Michael Curtiz would have recorded no synchronous sound for the shots above from The Santa Fe Trail (1940). The first sixteen seconds of the excerpt above simulate how those shots would have sounded at an intermediate stage (after editors inserted wild sound but before they transmitted the work print to the music department for scoring). The score Max Steiner actually composed for these shots returns in the last sixteen seconds. Without the directional monophonic sound channeling Warner Bros. constructed for this scene, the film then plays more or less as Warner Bros. released it in 1940.
It was March 1927 and the MGM publicity machine was confecting sound-related stories. In costume and makeup for one of his roles in the silent Mr. Wu (1927) Lon Chaney (Sr.) "conducts" an "all-girl orchestra" at 10202 W. Washington Boulevard, Culver City.
Theme from Of Human Bondage (1934), score by Max Steiner.
Steiner composed forty-one complete or partial scores for RKO in 1934, virtually one per week. Nominators for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated his 1934 scores for The Lost Patrol and The Gay Divorcee for Best Musical Scoring, but Victor Schertzinger and Gus Kahn’s score for One Night of Love won. By 1956, Steiner had twenty-four nominations and three wins.
You Did It Then: Warner Bros. released Santa Fe Trail (1940) with a Max Steiner score in an experimental “Vitasound” sound track that directed bursts of monophonic sound to supplementary left and right speakers during emotionally charged scenes. Reinsert Steiner’s score into a scene of Santa Fe Trail (1940) from which it has been extracted. Repeat the process with other scores extracted from other 1940s movies. Consider what each score did contribute or would contribute to the scene. Step-by-step instructions and the files you’ll need are here.
Audrey Hepburn note to Henry Mancini. Mancini began composing for films in 1952. He scored hundreds, most notably for director Blake Edwards, as in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).
You Do It Now: Create a score for the silent film you shot for Chapter Nine (Intertitles) and dubbed for Chapter Twelve (Synch Sound). Feel free to collaborate with any composers or musicians you know… it’s encouraged.
