Tag: Max Steiner

Frankly, my dear, an awful lot of people have given a damn.

“Gone with the Wind,” which opened on December 15, 1939, is one of the most beloved films ever made. It was also one of the most successful. Adjusting for inflation, GWTW is still the highest grossing film of all time. At 21st century ticket prices, its global gross is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 3.3 and 3.8 billion dollars. That’s roughly a billion dollars more than “Avatar,” “Star Wars,” and “Titanic.” Quite an achievement for a 3 ½ hour movie from 1939!

This Friday evening, we’ll celebrate the 75th anniversary of this landmark film with an extended suite from Max Steiner’s score. Steiner wrote over three hours of music for GWTW, of which 2 hours and 36 minutes were used. Incredibly, he accomplished this in twelve weeks, while at the same time writing scores for three other movies. GWTW was one of 13 films the composer scored that year. By 1939, he had already been in Hollywood for ten years and had provided music for 100 movies.

There will be just enough time at the end of the hour to sample music from Steiner’s “Four Wives,” written concurrently with his score for GWTW. “Four Wives” is a sequel to “Four Daughters.” It was followed by a third film, “Four Mothers.” The series is mostly forgotten, save by classic movie buffs, but it has the distinction of having introduced John Garfield as a cynical pianist from the wrong side of the tracks.

The series also starred the three Lane sisters – the singing trio Priscilla, Rosemary, and Lola – and Gale Page, as the musical daughters of Claude Rains, who plays a Schubert-loving music professor, befuddled by popular trends.

We’ll hear Earl Wild, the pianist, in the “Symphonie moderne,” drawn from Steiner’s score.

Join me, as we celebrate 75 years of “Gone with the Wind,” on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.