All language subtitles for Max.Steiner.Maestro.Of.Movie.Music.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]

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Whether audiences
notice it or not,

music is the invisible
heartbeat of a movie.

It's in a pulse,
the way to manipulate emotion.

This is the story
of a key figure

who, more than anyone else,

shaped the art of scoring
for motion pictures.

Who was he? This man who worked
on over 300 film scores

and who literally became
the sound of Hollywood

in its early years.

Maximilian Raoul Steiner
has become recognized

as the person who not only
captured the essence of his art

in every score that he wrote,

but who was the very
first one to do it.

Steiner is the individual

who seemed to convince
all of Hollywood

that films needed scoring.

Without realizing it,

Max Steiner was building
an art form from the ground up.

Max Steiner was a maverick,

a true pioneer
who gave Hollywood

one of its most
enduring legacies.

To trace the origins
of the Hollywood sound,

we have to travel back
to another time and place--

Vienna.

This was once the capital
of the Hapsburg Empire.

Aristocrats at
the Imperial Court

created an environment
in which the arts thrived.

Many composers lived
or were attracted here.

Operas, operettas,
and romantic music

filled concert halls.

The city was not only the home
of the waltz,

but the undisputed center

of immortal European
classical music.

No other place on earth
was like Vienna.

It was against this background
that a local family

by the name of Steiner
would unknowingly influence

the genesis of film scoring
in Hollywood in years to come.

You might call the Steiners
as a show business family,

starting with
grandfather Steiner,

who owned and ran the famous
Theater an der Wien,

which was standing
at the time of Mozart

where he performed
"The Magic Flute."

It was grandfather
Maximilian Steiner,

who persuaded the waltz
King Johann Strauss Jr.

to bring his formidable talents
to the theater

with the operetta
"Die Fledermaus."

Steiner was decorated by many
of the Royal Houses of Europe.

After a serious illness,
he passed away in 1880.

He was laid to rest
beside his beloved wife, Rosa,

in the central cemetery.

Eventually, his son Gabor,

took over the running
of the Theater an der Wien

In 1882, he became engaged
to actress Mari,

better known as Mitzi Holman,
a Catholic.

She converted to Judaism
and the couple was married

at the local synagogue.

On May 10, 1888, their son,

Maximilian Raoul Steiner,
was born.

The family made their home
in a suite in this hotel.

Here, the young Max
spent his childhood.

His parents loved him dearly.

They gave him
the finest education

and saw to his every need.

He grew up rubbing shoulders

with the best
of Viennese society.

As a small boy,
I loved Johann Strauss.

On my eighth birthday,
he gave me a giraffe piano,

a sort of harpsichord
with pedals.

I often improvised at the piano

with more modern music
of my own.

Papa would always encourage me
by saying write it down.

Despite a privileged
lifestyle, Austrian Jews

experienced
the scourge of anti-semitism.

It prevented
many talented people

from holding public office.

Like other prominent members
of the community,

Gabor Steiner had little option

but to renounce his faith
and convert to Christianity.

Together with a 6-year-old Max,

father and son were baptized
in the Gustav Adolf Church.

For the rest of his life,

Max Steiner would never discuss
his Jewish roots.

From a very young age,
his talents began to show.

He started to compose.

When he was 9,
he had his first song published,

no doubt, through
the influential contacts

of his father.

During his teens, he became
a very capable musician.

He composed songs
and matches for his school band.

In 1906, he accompanied
his parents to London.

At the Imperial Royal Austrian
Exhibition in Earls Court,

he conducted a waltz that
he had composed.

At 16, he attended classes
to further his musical studies.

I went to the Academy
of Vienna.

I made the three years that were
required for composition harmony

in choir work and choral work.

Won the gold medal.

He wrote his first operetta

"Die Schone Griechin,"
the beautiful Greek girl.

It premiered at one of
his father's theaters

when he was 19.

That led to offers to conduct
in Russia and later in England.

But while growing up,
it was one man who,

more than any other,

would pave the way for him
to explore his talents--

his very own father.

Gabor Steiner was a visionary.

His dream was to create
a theme park similar

to a Disneyland of today.

He called it Venedig in Wien,

Venice in Vienna.

In 1894, Gabor Steiner leased
what was known

as the English Garden
in the city

and set about replicating the
city of Venice on the property.

An arena for 2,000 people
was booked

for staging operettas
and concerts-- Franz Lehár,

John Philip Sousa, and even
the great Richard Strauss

were among the celebrities
who performed there.

He imported Thomas Edison's
latest invention

from the United States.

It was called
a kinetoscope parlor

where audiences could enjoy
viewing moving images.

The park opened in May 1896
with huge crowds attending.

The Emperor Franz Josef
also put in an appearance.

The place became Vienna's main
summer attraction.

Every spectrum of Viennese
society flocked to the park.

It was an extraordinary place.

Nowhere else in the world was
there anything quite like it.

My father was a protégé
of the Emperor Franz Josef,

who conferred upon him
the Order of Franz Josef.

This was the highest honor
possible

for a civilian to attain.

From his early childhood,

the young Max recognized
what appealed to audiences.

He understood the public.

He conducted
at the park, wrote songs,

and sought acts that
would perform

nightly at its theaters.

He studied scores,
observed conductors,

and arranged music
all to considerable acclaim.

But Steiner's father, Gabor's
good fortunes, were not to last.

By 1907, he had
run into financial difficulties.

Days of adverse weather

caused visitors to avoid
the Venedig in Wien.

It was not easy for me
to find a job in Vienna

after my father's
financial fiasco,

so I decided to go to England.

By 1909,
Steiner moved to London.

There, he sought employment
as a composer and conductor.

He found both success
and romance

and married British
variety artist Beatrice Tilt.

But in 1912,
pressured by his father,

Steiner returned to Vienna to
help run the Ronacher Theatre.

Difficulties mounted and unpaid
bills led to bankruptcy.

Steiner gave up on Vienna
and returned to London.

He found work in musical theater
and vaudeville

as an orchestral conductor
at West End venues.

I was one of
the best known conductors

there was in Paris,

Shift Orchestra
at the Alhambra,

and the Tivoli in Copenhagen,

...in Hamburg.

In South Africa,
Joberg and Cape Town,

with the operetta company.

He was
well-received everywhere.

But other forces were at play

that would forever change
the course of his career.

With the outbreak of
World War I

and fearful of arrest
as an enemy alien

due to his Austrian background,

Steiner was forced to
leave England.

With help from friends,

he obtained a passport
and booked passage

on the SS Lackland
from Liverpool to America.

He arrived in New York City
on November 7, 1914.

He had $32 in his wallet.

Wandering along Broadway's
great white way,

he was totally oblivious
of the fact

that his real future
lay far to the West.

After his arrival in 1914,

Max Steiner walked the streets
of New York in search of work,

but finding gigs
proved difficult.

He had few contacts
and was not a union member.

After a few menial jobs,

he took work as a copyist
in a music publishing house.

This led to assignments
orchestrating stage music.

Steiner's talents quickly
caught the attention

of theatrical entrepreneur
Sam "Roxy" Rothafel.

He offered Steiner
an opportunity to conduct

in a venue completely new
to him-- a movie theater.

Film music began
before the sound era

because silent films
were never actually silent.

They were always accompanied
by music, were always intended

to be accompanied by music.

These small cinemas,
let's say 1910,

1911, would have been,
a lot of them

would have been makeshift.

They call them
shooting galleries.

They would have been storefronts
such as in New York,

which would have been hollowed
out and narrow and long.

And you put a screen at one end,
usually have a hand-crank

projector in the middle
or the back of the room.

There were no booths,
really, then in those days,

and sometimes you had to play
with the strength of Hercules

on a piano to get the sound
to the back of the theater.

To drown out the noise
of the projector and the fans,

people started using
mechanical pianos,

orchestrions,
just a hand-played piano,

small combination orchestras
in combos as they could afford.

Well, the music was put there
to serve the picture,

and the music was selected
to serve the picture.

It was a burgeoning art form
which attracted

a lot of composers.

Music cues were
composed as an aid to musicians

accompanying films.

The music was generic.

Usually three
to five minutes long,

but they served the need
of the stories on the screen.

There was great demand
for these cues.

By 1912, Sam Fox published
the first folio of film music.

It contained a variety of moods

and themes intended to enhance
the action in the movie.

As theaters grew in size,
audiences grew in size.

The problem for the music
was a simple piano

could not get the horses
through the pass

at the back of the theater.

Wind...

Enter American Photo Player.

These were wonderful machines.

They were extremely popular,

and they were used primarily
in Nickelodeon theaters

because they were
inexpensive to run.

All you had to do
was hire someone

that had an ear for music,
a piano teacher.

Usually it was women that knew
how to drop rolls

from the library.

You could go down
to the music store

and buy a roll
for 10, 25 cents.

Voilà. You had music.
You had free, cheap music.

Theaters were growing,
popularity was growing.

Beginning about 1914, 1915,

now we were getting
the movie palaces

were starting to come in.

They're using orchestras.

These little theaters
couldn't afford orchestras,

but they were still big enough
so a pipe organ could be used,

and a Wurlitzer 1914,
a Hope-John's console.

They came up with an ingenious
design where you had one person

could play like a full orchestra
on this magnificent pipe organ.

To play a Wurlitzer organ
for a silent film

was almost as good
as having a full orchestra

and if you were fortunate
to live in a big city

where they had
a big Wurlitzer organ,

you really got
your money's worth.

The art of the music

and the science
of photo players,

theater organs and mechanical
machinery now reproducing

that beautiful music that gave
silent film a new dimension,

a new voice.

In 1915, one man
completely changed the movie

going experience.

He was David Wark Griffith.

The release of his
"Birth of a Nation"

was a watershed
in film history.

The score was a compilation
of classical music,

folk songs, and music especially
composed for the film.

And that was a major milestone
for music

because that was
a full symphony orchestra

and it had a dynamic sound,

and the film played
for three hours.

"The Birth of a Nation"
was promoted

as a spectacular road show.

In some of the advertising,

they call it the Eighth Wonder
of the World.

After "The Birth of a Nation,"

everyone understood
the importance of music

on a grand scale.

No one grasped this
more astutely than legendary

New York showman
"Roxy" Rothafel.

He introduced large
live orchestras

to the cinematic experience.

Audiences often came
to screenings to hear the music

just as much
as they came to see the film.

It was really
about rating the classics.

A little Tchaikovsky,
a little Brahms,

a little Beethoven,
a little Wagner.

This was the sort
of compilation score time.

So there was
very little original music.

It was not about this music,

particularly serving the needs
of that picture.

It was simply
the grand experience itself,

that of hearing a large symphony
orchestra in a setting

like a fabulous movie palace.

And that's what
thrilled people.

Movie theaters, which supported
the use of an orchestra,

usually had the orchestra play
for the premium showings,

which were in the evening,
and the photo players

and pianist and organist
played at all the other times.

Steiner became
musical director in charge

of a 40-piece nonunion orchestra
for Roxy Rothafel

in one of movie mogul
Sam Fox's theaters.

He quickly adapted
to the new environment.

In those silent days,

we played printed music
and merely made

an attempt to fit it
to the action as best we could.

But accompanying movies

was a mere novelty to Steiner.

His first love
remained live theater.

Eventually, he found work
on the Great White Way,

and in 1916,
he became a conductor.

When I left my home in
Austria as a very young man,

it was the Viennese operetta

that ruled
the entertainment world.

Now, in the new world,
I was to be in

on the formative years
of the American musical comedy.

Between 1919 and 1930,

there was a sea change
in American popular music.

We went from essentially
operetta to jazz,

and the "George White's
Scandals" of 1922

was probably the first show
that he worked on,

in which there was real jazz
in the score.

And Steiner conducted...

♪ I'll build
a stairway to paradise ♪

which was one of the song
hits that came

from the "George White's
Scandals"

he orchestrated
for the show "Lady Be Good,"

which included
"Fascinating Rhythm"

and the title song
"Lady Be Good,"

"The Man I Love."

He worked with
many different composers,

including George Gershwin,
Sigmund Romberg,

Vincent Youmans, Jerome Kern.

So he was top of the heap,
as we say.

Steiner had to learn
as the conductor of musicals

how to conduct a pit orchestra
without overwhelming

the voices of singers
in a pre microphone age.

You have in "Lady Be Good"
a star like Fred Astaire,

who certainly had
a very fine voice

and was a theatrical performer,
but it wasn't a powerful voice.

And so, in supervising
the orchestrations

and often creating
the orchestrations himself,

he had to learn how to balance
the colors of the orchestra,

not to mention
simply the volume.

He was working alongside

all the most important
musical luminaries of the time

who were the architects
of the Broadway musical.

And so he had to orchestrate
in every conceivable style.

And he also conducted, opening
night only, "Blue Monday"

an operetta
written by George Gershwin

that was the precursor
to "Porgy and Bess."

The only show I did
as a composer in those days

was a musical comedy
entitled "Peaches."

The show was no good and never
played New York at all.

But as soon as I was able,
I brought my wife,

Beatrice, and her mother
to America.

Unhappily, our marriage was not
to last too many more years.

By the middle of the 1920s,

motion pictures had reached
a new level of sophistication.

But many issues
remained to be solved.

A constant challenge was how
to synchronize the picture

with the sound to ensure
consistency of playback

between one venue and another?

Major progress was eventually
achieved when Warner Brothers

entered into an agreement
with Western Electric

for the development of what
was called the Vitaphone system.

Sound was recorded
on a 16-inch disc,

played back on a turntable,

mechanically interlocked
with a projector.

The intention was to maintain
the synchronicity

between picture and sound.

In 1926, Warner Brothers
releases "Don Juan"

starring John Barrymore.

And everybody goes to
see it because

it's a Vitaphone film.

The actual feature
was not dialog at all,

but it had this beautiful
orchestral score

with sound effects.

A 1927,
Warner Brothers released

another Vitaphone film

that would revolutionize
motion pictures.

"The Jazz Singer" was
the first time audiences

could hear the human voice
synchronized to the picture.

It featured popular vaudeville
star Al Jolson.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
You ain't heard nothing yet.

The film was a sensation.

The so-called talkies
had arrived.

But the sound was
still recorded on discs.

It was a cumbersome process
with severe limitations.

Something drastic had
to be done.

Hollywood, said,
time out, guys.

We've got to figure out
what we're doing here.

Let's get our act together.
Let's try and get sound on film.

Sound on film was
always the elusive objective.

Many bright minds struggled
with the challenge

of how to carry the soundtrack

on the same piece of film
as the picture.

Many corporations and inventors
devoted their efforts

to solving the issue.

Eventually, a combination

of photochemical
and mechanical advances

resulted in creating
an optically printed soundtrack

running alongside the picture
frames on a roll of celluloid.

Sound on film
had become a reality.

In 1929, thousands of people
were put out of work instantly.

Actors, technicians,
musicians were all out of work

because it was
a different process.

By the time of the birth
of sound,

the early talkie era,

Max Steiner
had had such experience

and such vast
and varied experience,

especially in Broadway shows.

He was a perfect candidate
to come to Hollywood

and bring his Broadway knowhow.

William LeBaron was
head of production

at RKO Radio Pictures
in Hollywood.

On a visit to New York,

he went to the opening
of a show called "Sons O' Guns,"

which Max Steiner
had orchestrated.

Every one of my men
played about

five different instruments.

When the show was over,

LeBaron came down to the pit
and he said,

"You've got to come to
Hollywood.

I've never heard
such a performance in my life."

And I said,
what's in it for me? He told me.

The Baron
duly signed Steiner

to a contract
as an orchestrator

for RKO in Hollywood.

He was 41 years old.

Now dramatic new challenges
lay ahead for him.

Two weeks later,
I came to Hollywood.

It took a couple of years
of production in the late 1920s

and early 1930s for people
to realize that actually music

could play an important role
in heightening the drama

or providing a sense of emotion
to a story.

And it was Max Steiner,
more than anyone else

who pioneered that idea
in the early 1930s.

My arrival in Hollywood
occurred at Christmastime.

It was 1929, the year
of the stock market crash.

This was the unpromising era

in which I started my Hollywood
career in high spirits.

Some of the things that made RKO
different from the other

major Hollywood studios

is it was founded
in the late '20s,

specifically for sound film.

It was an extension of RCA,
and they were interested

in using some of their sound
and film technology,

and they realized that
they needed to create a studio

in which to do that.

So it was a newer studio

and it was compared
to those other studios, smaller.

Max Steiner's first
responsibilities

were to orchestrate
and arrange music

for RKO's busy schedule
of musicals,

a genre very popular
at the time.

But at the end of 1930,
movie musicals

had lost their popularity
with audiences,

and RKO was not doing well.

It laid off most
of its musical staff,

retaining only a downsized
music department.

William LeBaron was so impressed
with Steiner's work,

he asked him
to run the department

at a significant cut
in salary.

Steiner agreed.

He began to think about
using music in new ways,

perhaps even
in dramatic productions.

But the studio was reluctant
to try it.

The earliest sound films,
the only time music is played,

is when it is source music.

You don't hear music
played coming from nowhere.

And the producers said,
well, that can't be.

We can't have music.

People will say,
where's the music coming from?

Steiner saw things
very differently.

He was one of the first
to believe that music

could help
the dramatization of a story.

He saw the potential

of supporting
an actor's performance

with a musical underscore.

An opportunity for him to test

his theory came with a film
called "Cimarron."

The front office
said to me,

could you knock out something
for this picture?

If we don't like it, we'll get
someone else to redo it.

Just give us enough
for the preview.

Steiner seized
the opportunity,

but the front office
was nervous.

He was only allowed
to create music

for the opening
and closing titles

and for the film's
concluding scene.

Nevertheless, what he did
exceeded all expectations.

Although he was not credited
for his work,

his music was the catalyst

for what would become
standard industry practice

for all motion pictures
in the years to come.

The picture previewed
at the Orpheum Theater downtown

and was a smash hit.

When the press notices
came out,

reporters wanted to know
who wrote the music

and why he didn't get credit
on the main title.

This was my real
beginning in Hollywood.

With the success of
"Cimarron" and RKO's desire

to invigorate
its sagging profits,

the studio decided
to recruit new talent.

So they hired
a promising young producer.

David O. Selznick came on board
in the early '30s.

He was only 29 years old.

He was considered something
of a wunderkind in the industry.

He began his career
on the East Coast

and then worked
at various studios in Hollywood

during the silent era.

He, like Steiner,

also believed that music could
make a difference in movies.

The pairing of Selznick
and Steiner

was the first meeting of two
like-minded individuals

who would eventually
become giants in the industry.

On a production called
"Symphony of Six Million,"

Selznick asked Steiner

if he could write a dramatic
underscore for the film.

Selznick conceived that film
as one

that would have a great deal
of music from the beginning

because the screenplay
is something that

is highly unusual for the time,

says over and over there
will be symphonic music

playing during the scene.

There will be dramatic music
under this scene.

I'm sure that was Selznick
dictating that idea.

So Selznick was making
a very big point

of introducing music
in this film.

And of course, he had the ideal
collaborator in Steiner.

And I said, let me try it.

And he says, okay,
you do one scene.

It was where the old man dies,
but his own son operates on him.

And I wrote it.

And when Mr. Selznick
heard it,

he said,
this is just wonderful.

And it was probably
the first score

that we really had almost
complete music to a thing.

And they noticed-- they saw
the effect it had on people.

The story centered
on a protagonist

who was a doctor
and the critical decisions

he had to face in life.

In an early scene,
the central character is seen

playing chess with his father

while his sister plays
a piece of music on the piano.

All right, move.
Steiner took that melody

and then wove it
into his own score,

bringing the theme back
to highlight the thoughts

and feelings of
the protagonist.

It was a brilliant

and innovative technique
for its time.

Steiner was excited
by the opportunity

to bring the Wagnerian approach
of using leitmotifs

with different themes
for different characters,

of carefully writing music under
dialog to the medium of film,

which largely hadn't been done.

The million dollar hands
of Dr. Felix Klauber.

And then another
opportunity came along.

"Bird of Paradise"

benefited from the two men's
productive symbiosis.

The film was scored with almost
a wall to wall music.

It was a remarkable
leap forward.

Steiner made full use of the
Hawaiian setting of the story,

even introducing
a full chorus of singers.

Selznick had big ideas for RKO.

In addition to a schedule
of run of the mill productions,

he wanted to turn out a few
prestigious high-budget films.

"Bird of Paradise"
was one of them.

But although it was an expensive
and ambitious project,

it did not make money
at the box office.

What it did do was introduce
audiences to a rich,

full-bodied musical score,

setting it apart
from any other film of its day.

Steiner understood
music used dramatically.

He was no less a writer of great
leitmotifs than than Wagner.

And that may sound sacrilegious
to some people,

but when you consider the
hundreds and hundreds of themes

that he had to write
for every conceivable

and inconceivable situation
and character, it is dizzying.

And how he never ran
out of inspiration.

And he was able to tailor it to
every single style and project

from the very beginning.

David O. Selznick gave RKO
in 1932 its first grade A

year of movie classics,
beautifully produced,

and in the process,

Steiner and Selznick changed
the history of film music.

Steiner's talents
were equally at home

on a wide variety of films.

With his help, RKO returned
to producing musicals.

Now they were more lush
and spectacular than ever.

Steiner worked on all of them.

His Broadway experience
paid off handsomely

on the stages
of Hollywood as RKO

began to reap profits
from these lavish spectacles.

Audiences loved them.

He also was
the musical director of

Astaire and Rodgers'
pictures, too,

with scores by Irving Berlin.

And so, he had no problem
being a musical director

of a light musical film.

And these films are
very sophisticated musically

and also problematic
for any musical director

because there is chorus
after chorus

after chorus of the given song

that is a song and dance by
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

and then the...

and whoever else does it.

And so, it was up to Steiner as
musical director of the picture

to find ways to present multiple
choruses of this piece of music

heard over and over again
by changing the orchestration,

changing the key,
creating the transitions,

and working with
the rehearsal pianist.

Steiner still was able to draw
on his Broadway experience.

Yet it must have been
rather schizophrenic

going from an Astaire Rogers
picture to "King Kong."

"King Kong,"

a film that would forever
enshrine Steiner's name

in the annals of film history.

At the foot of
the Rockies in Provo, Utah,

lies an unusual place,
a repository of great milestones

in American motion
picture history.

James D'Arc was curator at
the Brigham Young University's

Division of
Special Collections.

He acquired all the Max Steiner
artifacts and memorabilia

from Steiner's late widow,
Lee, in 1981.

Within these,
air conditioned vaults

are stored
priceless treasures.

Many of Steiner's
original musical sketches

and first iterations
of original scores

are preserved for the study and
enjoyment of future generations.

Some are beyond value.

And there is the main title

to one of the most
historic music scores

in motion picture history,
"King Kong."

By Max Steiner.

This is probably the first film
that audiences took notice

of what music could do
in motion pictures.

Steiner's work
was so powerful

that it turned an 18-inch

animated model of an ape
into a 100 feet tall monster

that terrified millions.

D'Arc: This notation
on the score refers

to what's up on the screen.

The picture fades
in the harbor at night.

There was no music
until the ship

The Venture leaves
the New York Harbor

and approaches Skull Island.

So when the fantasy begins,
the music begins.

There's the cue title,
A Boat in the Fog

as they approach Skull Island.

That was a part of
Max Steiner's philosophy.

It was not only
when you have music,

but it was just as important to
him when you don't have music.

The music had to be subservient
to the motion picture,

to the story aspects.

He was sparing on the music

until they actually
got to Skull Island,

where they meet Kong
and all of the incredible events

go to the time they bring
the ape back to New York City

and you have music
for the rest of the film.

When the picture
was completed,

they thought the big gorilla
looked unreal

and too mechanical.

They didn't want to waste
any more money on it

and told me to use old tracks.

Merian C. Cooper,
the producer, then came to me

and asked me to score it
to the best of my ability

and that he would pay
the cost of the orchestra.

Steiner used 46 musicians,

but he had to play
different instruments

to simulate
a much larger orchestra.

He ran up a bill larger

than any previous studio
recording session.

But it was worth every cent.

You really could get
inside the characters.

And he wrote from the inside

so that whether it's the terror
of the islanders in Kong

in trying to find King Kong
or if it's the heart

and feeling of Kong himself
for Ann Darrow,

he is taking us inside
the movie through his music.

It's the Steiner
score that gives Kong his soul.

He becomes sympathetic
as a result of the music.

Steiner had the ability
to capture the emotion

of what the characters
were thinking and feeling,

and the evocation of the set
and the style and the period,

all of that.

He could capture
that very succinctly,

and that, aside
from all of his other gifts,

is an extraordinary ability
that suddenly came to life.

Max's score was so full
and so rich and so evocative

and added so much
to that incredible film

and its success
that everyone took notice.

What he did was really
rather extraordinary.

And as if by magic,
a fever spread over Hollywood.

And everyone said, oh,
I guess we should have music.

For "King Kong,"

Steiner found a professional
partner to augment his work.

His name was Murray Spivack.

He was a sound engineer

who specialized
in creating sound effects.

Already an employee at RKO,

Steiner took him
under his wing to assist

with creating the soundtrack
for the production.

The relationship
paid off handsomely.

When it was recorded,
Spivack was overseeing that

and he has notes to himself
about what should be done

with the microphones,
how they should be moved,

how certain instruments should
be brought out of the texture.

And so he had a huge impact on
on the sound of that music.

It was a really powerful
and important partnership.

And I think when we think
of Max Steiner's legacy

and sort of changing
the art of film music,

we should also be thinking
of Spivack

because he was right there
sort of helping that happen.

But is really the first time
that a composer

demonstrated conclusively
the power of music

to make a film a hit.

One year after "King Kong,"

Max Steiner's versatility
was applied

to a film
of a very different nature.

D'Arc: So here is the score to
his first Academy Award winner,

"The Informer."

1935 was the second year

of the music category

awarded by the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences.

And this was
a much celebrated score.

And it's this score that Max
said he really demonstrated

what movie music could do.

When this picture
was being made,

our executive producer
wasn't too sold on it.

Who wants to look at a picture
that's always in the fog,

he asked.

Steiner was a master
at creating recurring themes

to identify characters,

their actions,
and also locations in the film.

The technique was first used in
19th century opera

by Richard Wagner.

Underscoring a film this way
helped audiences to identify

with the story's
emotional heart

and the beats
of its narrative drive.

It was a huge leap forward
in motion pictures.

All this information
is about ideas.

Thinking and emotion
is told by the music,

and the leitmotif is perfect
because you establish a theme,

the audience
remembers the theme.

And every time
the audience should think

in a certain direction,
they will bring up the theme

because of the strong melody,
they still remember.

Maybe not consciously,
but subconsciously.

Without question,
Max Steiner was one of the great

melodists in Hollywood history.

His thought of melody seemingly
was inexhaustible.

Not only was Steiner
a master of the leitmotif

and melodic themes,
but he had the ability

to musically
catch the action on the screen.

He wrote scores to synchronize
or match movements

or gestures by the cast.

It was a technique the industry
called Mickey Mousing.

Max was not offended
by the term Mickey Mousing.

He used it a couple
of times himself,

saying, I'm using that term
facetiously, of course,

because for him it was Wagnerian
that in Wagner's operas

that when a character moved,

kneeled, turned, stood,
did something,

the music matched.

So he saw it as a continuation
of a very legitimate

kind of 19th century
dramatic writing.

And I didn't know
what I would say.

But now I remember.

There was a sequence
in a cell

where the water is dripping.

The property man
and I work for days

trying to regulate
the water tanks

so it dripped in tempo
and I could accompany it.

People were fascinated,
trying to figure out

how we managed
to catch every drop.

To achieve this exact
synchronization,

Steiner employed the use of what
was called a click track,

a series of audible clicks
similar to a metronome.

The sound was fed to
the conductor through headphones

to maintain the beat.

With this device we could
match the movement on the screen

with complete accuracy.

It also saved a lot of time
on the recording end

because without it, it would
have been quite difficult

to catch the tempo and start
and end at the exact time.

The film is
extremely stylized.

It all takes place
in a few hours

and it's bigger than life.

So Max wrote a score
that is certainly operatic.

One cannot stress enough
how bowled over audiences

were by this score.

They simply were not used to
this degree of musical intensity

in a film.

At the time, it was by far
Steiner's most acclaimed score,

and for many years
people would say,

Max Steiner of "The Informer."

Frank Capra sent him
a telegram saying,

"This is the greatest film score
ever written."

I like his definition.
Music is a glove.

That fits to the scene
and he's knitting this glove

that it fits perfectly
to the scene.

One of the great gifts
that Steiner had was the ability

not only to transport
an audience

while watching a film,

but in many cases
to create music so indelible

that they remembered it
many years, even decades later.

Maggie! Maggie!

Your mother forgives me.

Max Steiner took things
that other people had used,

and he combined them
into what I would say

is the grammar of film music.

He synthesized it all
and essentially created

the grammar of film music
as we know it today.

D'Arc: So here we have

Max Steiner's first
Academy Award.

See in these days the composer
didn't get the Academy Award.

The head of the music department
got the Academy Award.

That was changed later on.

Happily, though,
the head of the music department

and the composer
were the same person.

As musical director of RKO,

for nearly six years,

Steiner had set the bar
on how films should be scored.

I remember Max saying that
when you write a score,

you have to write for
the musically intelligent people

in the audience,
and I think he said

also the idiots meaning
that you have to communicate

to everybody,
even the music illiterate.

Good as he was,

Steiner was always
under great pressure.

He found methods for tackling
every challenge.

I never read a script

because I may form
a wrong opinion.

I imagine the characters
different, the story different,

and sometimes
I'm terribly disappointed.

When the picture is finished,
I run it.

I run it with the producers,
sometimes a director,

sometimes without anybody.

And then I start my music.

In other words, I decide I play
here, play here, play here.

Then I time it.

I mean, the time
to the minute and seconds.

Sometimes I drive just

the very end...

And he had his
music editor there,

and it was his job
to note the frames

that they wanted to start a cue
and then end the cue.

And he would make a script
of the dialog of everything

happening on the screen.

Do a third of a second.

While these cue sheets
are being made,

I began work on themes for the
different characters and scenes.

I run the picture reel by reel
again to refresh my memory.

Then I put my stopwatch
on the piano

and I begin the actual
and tedious work of composing

according to my cue sheets.

I know he used to have a glass
of whiskey

on his piano
when he worked, right?
Yeah, yeah.

But he used to love having that
cigar and his whiskey on it.
Yeah.

And he would record all night.

He got up early and composed

and usually to call--
an orchestra loved him

because he always give them
over time or do it at like 9:00

till three in the morning
when they get double time.

And of course,
they were happy about that.

Often he would write notes in
the margin to his orchestrator

and his orchestrators,
Hugo Fryhofer, Murray Cutter,

others would know his style
well enough

that he could write
in this shorthand.

Hugo, please compare cue
sheet with this music.

So you know what I am
unsuccessfully trying to do?

Maxi. Fin. Hurrah!
Thank God. Schmaltz.

Because he had
this great camaraderie

with the orchestrator,
he would have them come over

when he could give them
a sketch orchestra,

he would play it at the piano
and tell them,

you know, I want trombones there
or something.

And Max would use his sketches
or a conductor book to conduct

because he'd get a lot
more music on three lines

than he could on
a full score pages.

You could have the greatest
music that was ever written.

You could have Richard Wagner.
I don't care who.

And if the picture stinks,

may I say that the score
will fall down?

Music will help the picture,
but it can never save it.

The most towering of
all of Max Steiner's work

lies penciled on the pages
stored within this container.

It is his most beloved score--
"Gone with the Wind."

The main title and the foreword
to "Gone with the Wind."

Prior to that immense project,

Steiner's busy life at RKO
was all-consuming.

He found little time
for anything other than work.

But one day in 1932,
while conducting,

he noticed a shapely young
harpist in the orchestra--

Louise Klos.

I couldn't help
noticing her not only

because she was attractive,

but also because
she was a phenomenal harpist.

In 1927, Max had
married Aubrey van Lieu.

She was a starlet
who was performing

in ensembles on Broadway.

But that relationship
came to an end in 1933.

His heart was now set
on Mr. Klos.

They were married
in October 1936.

They bought a piece of ground
on Cove Way in Beverly Hills

and began building
their dream home.

Their street ran into
Summit Drive

where many celebrities
owned houses,

including the likes of
Mary Pickford, Fred Astaire,

Charlie Chaplin,

and Steiner's RKO colleague,
producer David O. Selznick.

I learned that on
Cove Way lived Max Steiner,

who had composed
so many of my father's films.

I actually asked my father

if he could introduce me
to Mr. Steiner.

So at one point, I guess when
I was three or three and a half,

I was brought across the street
to see this shy, balding man,

terribly sweet, soft spoken
with a European accent.

He said, "Danny, would you
like me to play for you?"

And I said, "Please do."

So suddenly, this incredibly
sensitive human being

was playing
this beautiful music.

And only as the years passed
and I began to see all the films

that my father had produced
in those early years at RKO,

did I realize how much they were
enhanced by Max Steiner scores.

I think Mr. Steiner must have
said to me very early on, Danny,

any time you feel
like coming over here,

you don't even have to call
in advance to just feel free

to knock on the front door
and we'll be happy to have you.

So I would spend
30 or 45 minutes

or an hour just sitting

and watching Mr. Steiner
play at the piano.

While working at RKO,

Selznick had always nurtured
a dream

to establish his own studio.

In 1935,

he formed Selznick International
Pictures in Culver City.

Steiner was still on RKO's
payroll at the time,

but Selznick managed to gain
access to his services

through a loan out arrangement.

The purpose was to have him
write the music

for "Little Lord Fauntleroy"

the first film produced
under the Selznick banner.

After this production,

Steiner became a full-time
employee for Selznick.

The idea of hiring Max Steiner,
who my father discovered

so early in their joint careers
together at RKO

caused my father to keep
using him again and again.

David had always liked me
and appreciated my work.

He gave me so much a better
contract than I had had at RKO

that I couldn't turn it down.

"The Garden of Allah"
was Steiner's next project.

It was an exotic Technicolor
spectacle

starring Marlene Dietrich
and Charles Boyer.

But Steiner's relationship
with Selznick

was not always an easy one.

David O. Selznick did not have
formal musical training,

but he cared deeply
about the music in his films

and wanted to be as involved
as he could be.

But it also meant that he had
ideas about what he imagined

the music would do
once it was in the film.

And sometimes what Steiner wrote
did not fulfill that.

And so he would say,

"Well, that's not what I had
in mind. Can you redo it?"

Or "We're going to take
your music out

and put some other music in."

Particularly in the later '30s,

he was concerned
that Steiner was doing too much

so-called Mickey Mousing.

And so their relationship
is peppered

with these alternating moments
of sort of mutual admiration

and then sort
of mutual annoyance.

The disagreements
between Selznick and Steiner

came to a head in 1937
on "A Star Is Born."

Max wrote what he thought
was a very fine score,

and when Selznick heard it,
he was really unhappy.

For the first time,

just wrote a page of notes
excoriating cue by cue

what Max had done and writing,
NG, NG, NG,

no good, no good, no good.

And he basically made Max
rewrite the score.

Many studios hankered
for Steiner's talents.

Prior to his writing
of "A Star is Born,"

Selznick had loaned him out
to Warner Brothers

to work on "The Charge
of the Light Brigade."

That studio had long
been urging him

to join their permanent staff.

After completing the rewrite
for "A Star is Born,"

Steiner sends Selznick
a letter of resignation.

He did this reluctantly because
he knew Selznick was about

to produce one of the most
ambitious films of all time.

Selznick had optioned
the bestselling novel

"Gone with the Wind"
by Margaret Mitchell.

It was a story that had taken

the American reading public
by storm.

Selznick kept waffling
about who he wanted to score

the movie right up until,
I believe it was March of 1939,

well into production.

Fortunately, Selznick,

after considering everyone else
returned to Plan A

and asked Steiner to score
"Gone with the Wind."

Even though he was now
at Warner Brothers,

his heart was set
on scoring the film.

Mr. Warner, I am perfectly
willing to do

"Gone with the Wind,"

either on leave
of absence or under my contract,

but it is as necessary for me,
my pride,

my standing,
and my future activity

to do "Gone with the Wind"
as it is

as necessary for an actor
to get a break once in a while.

Jack Warner agreed,

and it was to Warner's advantage
to loan Steiner out

because Selznick
would pay top dollar.

He would pay Jack Warner
more than Jack Warner

was paying Max Steiner.

So Warner would make a profit.

And Max was indeed
loaned out to score

"Gone with the Wind."

Almost until
the film's premiere,

which was on
December 15, 1939.

Max was jumping
between film projects,

some of them at Warner Brothers,

then going back to Selznick
to work a little

"Gone with the Wind."

Then to score a different movie

because Selznick needed
help on "Intermezzo."

Max really didn't have time
to start working on

"Gone with the Wind,"

nor was there
a really locked cut

until late in October 1939

became creatively the most

fulfilling and nightmarish year
of Max's life.

Nuremberg, Germany,
September 12.

Apart from his hefty
professional schedule

of scoring 11 films in 1939,

Steiner also had to deal with
the trauma of the violence

sweeping across Europe.

Hitler was on the warpath.

And the old world that he had
known in Vienna was crumbling.

His mother, Mitzi, had divorced
his father, Gabor,

and had passed away in 1937.

Steiner was compelled
to bring his father from Vienna

to live with him and Louise in
their new home in Beverly Hills.

Sieg heil!
Sieg heil! Sieg heil!

One of the scores for
Warner Brothers that Steiner

had composed that year
was "Confessions of a Nazi Spy."

It dealt with the break
up of a German spy ring

in the United States.

Afraid of repercussions
for any family members

still living in Nazi
occupied Austria.

He took no screen credit

and simply signed
the score as staff.

1939 would also bring
a set of challenges

for the Selznick family.

In my childhood,

my mother and father seem to be
madly love with each other.

There were certainly
fabulous parents.

I don't say for a moment
that I was not very much aware

that I was privileged.

David O. Selznick's wife, Irene,

was a daughter of
Louis B. Mayer.

He was the legendary head
of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

As a result, the young Selznick
had grown up with celebrities

all around him from his youth.

He was exposed to stories
of the trials and tribulations

of the film industry.

In 1939,

his mother, Irene, was deeply
concerned about the pressure

making "Gone with the Wind"
was having on her husband.

My mother said years later
she wondered

whether he could survive it

because it was like
a nine-month shoot.

It's almost unimaginable
for any picture.

And he'd gone to his doctors,
apparently before it started,

said, I need 20
or 21 hours a day.

Are there any medicines on the
market that you could give me?

Well, so he took benzedrine,
dexedrine for the nine months

shooting "Gone with the Wind,"

and then he could not
get off them.

So he was-- his entire
stability was destroyed

from that point on.

And I think
it's one of the things

that finally ended
my parents' marriage,

because my mother said
he was no longer the man

that she'd married,

which is really
heartbreaking to me.

Nevertheless,
Selznick would leave

an incomparable legacy
of films

with musical themes by Steiner
that would live on for all time.

But my favorite theme is...

...I love that.

But he wrote themes
for every character.

But that main theme...

Steiner always played
his themes on the piano

for Selznick's approval
before scoring them.

Timeless.

Themes from "Gone with the Wind"
they had to be pieces of music

that would endure
through the film

where you could hear something
repeated over and over again

and you wouldn't
get tired of it.

And so, he was writing themes
that sometimes are very simple.

And I think,
my God, that's so simple.

But that is another
sign of genius.

The film is said to have
this big splashy we can't move

it premiere in Atlanta
on December 15.

So the pressure was really on
and Selznick began to panic

and Max began to panic.

And it was
a very tense atmosphere.

And Max assembled an enormous
team of people to help him.

Anyone would have needed
a large team to help him write

over three and a half hours
of music

for a nearly four-hour movie.

His collaborators
were all composers

in their own right.

They were more than capable
of executing

Steiner's musical ideas
and themes,

but it was an enormous
undertaking for all concerned.

Because he had at least eight
other composers

working with him on it
because of the tight deadlines.

He signed it.
Steiner and company.

So in the score,
you're not only see the music

in Max Steiner's hand,
but you see it in the hand

of many other composers
who helped him.

He sent the melodies
and they did the fill in,

fleshing out the entire score.

Despite the additional help,

Steiner was in trouble.

The movie's opening date
was fast approaching.

Time was of the essence.

Finally, in early November,
Steiner said, I can't do it.

I can't finish
the score on time.

Producer Selznick
privately contacted

Herbert Stothart, who was the
longtime chief composer at MGM.

He was a born
and bred Southerner

and dearly wanted the job.

But then, as now,
gossip spread fast in Hollywood.

Word got back to Steiner
and he said, absolutely not.

No one is going to score
this movie except for me.

And he basically worked for
the next month without sleep.

He would get a benzedrine shot
each morning

after a couple of hours of sleep
to get him alert again.

And he would just work nonstop
on the film.

Exhausted,

Steiner and the other composers
met the deadline.

The score was completed in time

for the film's much publicized
release in December.

Where shall I go,
what should I do?

Frankly, my dear,
I don't give a damn.

The finished production

ran 3 hours and 40 minutes.

It was a record for its time.

Leonard Bernstein
says something

to the effect of all you need

for a wonderful project
is a great idea

and not quite enough time.

And I think there's
a lot of truth to that.

And I think actually
to some extent,

the pressure cooker
of the situation,

the fact that they had
to work quickly

and yet give their
very best work

did allow tremendous results.

I wasn't even allowed to
see "Gone With the Wind"

until I was nine years old.

I kept campaigning every year.

Can I see--
no, no, you're not old enough.

And of course,
as everybody knows who see

"Gone with the Wind" even once,
what do they remember?

They remember Vivien Leigh

and they remember
Max Steiner's score.

I'll think of some way
to get him back

after all,
tomorrow is another day.

I think that Max
responded to

"Gone with the Wind" on a level
that many people don't realize.

It sounds funny to say,

but it was really
his story as well.

Max was someone who grew up

in Vienna
at the turn of the century,

this magical world
in his own version of a mansion,

a plantation, this wonderful
fantasy world that his father,

Gabor, had created.

And then Gabor lost everything.

He lost his money.
His marriage ended.

All the theaters
that he operated

went to other people.

Steiner was a beggar
at that point.

And by 1939,
Hitler had annexed Austria.

So really, the story
of a lost land of beauty

and also the desire to rebuild
and restore the family name

was something that meant
a great deal to Steiner,

something he wanted to do.

He wanted to rehabilitate
his father.

He wanted to rehabilitate
the legacy of the Steiners.

So I think that he responded
to "Gone with the Wind"

on a very deep
and personal level.

Steiner eventually
sold his house

on Cove Way to Glenn Ford
and his wife, Eleanor Powell.

Mr. and Mrs. Ford would
sometimes invite me

into their living room,
and there was a piano there.

Mr. Ford said,
does this bring back memories?

And I'd say, Mr. Ford,

it brings back memories
of Max Steiner and...

I can't begin to tell you

just standing in this room
brings him back to me.

And I hope from time to time

you stop and realize
whose home you're in.

Prior to the advent of
the "Star Wars" franchise

in the 1970s,

if anyone was stopped
in the street

and asked to name a film score,

they would have invariably said
"Gone with the Wind."

It had monumental power
and had become woven

into the very fabric
of American cultural history.

It's the incredible music
that provided the feeling

and the emotion
of the old South.

Its triumphs, its tragedies,
the love affairs,

the broken love affairs,

and most of all,
the famous Tara's Theme.

All that one needs to do is come
a bar or two of Tara's Theme

and just like "The Wizard of Oz"
or "Star Wars,"

people will recognize instantly
the tune that you're humming

because it's just musical
shorthand for the story

of the grand old south
that was "Gone with the Wind."

"Gone With the Wind"
won a record 10 Academy Awards

and is now enshrined
for posterity

as an American treasure.

But for Max Steiner,
he's best was far from over.

When Hollywood was at
the apex of its golden age

in the '30s,

the sprawling production complex
that was established

by the Warner Brothers
was thriving.

The studio was headed
by Jack Warner,

a notoriously tough taskmaster,

but he was very partial
to the music of Max Steiner.

When Max wrote that
resignation letter to Selznick,

he knew that there was
going to be another job offer

on the table
because he knew that Jack Warner

loved his scores.

So sure enough, within days,

Max had signed a contract
with Warner Brothers

and became a staff composer.

And there he found

what he called in a letter
the right place to be.

I once asked Jack Warner,

how much music
do you want in the picture?

He answered, for my money,

you can start on the first frame
and finish on the list.

At Warner Brothers,

Max could be purely
a composer at a studio

that had tremendous appreciation
for his ability.

As I see it,
the most important thing about

screen composing is the judgment
involved in knowing

when and where to start
and stop the music.

Underscoring helps the action
sometimes.

Jack Warner loved
Steiner's music.

By 1939, Jack Warner
was telling Leo Forbstein,

head of the music department,

I want everyone to do
what Max Steiner's doing.

You know, show them
what Max's latest movie is.

That's what I want.

If anything, Max was loved
too much at Warner Brothers

because they worked him
nearly to death.

Truly, the workload he had at

Warner Brothers
would have killed many people.

When I scored two films
in six weeks,

the session producer came to me
and said, Max,

how could you write
all that music for two pictures

with such different moods
in such a short time?

I answer them, I have
an electric pencil sharpener.

This story went
all over Hollywood.

Because he came from
a family of workhorses

because he was very proud
of his craft

and his ability to deliver

because he wanted to prove
to the world

that the name of Steiner
still meant something,

Steiner worked himself night
and day, day after day,

with very little sleep,

doing what would be impossible
for most people.

The only thing
that made him more upset

about having to work day
and night

was hearing that someone else
had been assigned to a movie.

And then he would write and say,
why wasn't I assigned to that?

In 1937, the famous
Warner Brothers fanfare was used

for the first time
in a film called "Tovarich."

Composed by Steiner,

it was featured again in
"Gold Is Where You Find It."

Then it became
the musical signature,

heralding every Warner Brothers
production for almost 20 years.

Now, this is one of Max's

many scores for the year 1939.

This score is important
because Max Steiner

was really the founder
and innovator of expansive

Western themes
for Western movies.

Both music to define Indians
and Indian attacks,

as well as
the wide open plains.

The film is about
the founding of Dodge City

and the role of the railroad
in doing it.

It's Max's music that gives
this film its incredible sense

of vastness, wonderment,

the settling
of the American West,

which he would carry it on
in Westerns

such as "They Died with
Their Boots On,"

"The Oklahoma Kid."

Steiner was a master
at this kind of thing.

What's this?
"My Life with General Custer."

Oh, darling,
that's my diary.

D'Arc: With Max Steiner having
had the classic European musical

training that he did,

claiming to have been instructed
by Gustav Mahler and others,

he brought this tradition
of lush,

full scores
to the United States.

And this time period
in the 1930s

and '40s
with Erich Wolfgang Korngold

and Alfred Newman
was the great time for the lush

middle European type of
film scoring.

So influential
that it was carried on

into the last part
of the 20th century

and the first part
of the 21st century

by the great John Williams,

whose legendary association
with Steven Spielberg

and his films have shown
that that kind of composition

has not gone
out of style at all,

even though many of the films of
that kind are considered passé.

People love the rich,
full scores,

and many composers acknowledge

that this came from this classic
era of film composition

in which Max Steiner
led the way.

Warner Brothers had
one of the best music

departments in town.

It used only
the top talent available.

Steiner wrote quickly,

but was given all the time
he needed to rehearse.

His tenure at the studio
lasted for almost 30 years.

During that period, he composed
the scores for 150 films.

He set the gold standard
and adapted to changing times.

Most of all, he was beloved
by everyone he worked with.

Max was not a Toscanini
by a long shot.

He'd make mistakes,
you know, conducting.

And we never said anything
to him because of why.

And of course, with that
huge cigar all the time

that the ashes would fall
all over the music,

all over the stand,
and all over everything.

That cigar was always
in his mouth.

He had a fantastic
sense of humor.

Absolutely fantastic.

And if things got tense
and tight

and he felt it
in the orchestra,

he would then either tell
a story or a dirty joke

or something
to break the tension.

I mean, there wasn't anybody
in the orchestra

who didn't adore him.

I mean,
there was a great love for him.

And it showed in the performance
that the orchestra gave him.

He was a very warm
and a very funny man.

Musicians loved him.
Hollywood executives loved him.

It was just a joy to be around.

He was funny,
he was enthusiastic,

and he loved his work.

And when you look at his scores,
you can just tell the energy

and passion
that he brought to it all.

Steiner's humor is
borne out by his notes

in the margins
of all his scores,

particularly to his
orchestrator, Hugo Friedhofer.

Hugo, I don't think there
should have been music

over this scene,
but they want it.

This is awful. I think.

Lieber Hugo!
Dahke fur alles.

Viele kuesse.
Shostakov Steiner.

Music unfortunately
by Max Steiner.

My only contact with
Max was through telephone calls.

Generally around two or three in
the morning and through notes

that he would scribble on the
side of the orchestral sketch.

To orchestrate for Max,

you had to be clairvoyant about
what he really wanted to hear.

Naturally, working with him
for upwards of eight years,

I knew actually
what was kicking inside.

At the end of
"Dark Victory,"

as Bette Davis is dying and Max

is writing this gorgeous music,
he will write an instruction

to his orchestrator
Hugo Friedhofer,

saying, Hugo, please
make this heaven so beautiful

that no studio supervisor
will ever be able to get inside.

He was an inveterate
manufacturer

of simply horrible puns.

It was so bad,
that they were good,

particularly in our
early morning

or late night telephone calls.

We used to do
an awful lot of kidding.

I'd be down in my study working

and the phone would ring
and they would pick it up

and do a simulated
Japanese houseboy type accent.

You know, I'd raise my voice
about an hour it would be,

hello, hello,
who are calling, please.

And Max found that
for some reason

tremendously amusing.

And there's got to be a sort of
a trademark between us.

One of the most
famous stories about Steiner

is when he was working
on the Warner Brothers lot

and he ran into the other giant
of film music,

Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

And Korngold humorously said
to Max, Max,

why is it that is,
as years go by,

my scores get better and better
and yours get worse and worse.

And without missing a beat,
Max said,

that's because I've been
stealing from you

and you've been
stealing from me.

He had an innate shyness
and sweetness that no matter

how important he'd become
throughout the world,

he still was the same, simple,
sweet Max Steiner.

Played once, Sam,
for old times sake.

I don't know what you mean,
Miss Elsa.

Play it, Sam.
Play "As Time Goes By."

Well, I can't
remember it, Miss Elsa.

I'm a little rusty on it.

I'll hum it for you.

In 1942,

Steiner produced another
perennial score.

It was for a film
that has become recognized

as one of the greatest
of all time.

Based on an unproduced play
called

"Everyone Comes to Rick's,"

the film was "Casablanca."

Here's looking at you, kid.

But the famous song
"As Time Goes By"

was originally written in 1931
by Herman Hupfeld.

Max Steiner had to use
somebody else's theme

as the leitmotif
of Rick and Elsa.

He told his wife,

they have the lousiest tune
you could imagine,

and I have to write
my music about.

And Herman Hupfeld wrote
in his autobiography,

that he had ongoing arguments
with Max Steiner

and he hated the song
and so on.

But of course, the producer
prevailed and Max Steiner

had to write this music about
the song "As Time Goes By."

Max grumbled
and screamed and yelled

until he finally
got down to work.

And then from that time on,

I heard no more
about his objection to the tune.

The segments of this theme
are very easy to be used

in all kinds of leitmotif work
and the harmonic part.

This is the more interesting
part in music.

That's the part that the
audience rather feels and hears.

But this is mostly
the part of the music

that the composers used
to manipulate the audience.

Steiner brilliantly
used the different colors

of his orchestra,

like a painter, uses colors
on a palette to evoke emotions.

I think it's very fair to say

that it is the melody
that we hear

and it is the harmony and
the construction of the music

around that melody
that makes us feel.

And no one did that better
than Steiner. No one.

The score incorporates
many popular

and standard songs
of that period.

But Max's score
is the through line.

It's the through line
that takes us from one scene

to the next in a seamless way.

He used "As Time Goes By,"

ultimately as one of the motifs
of his score.

Every time we hear
the motif "As Time Goes By,"

it's a kind of remembrance of
their common history in Paris.

And without "Casablanca,"

nobody today would know
the song "As Time Goes By."

In typical humorous style,

he signed the last page
of the "Casablanca" score.

Dear Hugo.
Thanks for everything.

I am very pleased with you.
Yours, Herman Hupfeld.

While Steiner was
nominated for an Oscar

for "Casablanca,"

he didn't win,
but the film itself

won the Oscar
for best picture of 1944.

It's his ability to be
one with the audience,

to not only be
inside the story,

but to love the glamor
of those actresses

and also to imagine himself
to be Clark Gable

and to identify
with Rick Blaine in Casablanca

and to feel the loneliness
of those characters.

And for a man
who was successful

and and seldom
without female companionship,

I think there was
a great longing with him.

There was a period
where he and his third wife

were separated
for a number of years,

and it was excruciating
for him.

I think it's not coincidental

that he wrote some of his most
beautiful and romantic scores,

like "Casablanca" during
that period of their separation.

When that plane leaves
the ground

and you're not with him,
you'll regret it.

Maybe not today,
maybe not tomorrow, but soon.

And for the rest of your life.

But what about us?

We'll always have Paris.

We didn't have we--

we'd lost it until you came
to Casablanca.

We got it back last night.

When I said I would never
leave you.

And you never will.

At the end of the film
when they split up,

it's Max's music that provides
so much emotional heart

to that story.

Max really responded to
beauty. He loved romance.

He loved falling in love.

He loved falling in love
with the actresses in his films,

the way that we do
when we see them.

He was entranced
by Vivien Leigh.

He was enraptured
by Ingrid Bergman.

And I think when
you hear that music,

it's the music of someone who,

in a very appropriate way
at a distance,

is falling in love
with those characters

and also the actresses
who embody them.

When I think of Max Steiner,
I think he taught us

how to care about characters
on screen through music.

And I think that is perhaps
his most lasting contribution.

Not only how do you depict
a character's subjectivity

or their point of view
through music,

but how do you shape
an audience's relationship

with a character through melody
and through musical sound?

I think that's the reason
why he was Bette Davis's

favorite composer as well,

is that in films like "Now,
Voyager" and so many others,

he is really giving us insight
into a character

that we would not necessarily
have without the music.

Bette Davis famously commented
that Max Steiner was possibly

over anticipating
the dramatic pinnacle of a scene

she was doing in "Dark Victory"

and that he was going to reach
the top of the stairs

before she did.

It's a funny remark,
but it may also have been true.

She knew the value
of that music,

the effectiveness of her
performance in that

and many other films.

I don't think any actor
appreciated him

more than Bette Davis.

She wanted him to score
his films

when she produced her one film

at Warner Brothers
"A Stolen Life,"

she asked for Max to score it.

And years later, she once said,
Max Steiner was my composer.

Well, I'm not going to struggle
with you.

That's right.

No telling
what sort of primitive instincts

you might arouse.

Isn't it beautiful?

Max was very much a creature
of late

19th century romantic music.

But that music,

that style really fit
those movies in that time.

What's amazing is
how much fabulous music,

the grand melodies, the great
themes that we still remember.

He could be both inspired
and practical at the same time.

In 1943, Steiner
won his second Academy Award.

It was for "Now Voyager."

There's 12 notes on the piano.

There's 12 notes
in the scale.

How is it
that people right and right

and right and right with
this limited number of notes,

and especially for one composer
as prolific as Max.

How did he do it?

Yes, there were borrowings
at times,

but for the most part it's fresh
and it's fresh for the period.

And he kept up with the times
because he just,

I think, organically
absorbed everything.

He could make it fresh
by altering the rhythm,

changing the style, the harmony.

He knew all of the tricks
of the trade

to adapt something to make it
sound appropriate.

Steiner understood
how to do that,

and he had to do it
because of the amount of work

that he was engaged in.

Because he wrote so quickly,
he just did it.

And he trusted his ability
and it came out a certain way.

I don't think that he slaved
over much of anything.

He wrote inspirationally.

And that was in spite
of the fact

that he really had
to write perspirationally.

Because you'll never be anything
but a common frump

whose father lived
over a grocery store

and whose mother
took in washing.

With this money, I can get away
from every rotten,

stinking thing that makes me
think of this place or you.

Veda!

In the 1940s,

the style
and content of moviemaking

was broadened to include
a new genre

that historians later
called film noir.

Subjects dealt with the duality
of the human psyche.

Embracing good and evil,
light and dark.

After World War II,

audiences were ready to explore
the darker side of human nature.

It became a very popular
form of entertainment.

Steiner rapidly adapted
to the style.

He wrote 40 scores for films
like "Mildred Pierce"

and "The Big Sleep."

During Steiner's years
on the Warner Brothers lot,

he wrote scores
for many of their major films.

Those were movie
factories then,

both at RKO
and then at Warner Brothers,

where even a celebrated composer
like Steiner had to turn it out

almost like on a factory
assembly line basis.

But he tried very hard
not to treat his scores

like just so much fodder.

He always delivered the goods,
you could say.

If my numbers are correct,

Max scored 19 Bette Davis films
and 14 with Humphrey Bogart

and at least a dozen,
I think, with Errol Flynn.

So when you think
about these great actors,

all of whom were
at Warner Brothers

for a long period of time
in the 1930s

and '40s and beyond,

it's hard to separate those
performances from that music

that's helping us
feel something.

And all of these films,
you can't think of them

without remembering
the Max Steiner score.

These are all classic films,
and in every case,

Max's music
elevates their performances

and elevates the storytelling.

Another Oscar winner.

Here are all three of
Max Steiner's Academy Awards.

The Academy Award for
"Since You Went Away"

was a score done very hastily
for David O. Selznick

for this 1944 film
of America,

The Home Front
during World War II

while the men were off to war.

Bye, darling.
Oh, Bill, I'll keep it!

I'll keep it with me
all the time.

So long, darling. Bye!

D'Arc: Steiner quoted generously
from his earlier

David O. Selznick score
the 1937 film

"A Star is Born."

It's a peculiar thing
on "Gone with the Wind"

everybody won an Academy Award
except me.

And in "Since You Went Away,"
nobody won.

And I was the only one
who did win for music.

So we got even.

With the pressure
of his workload

and the many accolades
he received

life was Steiner during this
busy period was bittersweet.

On the 2nd of March 1940,
my son Ronald was born.

This was probably the most
joyous event in my whole life.

As things turned out,
he was to be my only child.

I adored him and indulged him

perhaps too much
while I had him.

Steiner was 51
when Ronald was born.

He loved his son dearly

and gave him
the nickname Ronnie.

But there was drama at home.

After bringing his father,

Gabor, from Austria
to live with him in Hollywood,

his presence
made things difficult.

The two men, father and son,
spoke only German to each other.

Steiner's wife, Louise,
could not speak the language

and began to feel left out.

With personal friction,

aggravating things
in the marriage,

in 1941,
she left husband and son

to pursue a career
as an opera singer.

This took her to Italy
and New York.

Steiner was heartbroken.

In September 1944,
at the age of 86,

Gabor took ill and passed away.

His many earlier accomplishments
in Europe

were remembered
in the national press.

One event stands out
in my memory in 1945,

the divorce from my wife,
Louise.

She wanted to remain
in New York

and refused to live
in California.

I had a seven-year contract
with Warner Brothers

and I had made my career here.

It was agreed that Ronald
would stay with me for a while,

then with her, then back to me.

This is exactly what happened
with unhappy results.

With the finalization
of his divorce,

Steiner bought a smaller house.

At the same time, he renewed
a friendship with a woman

he had known for a while.

Her name was Leonette Blair.

That was the start
of the romance.

In 1947,
we were married in Las Vegas.

She is probably the kindest
person I have ever met.

She has a great sense of theater
and a terrific memory for music

and was always a wonderful
stepmother to my son Ronnie.

Although she did not sanction
my overindulgence of him.

Steiner's dream was to see

Ronnie become his successor.

I had hoped Ronnie would
take some interest in music.

I had him take piano lessons

from the age of 6
until he was 12.

I had to pay him
for practicing,

but he simply
wouldn't keep at it.

So we finally gave up.

As Ronnie grew into
his teenage years,

he became moody and difficult.

He was notoriously
disobedient at school.

Yet Steiner tried to give
his son everything he could.

Except for two things
his attention and his time.

He was just too busy working.

My dearest boy. Many,
many happy returns of the day.

Love and kisses.

Then, my dear Ronnie,
I was very unhappy

and extremely disappointed
to hear from your mother

that you've been such a bad boy.

I also feel very much ashamed
that my little boy,

whom I love so much,

spends most of his time
sitting up the hall

being punished.

My dearest boy,
you are now 15 years old,

and that means
you're almost a man.

So try and change your ways.
Be nice to your mother.

Ronnie and his father
always remained in close contact

with one another,

but by the time he was 22,
he had become a lost young man.

On the 29th of April,
at 7:00 in the morning,

Associated Press called me up
and told me my son was dead.

He had committed suicide
at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel

in Honolulu.

Ronnie had suffered
from emotional disturbances

for quite a while

and had been under the care
of various specialists.

I was absolutely devastated
at the news.

I loved my child very dearly.

He was a wonderful boy,
6-foot-2 inches,

very handsome
and a fine gentleman.

And I don't think
I shall ever fully recover

from the grief and shock.

I was very ill for many months.

Max Steiner was a workaholic,

but his dedication to his craft
came at a price.

His eyesight began to fail.

The solution was to have
large scoring sheets

specially made
so that musical notations

could be large enough for him
to see when he conducted.

Lee helps me with my cue
sheets and my timing

and is actually
my musical secretary.

She is without doubt
the best thing

that ever happened to me
in my life.

When Steiner got
the assignment

to write the score for
"Don Juan,"

a Warner Brothers swashbuckler
starring Errol Flynn,

he was especially inspired.

Lee Steiner told me
how the famous main title theme

for this motion picture
came about.

He wasn't getting
much inspiration,

and yet he was under
tremendous pressure.

They decided to drive
from Los Angeles to Las Vegas

to do some gambling
that Max Steiner just loved.

And it was during
one of the games in a casino

that he got the inspiration
for the main title,

and yet no scoring paper
to notate.

He hummed it to his wife, Lee.

She would hum it back to him,
and as she told it to me,

we were humming it all the way
back from Las Vegas in the car

until we finally got home.

We got the music paper

and he was finally able
to write it down.

And what a beautiful score
it is.

It's considered to be
one of his best scores

and certainly one
of his most colorful.

In the early '50s,
a serious decline

began to erode the condition
of the film industry.

Despite years of popularity,

the movies were losing
their audience.

The culprit was a device placed

in the living room
of most American homes.

Television was luring people
away from the big screen.

Hollywood had to come up
with a solution.

The result was the development
of new motion

picture presentation systems

for making the movies bigger
and more lifelike than ever.

One of the first of these new
widescreen systems relied

on projecting
three separate strips of film

alongside one another
on a giant curved screen.

The resulting picture
virtually wrapped itself

around the audience.

Not only that,

but the new miracle
of what was called Cinerama

brought multiple channel
stereophonic sound

into the theater.

The effect was breathtaking.

A 1951, Steiner's old friend,
Merian C. Cooper,

was developing
the first Cinerama production.

Steiner had worked with Cooper

in the '30s when he produced
"King Kong."

To introduce Cinerama
to the audiences of the world,

a full-length travel documentary
feature went into production.

It was simply called
This Is Cinerama.

One day,
Merian sent for me.

Max, he said, I want you
to write the best music

you've ever written in your life
for this first Cinerama film.

Warner Brothers would
not release Steiner

from his contract
or from the film

he was scoring for them.

But he agreed to write the music
without Warner's knowledge.

His good friend and colleague,
musical director Louis Forbes,

viewed the film for him
and created cue sheets

that he could use
to secretly compose the score.

Needless to say, I was half
dead by the time

the Cinerama and the Warner
picture was finished.

But This is Cinerama
was such a smash success

as everybody knows.

I got no screen credit
and no remuneration.

But Mr. Cooper sent
both Lou Forbes

and me a beautiful wristwatch
which I still wear and treasure.

In 1955, Steiner
teamed up again

with Merian C. Cooper,
this time to score a film

that has become
a classic Western.

It was called "The Searchers."

Directed by John Ford,

it was epic in scale,
but it preserved the integrity

of its very human drama.

Shot in Technicolor
and VistaVision with scenes

set against the panorama
of the West,

it gave Steiner the opportunity

to deliver one
of his most memorable scores.

But the strain of the work
was beginning to show.

It's often said that
our strengths

are also
our greatest weaknesses,

and that's probably true
in the case of Max,

and that his passion was both
what fed his his imagination

and was to some extent,
his undoing.

He loved to gamble. He loved
to buy things for his wives.

There were four.
He paid a lot of alimony,

even beyond the point
where he really needed to

if he ever met a friend
from old Broadway days

that needed money,
he would hand it to them.

And not surprisingly,
he was always in debt

as a result.

Steiner never discussed
his Jewish roots or identity.

Nevertheless, he had
the payroll office

at Warner Brothers deduct funds
from his weekly paycheck

for contributions
to needy Jewish charities.

With his abundant generosity
and alimony payments,

he was often unable
to keep his head above water.

And then in 1959, his fortunes
changed with the royalties

he received
from his latest project.

His financial struggles
finally came to an end.

"A Summer Place" is Steiner's
most or most popular song.

It has lyrics, but even though
there are lyrics, you don't--

you don't hear
the words very often.

The arrangement.
The arrangement by Percy Faith

sounded so characteristic
of the time.

It sounds like a '50s
almost doo wop thing

with that 12/8 thing going.

And it's characteristic
of how Steiner,

even late in his career,

could capture a sense of popular
styles, the popular sounds.

It is like many great popular
songs, deceptively simple.

The music for "A Summer
Place" turned out to be one

that the biggest successes
that they have known

at Warners in 20 years.

The record sales
were fantastic.

Over 30 versions
of them were made,

the best of which
was Percy Faith's.

He was 71
when he wrote that.

It turned out to be a pop hit.

It seemed that he was actually
still in touch with his notions

of what music
for young lovers would be like.

That's an extraordinary
accomplishment.

Even though Max
was not a pop songwriter,

when they prepared popular songs
taken from his movie themes,

he often would write a verse
or an introductory theme

for the pop song.

So it's clear that even though
writing popular songs

was not his main focus,

he still was very much hands on
with these songs because he then

saw the potential
for success on the hit parade.

Here is "It Can't Be Wrong"
from "Now Voyager."

♪ Wrong,
would it be wrong to kiss ♪

♪ Seeing I feel like this ♪

♪ Would it be wrong to try ♪

♪ Wrong,
would it be wrong to stay ♪

For the sheet music,
he turned it into a song

with an ending
that slightly changes

the theme from the movie.

♪ So when I need you so much ♪

♪ And I have waited so long ♪

♪ It must be right ♪

♪ It can't be wrong ♪

♪ It can't be wrong ♪

He could have been
a great songwriter.

Sheet music was another way

of selling film music apart
from the film.

Max Steiner had contracts
with different music publishers

to sell both individual themes
from films.

He also had a couple
of occasions

where themes would be bundled
together and sold.

A good example of that would be
10 piano miniatures

from a "Gone with the Wind."

Selznick became very interested
in this idea of music tie

ins during the silent era,
and then when he started

working with Steiner at RKO
in the early '30s,

he was very excited
about the possibilities

of selling film music
outside of film.

They would take Max's music
and they would broadcast it.

It would be part of
a radio show

where they would talk
about the film.

They'd have some of
the cast members speak,

and then Max Steiner
would conduct

some of his music
from the film.

Now, these are the original
lacquer discs.

Created by the studio

as they record the film score

right on the set.

For the sound recording

for synchronized
sound motion pictures,

they would record

on the recording stage
with a movie screen,

Max, as the conductor
would look out

as he conducted the orchestra.

Microphones would pick it up

and it would be recorded
optically on film.

At the same time they were
recording optically on film,

they were cutting a sound disc
like this so that they could

instantaneously hear
all of the cues,

all of the takes afterwards
and choose

which take to print optically.

Max wanted copies
of all of his scores.

So he would order
acetate reference recordings

from the lab that he
could take home and own himself.

The studio long ago threw away
most of the optical tracks

that were used
to make these copies

for Max for the most part,

these are the only copies
that still exist.

A lot of them
sound great today.
Yeah. Yeah.

And it's great guy Ray Fiola
back in New York.

He's gone through
and cataloged these things,

put them together digitally,
getting rid of all the clicks

and pops
from all the wax disks.

What a legacy we have
because of these discs.

Although film music is
written to accompany action

on the screen,

the best of it can sometimes
stand alone and be enjoyed

without the picture.

For "Since You Went Away,"

radio publicist
for Selznick said

if we had a way of promoting

some of this music
away from the film,

particularly on radio, I think
that might be very compelling.

And Selznick says,
okay, yeah, go ahead.

And so Lou Forbes,
who's again the music director

for that film,
recorded about 10 minutes or so,

and they sent out
about a thousand

copies to radio stations
around the country.

And they got such a response
to that that they started

releasing soundtrack albums
of music from Selznick's films.

This is a 16-inch
transcription disc

of a portion
of Steiner's score for

"Since You Went Away,"
for which he won an Oscar.

But it shows how important
he was not only to Hollywood,

but also to the exploitation and
the success of a motion picture.

This is a set of production
discs for the Steiner score

for "She" and it says
on the label Mood Music from RKO

picture "She" composed
by Max Steiner.

Also in this book
is a set of discs for his Oscar

winning score for
"The Informer."

It's lovely to have
this recorded document

of Max's earlier music.

John Morgan
and William Stromberg hold

Max Steiner
in very high esteem.

To cement a special connection
with the man they admire so much

they are sometimes able to work
at Steiner's personal piano.

It is one of the treasures

in the collection
at Brigham Young University.

Can you imagine
all the great scores

that have been written
on this piano?

Just imagine Max
using that baton.

They study his
sketches and listen

to the original studio
recordings

on the surviving acetate discs,

working tirelessly
to replicate his music.

Since the early 1990s,
Morgan and Stromberg

have rerecorded
16 Steiner scores.

Recordings were great
at Warner Brothers

had the best recording system

and the '40s music period
had so

when you get dialog
and sound effects,

you miss a lot of the music

and by recording it
by modern standards and stereo

or surround sound,
you can really hear the detail

that you never really get from
looking at it with the film.

So we're able to breathe
new life into it.

Morgan and Stromberg
rerecorded Steiner's

"Charge of the Light Brigade,"

"They Died with
Their Boots On,"

and the "Adventures of
Don Juan"

with the Moscow
Symphony Orchestra.

The superb Russian musicians
were enthusiastic

to play the music of Hollywood.

This was our dream come true.

We're able to realize these
great scores of Max Steiner

in full symphonic form so you
could hear every note of it.

We'd be working with
the orchestra and a viola player

would come up to me and go,
I saw it last night.

They were playing
"Adventures of Don Juan" on TV.

I can't believe
we just played it.

It was very fascinating.

It was fun. The orchestra
really got to like us.

And they enjoy playing
Max Steiner

music immensely.

His music will always be
in my soul. And I just.

I can't think
of another composer

that means as much to me.

By the 1960s,

Steiner had just
about lost his eyesight.

Recognition of his work
is encapsulated

in the many awards
he received during his lifetime.

I have three Academy Awards
Oscars,

had 26 nominations.

I also won the World Award
in the festival in Venice

in 1948
for "Treasure of Sierra Madre."

I got decorated
by the French government,

by the King of Belgium
and my fan mail

it's mostly teenagers.

I get them
from all over the world.

I get the letters from Japan
and even from behind

the Iron Curtain sometimes.
Is it right?

Steiner had a huge fan base.

The Max Steiner Music Society
was formed in 1965 by Al Bender.

It had chapters
all over the world.

Newsletters and journals,
shared views,

and the celebrated
the great scores

so admired by his followers.

On his 80th birthday in 1968,

his life was celebrated
by friends and colleagues

from the American Society
of Composers,

authors and publishers
who sang tributes to him.

♪ Max, you're the master ♪

♪ We are all in your debt ♪

♪ And we salute all the music
you composed ♪

♪ Music the world
won't forget ♪

♪ Slower or faster ♪

♪ What you write
takes the cake ♪

♪ And you are blessed with
the talent to ♪

♪ Conduct your lovely music ♪

♪ And all of your music
is so much better ♪

♪ Than the puns your make ♪

I may buy a plot now near

where some of my dear friends
are buried

and have a sign placed there
coming attraction,

Max Steiner.

When his health
finally fell from

a congestive heart condition,

Maximilian Raoul Steiner

passed away on
December 28, 1971.

He was 83 years old.

His death severed the link

not only with the golden age
of Hollywood,

but with the last glorious years
of the Vienna of Emperor

Franz Josef.

Today, it is a city proud
to celebrate his legacy.

Every year
in the Vienna Concert Hall,

the prestigious Max Steiner Film
Music Achievement Award

is presented to a motion
picture composer

who has achieved exemplary
status for his or her work.

In 2018,

it was the famed German-American
to be accorded the honor.

And the Max Steiner Film
Music Achievement Award

of the City of Vienna
goes to...

Hans Zimmer.

♪ Maxie, dear ♪

♪ Listen here ♪

♪ There's a summer place ♪

♪ Where you and I ♪

♪ 'Neath the sky ♪

♪ In the air ♪

♪ Years ago ♪

♪ Oh, how I wept that day ♪

♪ When you crept away ♪

♪ To the old ♪

♪ USA ♪

Steiner's lifetime of
achievements was celebrated

when his name was enshrined
in a star

on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
in December 1975.

Accepting the honors
this morning is his widow,

Mrs. Max Steiner,

and representatives of
the Max Steiner Music Society.

Well, I am very honored
and very happy,

and excited
you could all be here.

I think they've found
a beautiful day

for it, again,

I want to thank you
for your presence.

And I love seeing
all of you.

With his personal metronome

and baton finally at rest,

the maestro's work
will forever be enshrined

in the history of film scoring.

Steiner had such an incredible
mastery of the orchestra.

It's why he's really stands out

among all the great
film composers.

There are many.

But I think he's still the giant
among all of them.

The music itself
will always find new devotees.

The films will survive

and people will always be moved
by that music,

and therefore it will always be
a part of our lives.

I think that a lot of what
we do today in film

owes a great debt

to how Max Steiner
really designed

and almost invented
the art form of film scoring.

I don't think we would
have "Star Wars."

I don't think
we would have the scores

for the big action blockbusters

that we have today
without Max Steiner.

He really set the bar.

He created the template

and he scored many of
the greatest films of all time.

When you look at the range
that goes from "King Kong"

to "Casablanca"
from "Now Voyager"

to "The Treasure of
the Sierra Madre"

from "White Heat"
to "The Searchers,"

it's an extraordinary
filmography.

And he was
an extraordinary man.

If you're tracking
the history of American film,

Max Steiner's name
has to be included,

along with the great directors,
the great writers,

the great cinematographers,
the great actors.

He is on that same pedestal.

But because he worked
on these incredible movies

that are still shown and loved
around the globe,

he will never be forgotten.

♪ As long as I live ♪

♪ You'll always be part of me ♪

♪ You'll live in
the heart of me ♪

♪ As long as I live ♪