My Favorite Bernard Herrmann Scores

Bernard Herrmann was a talented composer and a one-of-a-kind character who wove dark musical tapestries that are as memorable today as when they debuted.  He wrote classical pieces, as well as music for both radio and television, but it's his scores for movies from the 1940s through the 1970s that he's most associated with today.  Pairing with a number of innovative film artists, including Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Ray Harryhausen, and Martin Scorsese, among many others, his contributions are as important to their works as the photography, editing, or special effects in creating atmosphere, building suspense, and transporting us to unique worlds and landscapes.  Here's a list of my favorite scores of the composer.

1)  The Day The Earth Stood Still
Robert Wise was an editor on some of Herrmann's earliest film projects, before employing him as composer on this film which he directed.  A science fiction classic introducing us to the thoughtful alien Klaatu and the devastating power of his robot Gort, it's made more powerful by Herrmann's score, featuring his innovative use of the theremin to establish an eerie and unearthly tone.  Despite the presence of a fantastic spaceship, a giant robot, and destructive rays, the film doesn't utilize many sound effects, relying on Herrmann to create the musical equivalents, which is even more effective.

2)  Psycho
Anyone who's seen the film remembers the violins that accompany the murder of Marion Crane within a shower in the mysterious Bates motel, a scene I've heard that director Alfred Hitchcock originally wanted to leave unscored.  As effective as that sequence is, it's not the only unnerving selection from the soundtrack, with a relentlessly paced main title, and suspenseful cues that begin muted, but intensify as the story progresses.

3)  The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad
Herrmann scored several films featuring the stop-motion wizardry of Ray Harryhausen, but their first collaboration is my favorite among them, in which Herrmann creates selections for a ship navigating stormy seas, a brave hero, a beautiful princess, a fearsome cyclops, and a sword-fighting skeleton.  Although the bulk of the composer's assignments involved scoring adventures and thrillers in the real world, he was equally adept at describing fantastic creatures with his music, perhaps never as finely done as in this score.

4)  Vertigo
Hitchcock's San Francisco mystery offers dual opportunities for Herrmann, and he excels in both underscoring James Stewart's terrifying vertigo, and musically representing the passion of Stewart's romantic pursuit of Kim Novak.  His "Scene d'amour" is one of the most beautiful yet torrid pieces Herrmann ever wrote, in my opinion.  However, his greatest contribution to the film might be the scoring of Stewart's investigations of Novak, as subtle notes enhance the mystery as it slowly unfolds.

5)  North By Northwest
This entertaining showcase for Cary Grant as his character is mistaken for a spy and caught between enemy agent James Mason and the police who believe him guilty of murder, begins with an energetic main title, and features a tender love theme as Grant romances Eva Marie Saint.  However, the choice to leave Grant's race against death with a cropduster unscored is just as significant, and the mark of a wise composer.

6)  Cape Fear
One of the most terrifying films Herrmann composed for is this memorable thriller from J. Lee Thompson, featuring Robert Mitchum as a vengeance-seeking ex-convict after Gregory Peck and his family.  Highlights from Herrmann's score include the bold and unsettling main title and a frightening piece that accompanies young Lori Martin's terror at being stalked by Mitchum.  When Martin Scorsese remade the picture in 1991, Elmer Bernstein adapted Herrmann's original score for the remake.

7)  Mysterious Island
Another pairing of Hermann and Harryhausen, this Jules Verne adventure finds American Civil War soldiers staging a daring escape from a Confederate prison aboard a hot air balloon, and follows them as they crash on the island of the legendary Captain Nemo.  Hermann foreshadows their perilous trip over the ocean in a main title with crescendos that musically simulate the crashing waves, and has many a giant beast to create motifs for in Nemo's enlarged crabs, buzzing honeybees, and a fearsome octopus.

8)  Fahrenheit 451
Francois Truffaut's adaptation of Ray Bradbury's best-seller about a future where firemen burn books to suppress original thinking features a number of memorable Herrmann themes including a driving theme for the firemen's rushing aboard their truck towards hidden troves of literature, and romantic music for the independent woman played by Julie Christie that tempts Oskar Werner's fireman.  However, the most striking piece in the film is the finale where we discover a community where "book people" are memorizing texts against a verdant landscape.  I found this music so beautiful I had it played at my wedding.

9)  Citizen Kane
Herrmann's first major film score came for Orson Welles' landmark but controversial film about a newspaper magnate's life, which was said to have satirized real-life publisher William Randolph Hearst.  The film begins with the mystery behind Kane's last spoken word, and Herrmann creates several memorable motifs that bring energy to Kane's early life and a morose despair to his final days.  Herman's knowledge of various musical forms allows for a diverse score that was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to another Herrmann score, All That Money Can Buy.

10)  The Twilight Zone
People forget that Herrmann created the first theme for Rod Serling's science fiction anthology as the theme from Marius Constant that took its place has become much more associated with the series.  That doesn't mean Herrmann's theme isn't worthwhile, and I think it's more mysterious and compelling.  He also scored several episodes of the series including the pilot, "Where Is Everybody?" building unnerving suspense as guest star Earl Holliman frantically looks for another living soul in an abandoned town.  Other memorable scores include "Walking Distance" with Gig Young reliving his childhood a bit too literally, and "The Eye Of The Beholder," one of the series' most famous episodes in which a plastic surgery patient fears she may remain ugly in a shadowy world with a very different perspective on beauty.