Keeping Score at the Movies

Some time ago, in my eternal quest to set the record straight, I suggested that the true hero of the motion picture industry wasn’t Thomas Edison or D.W. Griffith, not Chaplin or Keaton, not Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer, but the anonymous fellow who first came up with the notion of putting salt on popcorn, thus turning packing material into a concession stand bonanza that costs more per-pound than lox and caviar put together. 

But there are others who, more often than not, get overlooked while far too much praise is lavished on actors and directors.  I refer to the men who compose musical scores for dramatic films.  Although there have been great scores composed for mediocre movies, there has very rarely ever been a great movie that didn’t have a great score. An example of the difference a fine score can make was “Brian’s Song,” a TV movie that would have drowned in its own bathos and banalities if Michel Legrand’s music hadn’t saved it from itself.  (more…)