Viva Zapata" integrates many elements of Mexican music and rhythm.

Stereophonic sound in conjunction with Cinerama process is introduced.

"Singin' In The Rain" released. Continuing a tradition as old as 42d St, it¹s a musical about making a show (film) with a heavy emphases on the problems that occurred when the Œsilents¹ became Œtalkies¹. Title song later used to sinister effect in "Clockwork Orange," by youthful hooligan who commits murder while fancying himself a song-and-dance-man in the old Hollywood tradition.

A remake of "A Star Is Born" marks Judy Garland's last musical film role.

1953
Dr. Seuss's fantasy film, "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T," celebrates the nightmare of practicing the piano. Another Friedrich Hollaender gem.

1954
Leonard Bernstein's first score for the movies, "On The Waterfront," combines the rhythms of jazz with the dynamic power of a full symphony orchestra.

Leonard Rosenman begins his career as a film music composer after a former piano student of his, James Dean, suggests his name to director Elia Kazan to score "East of Eden." His second score would also be for a Dean vehicle, "Rebel Without a Cause."

"Carmen Jones" released. The most imaginative version of the classic that Halliwell claims is the most filmed story in the movies. Originally a romantic novel by Prosper Mérimée, adapted to opera by Bizet, it¹s the story of an uncaring gypsy who wrecks men¹s lives. This all-Black version updates the story and the language to Chicago in the 40s with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. For unknown bizarre reasons Dorthy Dandridge¹s vocals as Carmen are dubbed by Marilynn Horne and Harry Belafonte¹s Joe by LeVern Hutcherson!

1955
70mm wide film , with stereophonic sound version of "Oklahoma," directed by Fred Zinnemann is released.

One of the earliest motion pictures to include a long sequence scored for a jazz band was Preminger's "The Man With The Golden Arm," starring Frank Sinatra, score by Elmer Bernstein. When the soundtrack LP sells well, Bernstein claims it¹s success, along with that of "High Noon" (1952), have producers making scoring choices based on LP sales tie-ins.

In "The Ladykillers," criminals led by Alec Guinness pretend to be classical musicians using a recording of a string quartet to fool their landlady.

Billy Haley & the Comets perform "Rock Around The Clock" in a sequence opening the film "Blackboard Jungle," about troubled high school students and a teacher who tries to change them. Song is still a tin pan alley concoction, but is one of the first rock and roll song in a feature. Movie music will never be the same.

1956
Parts of Philip Stainton's score for "Moby Dick" evoke the tumultuous feelings of being at sea. This is an great example of music used to underscore onscreen action.

For "Invitation to the Dance," directed by Gene Kelly, composer Andre Previn writes music, "Ring Around the Rosy", to go with a dance sequence already filmed.

A cymbal crash signals a murderer in the remake to "The Man Who Knew Too Much," with a score by Bernard Herrmannn. The film is also notable for the unnecessary and painful inclusion of a pop song, "Que Sera Sera," performed by Doris Day.

George Duning innovative scoring and musical arrangement for "Picnic" is cited by the Composers Guild of America and Down Beat Magazine as "the best original underscore for a nonmusical film". A song from the original play used in the film "Moonglow" reaches the Hit Parade and is the subject by a lawsuit by the original copyright holders of the song.

"Forbidden Planet" features an electronically constructed score by Ian Hugo and Walter Lewisohn. "The Music of the Krell" swells as the mosters from the id approachs, as many a young lad had a similar experience when a short-skirted Anne Francis darts across the screen. (by the way Leslie Neilson was the romantic lead!).

"The Girl Can't Help It," starring Jayne Mansfield, features performances by early rock'n'rollers like Little Richard, Gene Vincent, the Platters and Eddie Cochran.

Elmer Bernstein gets his big break when he is asked to score DeMille's "Ten Commandments," after original composer Victor Young becomes ill and has to be replaced.

1957
Jazz pioneer Duke Ellington scores music for "Jonas."

"Jailhouse Rock," one of 30 films that waters down the music and intensifies the presence of Elvis Presley, is released. Title song is an afterthought to utilize all the on-hand technical people, staging experts and extras on the MGM lot - the studio refusing to admit that you can make a musical without a musical production number. The number was a musical tie-in that topped the charts by the time the film hit the theaters. Most of the score is middle-of-the-road fake jazz and attests to the generation gap between the people in charge of Hollywood and their audience. But the sequence becomes a model for early rock videos and the set influences Robert Wilson's "Einstein On the Beach."

The score for "The Bridge on the River Kwai" gains attention for the inclusion of the "Colonel Bogey March".

1958
Bernard Herrmann's score for the Hitchcock film "Vertigo" builds on the title and features romantic orchestral scoring.

Jerome Moross' score for "The Big Country" becomes the model for subsequent big-screen cowboy epics.

1959
Henry Mancini is hired by producer Blake Edwards to compose a jazz score for his television show, "Peter Gunn." A recording of the theme music sold over a million copies and was given a Grammy for album of the year. Mancini, along with Berry and Quincy Jones represents the new breed of composers for both TV and films drawn from the ranks of danceband leaders and popular music. Mancini creates his trademark downward glissando with an unresolved fade at the end of a measure, a mix of pop-jazz and electronic editing.

Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder" features the music of Duke Ellington and his band. One of the few scores that can stand alone as music.

Miklos Rozsa's score for "Ben Hur" wins the Academy Award and is (still?) the longest film score ever composed.

1960s
When pop scores become fashionable, Bernard Herrmann resigns his membership in AMPAS declaring that "he preferred to be judged by his peers, not his inferiors.

The packaging of pop songs with a film is a big trend in the 60s, as in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and the song "Jean", "Everybody's Talkin'" for "Midnight Cowboy," and Simon & Garfunkel's music in "The Graduate," "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" in "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid;" "Alfie"; and "What's New Pussycat".

1960
Bernard Herrmann's score for "Psycho" is an immediate classic. Harsh strained strings announce and accompany on screen horrors.

Andre Previn's jazz score for "The Subterraneans" features singer Carmen McRae and jazz musicians Bud Powell and Art Tatum.

"The Magnificent Seven" is released with a score by Elmer Bernstein. Later, Bernstein's music would become the theme for cigarette pitchman, The Marlboro Man.

1961
In Shirely Clarke's documentary-style film, "The Connection," jazz musicians try to practice as they wait for their drug supply to arrive.

Marking a changing of the guard in the world of film music composers, Henry Mancini's score for "Breakfast At Tiffany's" beats out Miklos Rosza's symphonic score to "El Cid." Other composers criticized the decision, stating that the vote was based upon the song "Moon River", featured in the film and popularized on record, rather than an actual judgment of a complete film score. The 60s mark the beginning of the confusion of what a film score is and highlight the inadequacy of the Academy Awards categories.

The age of the song plugger begins, displacing many of the classical composers who had made their careers scoring films.

1962
Maurice Jarre's swelling epic romantic score for "Lawrence of Arabia" actually makes you believe you¹re seeing a romantic epic.

1964
John Barry's scores for two James Bond films, "From Russia With Love," and "Goldfinger," marks a marriage of Mancini-style pop, jazz and rock music.

Ennio Morricone unleashes "A Fistful of Dollars" on the world and movie music will never be the same. Quirky clangs, boings and whistling are perfectly wedded to what the world will call 'Spaghetti Westerns'.

mid-1960s
Songwriters hired as musical advisors to films.

1965
Maurice Jarre's Oscar winning score for "Dr. Zhivago" is representative of a trend toward melodic themes designed to be easily to memorize and commercially popular. Another example is John Barry's music for the 1966 film, Born Free.

Beginning with "What's New Pussycat," Burt Bachrach enters the scoring fray with music that is highly commercial. In 1966, for example, he would have a hit with "Alfie", and 1969, he would have another with "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" from "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid."

1966
The association between Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann ends when Herrmann balks at writing a commercially exploitable score.

Alex North's score for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is written to contrast and soften the harsh action of the film.

In his score for "Fantastic Voyage," Leonard Rosenman experiments with "klangfarben", the tone color of sound. (And this is 10 years after Frank Sinatra concocted and conducted the LP, "Tone Poems of Color," Capitol, W 735!)

1967
Antonioni's "Blow Up" features a scene where the principal character stumbles in to a live performance by the popular British group, The Yardbirds. General jazz score by Herbie Hancock. Pantomime tennis scene near the end of the film is also an effective/pretentious audio innovation.

Musician and danceband leader Quincy Jones, who entered the movie music scene with a score for the mystery film, "Mirage" (1965), is hailed for his scoring of "In The Heat of the Night" and "In Cold Blood."

1968
At the premiere of "2001: A Space Odyssey," composer Alex North discovers that director Stanley Kubrick had replaced North's music from the first half of the film with music by Johann Strauss without telling North. It was a good decision.

Jerry Goldsmith score for "Planet of the Apes" consists entirely of sound effects produced by orchestral instruments with no traditional melodies.

Mid-to-late 1960s
Self-contained contemporary pop songs, used as a running soundtrack to the film, take over from scores written for dramatic underscoring: egs - "A Man and A Woman, Hard Day's Night, Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, The Graduate."

1970s
Introduction of eight-track wireless recording system using radio microphones, doing away with booms.

Dolby noise reduction.

1971
Stanley Kubrick uses classical music and cheery musical songs ("Singin' In The Rain") to contrast the violence in his film, "A Clockwork Orange."

1972
Nino Rota's music for "The Godfather" loses its Best Film Score nomination after it is revealed that Rota had used some if it in an earlier film, "Fortunella." The Oscar was given instead to Charlie Chaplin for his accompaniment to his 1952 film "Limelight," released for the first time in Los Angeles 20 years after it was made.

1973
Bob Dylan's music for "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" effectively complements the filmmakers post-modernist take on the western as well as working as a commercial draw.

Alan Price's music for Lindsay Anderson's "O Lucky Man" acts as a "Greek chorus" to explain and connect events in the film. Possibly the best ever integration of rock into film. Price and band are actually shown performing the music in a rehearsal hall.

1974
Marvin Hamlisch wins an Oscar for his music for "The Sting," although most the music in the film is primarily ragtime compositions by Scott Joplin. The film sparks renewed interest in Joplin's music and again raises the issue of authorship and the inadequacy of the Academy Award film music and song categories.

1975
Robert Altman's "Nashville," an examination of the American condition and the country music industry in Nashville, featuring songs written by actors in the film, is released. "I'm Easy" by Keith Carradine wins an Oscar.

"Jaws" begins the horror film trend of false leads. i.e. music always played when the shark is coming, then fakes you out by playing music to make you think danger is near, but is not.

1977
Martin Scorsese's take on the 1940's genre musical, "New York, New York," is released.

"Saturday Night Fever," a (mostly immagined) examination of disco culture, opens. The double album soundtrack will go on to be one of the biggest selling albums of all time and spark a trend in pre-packaged soundtracks used to sell movies.

1978
"The Buddy Holly Story" takes a realistic look at the rock music world and the life of one of its performers.

1979
"Rock 'N' Roll High School" takes the inane ideas from 60s rock films and combines them with 70s attitude and the punk rock of the Ramones.

1980
Robert Altman's "Popeye" attempts to translate the musically-inspired action of the cartoon to a live action musical.

Alan Parker's "Fame" opens. It mixes elements of old-fashioned musicals with contemporary pop and situations. Title song became a hit and the movie was made into a popular TV show.

The film "Xanadu" tries to combine Gene Kelly, Olivia Newton John, disco music, rock, roller-skating and 40s music.

1982
Francis Ford Coppola's ambitious attempt to reinvent the musical, "One From The Heart," contains amazing musical sequences filmed in a soundstage-created Las Vegas, sends his production company spinning towards bankruptcy.

1984
Early break dance / rap teen formula pic "Body Bock" is released at a time when the world was just accepting New Wave music! Good example of targeting a specialty audience long before the targeted genre is even noticed by the media.

1986
"Absolute Beginners" (UK), Julian Temple's mod musical features Bowie, Mandy Rice-Davies, Sade(sings "Killer Blow") and Slim Gaillard (³Selling Out²). Gil Evans supervises score. Songs incorporated into racial unrest plot line. Many problems as film, but songs integrated into plot and performed is a nascent world hovering between Broadway and MTV.

1992
In the "Mambo Kings" we have the fictionalized biography playing up the ethnic musician, as in Crossover Dreams (1985) and La Bamba (1987). Rather than Desi Arnez , Xavier Cougat, or Carmen Miranda doing an Œexotic¹ number within a film, the Latins become legitimate cardboard characters in the tradition of white composers and musicians bios. One of the first times in a US film that all of the music is authentic. (Contrast to "West Side Story"). More commonplace in foreign films like the unbearably beautiful "Black Orpheus" (1959) with music by Bonfa and Jobim.

 
 
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