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Hitchcock/Herrmann Music in QT's Hollywood Movie (NO SPOILERS)


In other threads, I spoil how the un-used music by Bernard Herrmann for Torn Curtain(principally his music for The Death of Gromek) is used in QT's new movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. NO SPOILERS HERE.

Here is further information, not about where the music is used, but how it came to be:

In a July 26, 2019 net interview with Variety, QT's music director Mary Ramos spells out the story on the Herrmann music:

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"(QT) wanted to stay true to the period, and that even expanded into the score choices, like the Bernard Herrmann score pieces we use. Herrmann was the premier film composer of the time -- real Hollywood royalty -- and so we use some of the music from "Torn Curtain." If you are a Bernard Herrmann geek like me, you know that "Torn Curtain" was the score that Hitchcock threw out, so there's only a few existing pieces of the original Herrmann score that were recorded, and we used one of those in the movie, and then we also use a piece that Elmer Bernstein re-recorded."

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Keep in mind that Elmer Bernstein, composer of The Magnificent Seven, re-recorded Herrmann's 1962 Cape Fear AND 1966 Torn Curtain music for Scorsese's Cape Fear remake in 1991.

And this: Scorsese brought all this un-used Torn Curtain music into the movies in 1991 in his Cape Fear remake -- one year later, 1992, Tarantino debuted with Reservoir Dogs.

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I notice that a docudrama is now being filmed entitled 'Lives Of Bernard Herrmann.' It should be interesting to see what they dig up. An interview is involved so I don't know if there will be footage of Hermann himself or if he will be represented by an actor in that part. It's an independent film so that may suggest it will all be acted out.

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I notice that a docudrama is now being filmed entitled 'Lives Of Bernard Herrmann.' It should be interesting to see what they dig up. An interview is involved so I don't know if there will be footage of Hermann himself or if he will be represented by an actor in that part. It's an independent film so that may suggest it will all be acted out.

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"Verrrry eenteresting!" as the comedy Nazi used to say at the end of Laugh In back in the day.

I looked this project up and it seems to be something in "Go Fund Me" stage...the makers are seeking donations to make the movie.

It also looks like it is a straight documentary attempt. The site speaks to interviews that will be sought, including from Bernard Herrmann's daughter.

They already have ONE interview. Alec Baldwin. WHA? I'm guessing maybe Baldwin is a personal friend of the makers, maybe, and gave them an interview to launch the project. Baldwin didn't KNOW Herrmann, but perhaps he gave an interview just to OPINE on Herrmann...as can the rest of us who have read stories about him.

Bernard Herrmann is certainly WORTHY of a documentary...from Citizen Kane to Taxi Driver, from Welles to DePalma --with the great collaboration with Hitchcock in between(and don't forget Herrmann giving us boomer kids the great music for Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts and Mysterious Island -- great Ray Harryhausen monster movies of the Hitchcock period.)


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The Hitchcock/Herrmann collaboration is the greatest part of Herrmann's career, and in ways, the most tragic. Hitchcock/Herrmann should have been like Spielberg/Williams and Edwards/Mancini...and yet Hitchcock spurned the man who gave his movies their greatest music. The one/two/three of Vertigo, NXNW and Psycho are a Grand Slam of movie music(NONE nominated by the Academy, another stain on its supposed honor.) And then came the "Torn Curtain" split -- in which, it could be said, Herrmann was pushed off "just in time" as Hitchcock declined. Though a Herrmann score for Frenzy would have made a very good film...perhaps great? (As would have the Mancini score that Hitchcock ALSO threw out -- what was his deal with composers?)

And in a great irony, the unused Torn Curtain score ended up restored and re-used by two great modern filmmakers -- Scorsese(in Cape Fear); and QT (In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.)

I'm not sure if I will donate to this Herrmann project, but I am wondering: perhaps it will stimulate somebody ELSE's project. Back in 1981, two young guys peddled "Psycho II" in an article for the LA Times. Universal lawyers promptly issued a "cease and desist" on those guys -- and promptly put their OWN "Psycho II" into production, even as original Psycho author Robert Bloch WROTE a DIFFERENT "Psycho II" story as a novel.

Inspiration comes from different sources...

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It would be good if this project stimulates a real documentary about Bernard Hermann. I prefer a documentary to a docudrama.

I wonder if you know anything about the rights to Bernard Herrmann's music? Only the music to 'Psycho' was blatantly used by the 'Armchair Thriller' series in 1980. So nearly five years after the composer's death say. Unfortunately You Tube don't have the episodes I refer to.

I've seen 'High Tide' with Ian McShane where all four original episodes are rolled into one. If you were to hear the music in that you would immediately recognize it. It's arranged to alter slightly from the Psycho score. I don't know if they got away with it or whether permission was obtained. Copyright infringement cases have been won for less blatancy so I'm just wondering.

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It would be good if this project stimulates a real documentary about Bernard Hermann.

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The article suggests a "talking heads" documentary. Though it seems to be truly good, they would need clips of Herrmann's music over great movies -- his lumbering music for the terrifying Greek warrior bronze giant come to life in "Jason and the Argonauts" is a great example of image and music.

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I prefer a documentary to a docudrama.

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Me , too. 'Hitchcock" and "The Girl" are examples of largely getting it wrong.

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I wonder if you know anything about the rights to Bernard Herrmann's music?

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I am afraid that I don't. Except this: when Fox made the movie "Hitchcock" about the making of Psycho, Universal would give them no clips from Psycho, nor the script rights from Psycho to re-stage on film. But evidently Herrmann's Psycho music COULD be bought and was cleverly used for a climactic scene where Hitchocck HEARS the audience scream at the shower scene and we SEE the audience scream at the shower scene -- but all we hear is the music.

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Only the music to 'Psycho' was blatantly used by the 'Armchair Thriller' series in 1980. So nearly five years after the composer's death say. Unfortunately You Tube don't have the episodes I refer to.

I've seen 'High Tide' with Ian McShane where all four original episodes are rolled into one. If you were to hear the music in that you would immediately recognize it. It's arranged to alter slightly from the Psycho score. I don't know if they got away with it or whether permission was obtained. Copyright infringement cases have been won for less blatancy so I'm just wondering.

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Well, when copyright violations are found, they usually draw lawsuits..IF they are found. On the other hand, the famous "screeching Psycho murder strings" have been copied so often for so many years -- usually a few notes "off" -- that I would expect this is now a matter of "homage" rather than plagiarism.

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'High Tide' definitely pays homage and it serves it's own mystery well. It uses the swifter dreamy 'searching' part of the 'Psycho' score without the dramatic hit-beats at the end of the sequence. This romantic mysterioso continually plays quietly as Ian McShayne narrates his circumstances as he tries to fathom them out. Very effective.

Now I think about it all sorts of homages are paid in films. I suppose it's only in pop music where homage becomes plagiarism. And sometimes then it isn't intended but has seeped into the mind of the composer by stealth.

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'High Tide' definitely pays homage and it serves it's own mystery well. It uses the swifter dreamy 'searching' part of the 'Psycho' score without the dramatic hit-beats at the end of the sequence.

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"The dramatic hit-beats" is an interesting phrase to me. I'm not sure I'm clear which part of the Psycho score we are talking about here.

I would like to note here that while "Psycho" is most famous for the screeching violins of the murder and fruit cellar sequences, it has several other musical motifs which the "in depth Psycho fan" is familiar with:

ONE: The opening credit music -- nerve-wracking, back and forth just like the Saul Bass titles that accompany it. Noteably, this music returns all through the "Marion's drive" sequence...and then leaves the movie forever when she reaches the Bates Motel. Thus it is almost "Marion's theme." (Whereas the North by Northwest opening credit music returns for the Mount Rushmore climax...all the way to the end.)

TWO: The "three notes of madness" (DA----DAAAAAH---DAAAAAAAAH) that end the movie in Norman's cell and the swamp, but occur earlier often -- during Norman's talk with Marion in the parlor, when Arbogast looks up and sees the house. The three notes of madness end Herrmann's score for Taxi Driver(1976); Herrmann's final score(even though his Obsession score was released last.) The three notes of madness are also in the first Star Wars when hour heroes are hiding under a grate while the Storm Troopers walk by.

THREE: All the other individual "suites" of music in the film, each distinctive (1) The opening "slow glide down" over Phoenix(which returns intermittently at the Bates Motel while Marion is there) (2) "Temptation"(Marion decides in her room, to take the money) (3) Norman's clean-up of the shower murder(rather like "the buzzing of bees"); (4) Arbogast's walk up the hill to the house, and then the humming "wall of strings" for his walk up the staircase; (5) Lila's walk up the hill to the house..

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Now I think about it all sorts of homages are paid in films.

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The recent FX series "Ratched" (VERY loosely based on Miss Ratched the Evil Nurse in "Cuckoo's Nest") does something interesting with Herrmann's music.

In a gory opening mass murder sequence, the build-up and attacks are scored to ACTUAL Herrmann music -- from Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho("Temptation") and(outside of Hitchcock) "Cape Fear." After the murder sequence is over and the series begins in earnest, the music becomes "Herrmann-like" instead of actual "Herrmann." (Noteably, you can hear a lot of "Psycho" except its off by a few notes.)

What I'm guessing happened is this: The "Ratched" producers PAID for a limited number of Herrmann musical pieces(for the opening murder sequence) and then "mimicked " Herrmann for the rest of the score, avoiding plagiarism.

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I suppose it's only in pop music where homage becomes plagiarism. And sometimes then it isn't intended but has seeped into the mind of the composer by stealth.

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There have been a few trials about the mental state of the "copycat." George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" was determined to be a near-copy of "He's So Fine," but Harrison swore the notes came to him on his own. I can't recall the outcome of that trial.

Speaking of the Beatles, it has emerged that the opening Psycho credit music inspired Paul McCartney to write the "clawing violins" of "Eleanor Rigby." McCartney actually brought the Psycho music to the studio and gave it to producer George Martin.


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George Harrison had to pay up over 'stealing' 'He's So Fine' a bit unfairly I thought. I never knew that 'Psycho' was the inspiration for 'Eleanor Rigby' but I can see how it could have been now you mention.

I was a bit clumsy over the 'High Tide' borrowing description. What they did use is the soaring strings bit of Marion's drive and kept to the smoother parts of that sequence if you understand. Also the slow part where Marion is looking over the cars for exchange. That is used a lot in 'High Tide' and is kept the same way as in 'Psycho.'

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George Harrison had to pay up over 'stealing' 'He's So Fine' a bit unfairly I thought.

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Well, I'm sure its tricky. Just how many tunes are "in the universe"? If Harrison never HEARD "He's So Fine"...maybe he just came up with the same notes on his own.

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I never knew that 'Psycho' was the inspiration for 'Eleanor Rigby' but I can see how it could have been now you mention.

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Its there...what I call the "clawing violins" -- rather than the "screeching violins" of the murder scenes. Actually maybe it is more like "sawing violins." Back and forth, back and forth, like a hand saw on a board.

I read McCartney was also inspired by Herrmann's work on "Fareneheit 451," a Truffaut film.

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I was a bit clumsy over the 'High Tide' borrowing description. What they did use is the soaring strings bit of Marion's drive and kept to the smoother parts of that sequence if you understand. Also the slow part where Marion is looking over the cars for exchange. That is used a lot in 'High Tide' and is kept the same way as in 'Psycho.'

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Not clumsy at all. I think the music you are talking about(at the car lot) is a mix of the opening "gliding down over Phoenix" notes of Herrmann's score mixed with a little of the "Temptation" music from Marion's room in Phoenix. I think. I may have to go check the Psycho DVD!

Note in passing: the music as the camera moves over and across the Phoenix skyline surely sets an emotion for Psycho at odds with the horror to come: its languid and quiet and rather beautiful. But it DOES suggest "descent" and the story WILL descend into horror. That's why it is interesting that this stretch of music...which matches a "descent from heaven" in the opening scene, oddly keeps popping up again...at the car lot and later at the Bates Motel...with no visual descent at all.

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I've got a feeling that the car lot music does feature in Marion's room. It's that moment when we see the stash of cash on Marion's bed. It's that mystery/suspense moment when we ourselves are being tempted by that money. It's that moment when we're in with the scheme in Marion's mind and again at the car lot.

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I've got a feeling that the car lot music does feature in Marion's room. It's that moment when we see the stash of cash on Marion's bed. It's that mystery/suspense moment when we ourselves are being tempted by that money.

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In the 70's, SEVERAL albums were released of Herrmann's score for Psycho. And those albums usually had "names" for the various segments.

These two are "easy" to identify:

The Shower

The Staircase

But there was one piece called "Temptation" -- and THAT's the music over Marion in her room "deciding"(and yet not -- as critic Robin Wood noted "the decision overtakes her") to take the money.

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It's that moment when we're in with the scheme in Marion's mind and again at the car lot.

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Well...time to drag out the ol' Psycho DVD again...even though I just saw it at the theater a couple of weeks ago. I certainly think you are right.

Certain themes are in "Marions story" -- the opening credit music becomes her driving music, and "Temptation" is always there.

Long before Psycho was available on VHS tape and then DVDs...I audio taped the movie off of TV and just listened to key parts. Not the entire movie -- key parts. Such as Norman's talks with Marion and with Arbogast. But I also taped the MUSIC.

One of my favorite stretches is "Arbogast from the office to the porch up the hill." TWICE, at the beginning and ending of this stretch, Herrmann gives us the "three notes of madness" first when Arbogast SEES the house, then when Arbogast REACHES the house. The madness of mother "lures him" and those three notes tell us that -- plus this weird, "loopy" music as he climbs the hill.

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For that matter, the music on Arbogast when he enters the house is "primed for screaming." The second he goes in, Herrmann's strings hum like a 'wall of sound." Unbearable tension just ready to explode. But OVER that humming background, Herrmann adds the light strain of "higher pitched strings" rising higher and higher as he climbs the stairs.

As I like to say, with that build up (visual and sound) as Arbogast climbs the stairs, and the explosion of screeching strings at the top...a naked Jayne Mansfield could have run out and KISSED Arbogast and we STILL would have screamed.

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I notice that Bernard Herrmann is credited as being the main title composer for a short documentary coming out next year. 'History of World Cinema' which celebrates movie music soundtracks. They don't give details which segment or segments they will use as the main title.

I've only just now noticed that there was an UK video released last February called 'The John Player Lecture With Bernard Herrmann At London's National Film Theatre.' It looks like that is a conversation he had in 1972. I wonder if you may have seen this interview at any time?

Thanks for letting me know that 'Psycho' music segment I was referring to is known as 'Temptation.' It's good to give those segments titles and that is an apt title. You shouldn't have mentioned a naked Jayne Mansfield in your last post as I can't get it out of my mind of picturing her as Marion in the shower scene now.

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I notice that Bernard Herrmann is credited as being the main title composer for a short documentary coming out next year. 'History of World Cinema' which celebrates movie music soundtracks. They don't give details which segment or segments they will use as the main title.

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Hmm...well, thanks for the heads up..Bernard Herrmann was a very interesting man in movie music. Even though he scored Citizen Kane and 8 Hitchcocks (including Hitch's most famous climactic classics), Herrmann seems not to have been given the requisite respect in Hollywood. It is an absolute outraged that the Herrmann scores for neither Vertigo, nor North by Northwest, nor (especially) Psycho were even NOMINATED by the Academy. I've read that the music branch of the Academy was small and Herrmann quit it, and he was banned for a long time.

His "mood music" was used by Hitchcock to great effect, and also in the "children's fantasy monster films" of Ray Harryhausen(Sinbad, Mysterious Island, Jason and the Argonauts) and in the SciFi classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and I've always figured that probably pushed Herrmann out of getting more "generic" scores to score. Its hard to picture a Herrmann score over All About Eve or Giant or Ben-Hur. Its as if he found his niche and worked it -- "genre" (His overture for Journey to the Center of the Earth goes down, down DOWN deep), and left great lasting memories with a generation.

CONT

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..but it seems that once Hitchocck fired Herrmann off of Torn Curtain 1n 1966, he was sent out into the wilderness for years. Hollywood wanted Henry Mancini(for awhile, soon HE would be old hat, too), Jerry Goldsmith, Quincy Jones.

DePalma and Scorsese brought Herrmann back -- and he promptly died in late 1975. And the Academy "got him" one more time. His final two scores were for DePalma's "Obsession"(a Vertigo homage that didn't work) and Scorsese's Taxi Driver(a new classic.) The NEW Academy nominated Herrmann posthumously for BOTH scores and...he didn't win for either. The winner -- Jerry Goldsmith for The Omen -- was as shocked as anybody -- "I was so sure that Herrmann would win for something that I didn't even have a speech prepared."

Oh, well. Herrmann went out "in demand by the new guys" and ended up Oscar nominated after all. And maybe that doesn't matter so much as what he did with Psycho and Vertigo and North by Northwest and the Harryhausens and...behind them a bit, Citizen Kane(Herrmann wasn't quite Herrmann yet when he did Citizen Kane.)

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I've only just now noticed that there was an UK video released last February called 'The John Player Lecture With Bernard Herrmann At London's National Film Theatre.' It looks like that is a conversation he had in 1972. I wonder if you may have seen this interview at any time?

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I have not seen this. I am wondering if Herrmann is interviewed or if somebody gives a lecture ON Herrmman, with musical clips. I'd like to see/hear it.

In the 70's, I audited a class on movie scoring taught by a film composer named David Raksin(Laura, Al Capone.) Herrmann was already dead; Raksin had been a great friend of Herrmann. The class moved for one evening to Raksin's modest Hollywood home. I asked him about Herrmann and he brought out something for me to look at -- and hold in my hands. Herrmann's score (on paper) for Psycho. Some of it at least. I couldn't read notes but I will tell you they were "all smashed together." I was holding the shower scene.

Raksin was noncommittal about Hitchcock in his classes, but years later I saw Raksin raging AGAINST Hitchcock on TCM. Raksin was furious about HItchocck firing Herrmann -- "Herrmann gave Hitchcock EVERYTHING...and Hitchcock had the loyalty of an eel." Again, Raksin never said this to us in his small class. He KEPT raging at Hitchcock on this TCM bit: "After Hitch fired Herrmann everybody could see he went into decline. He had the personality of a lump on a log...nobody liked him." Well...a friend speaks for his friend. Both Herrmann and Hitchcock were dead when Raksin gave that interview.

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Thanks for letting me know that 'Psycho' music segment I was referring to is known as 'Temptation.' It's good to give those segments titles and that is an apt title.

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"Temptation" tells it all, doesn't it? Marion is tempted by the money because she is tempted by Sam as a possible husband.

As I recall, the Herrmann score barely has 7 or so of these cues. The famous "three notes of madness"(all through the movie and at the very end) appear on the album as part of a segment called "The Madhouse" -- which starts up when Norman starts angrily talking to Marion about...the madhouse.

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You shouldn't have mentioned a naked Jayne Mansfield in your last post as I can't get it out of my mind of picturing her as Marion in the shower scene now.

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Ha...well I think I was saying that a naked Jayne Mansfield could have run out at Arbogast and hugged him, and we'd still scream, the set-up was THAT powerful, Herrmann's music was THAT scary and shocking.

But you might find this amusing. Netflix is currently running a documentary called "SKIN...the history of nudity in the movies." Its pretty high class with some good interviews, but mainly its...clips of nudity in movie history. They reach the Psycho shower scene in 1960 and then, in 1963, they reach "Promises, Promises," a "nudie" feature with ...wait for it... a naked Jayne Mansfield taking a bath and blowing the bubbles away...showing everything,pretty much. There's another clip of a naked Mansfield (out of the bathtub) teasingly talking to a milquetoast comedian Tommy Noonan(HE's dressed.) In 1963. I don't know where that movie was shown...but it made money, they say.

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Back to Herrmann.

In addition to his (several?) albums of the entire Psycho score, back in the 70s, there was a 1971 album of SELECTED parts of Herrmann scores, played "new" by some symphony. With liner notes by Herrmann himself -- short ones.

I was gifted that album and I played it as much as I played Zepplin and James Taylor. These were the selections:

Vertigo(a "suite" including the overture and the nightmare music)
North by Northwest(the opening credit overture, only, but...WOW.)
Psycho (another "suite" -- credits through both murders to the fruit cellar and the cell.)
Marnie(overture)
The Trouble With Harry(another "suite," which Herrmann re-titled "A Portrait of Hitch."

During the time I owned this album, Vertigo and The Trouble With Harry were taken out of circulation for 10 years -- my ONLY enjoyment of those two films I could access was from this Herrmann album.

I recall Herrmann noting that his NXNW overture was "a rousing kaleidoscopic fandango to launch the adventure" and that with Psycho "I used strings only to give this black and white movie a black and white score." I also recall Herrmann specifying his "special music for the two murders and the hair-raising climax." Hair raising climax. Herrmann was a showman, just like Hitchcock.

Somewhere in there, I shot a Super 8 Hitchcock compendium/spoof with restaged scenes from a lot of Hitchcock movies. I made a tape from that Herrmann album and gave my half hour Super 8 movie a "full Herrmann score." I showed the movie in a classroom and at a couple of parties, and usually got this comment: "That movie was OK, but that MUSIC was great!"

But of course.

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It seems strange to think that 'Vertigo' was unavailable for a whole 10 years when you consider the out-and-out classic it has now become. 'The Trouble With Harry' perhaps less so because it's still seen as a bit of an acquired taste. I love the little comic and mysterioso effects in 'Harry' amid the more familiar Herrmann style.

What an awesome thrill to have actually held the written 'Psycho' score especially the shower scene.

I've located the availability of the 1972 interview I mentioned last time. It's an extra on the Limited Edition of the Blu-Ray release of 'Endless Night' (1972). Bernard Herrmann talks about his score for that film in a 53 minute documentary. The film itself is a decent mystery but I already have it on DVD. Just to think that Hitchcock himself would soon be in London afterwards to film 'Frenzy.'

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