MUSIC FOR THE FILMS OF VAL LEWTON

ROY WEBB

Rating:

Golden Age Review by Tom Kiefner: Val Lewton produced for RKO pictures a series of films in the early to middle forties to compete with the huge success Universal had experienced with their horror films. Val, an excellent story editor for Selznick studios, was hired away specifically to produce and compete against Universal. He was given the title "Sultan of Shudders" by Charles Koerner production chief at the studio, a slogan Lewton disliked intensely. In his fairly short tenure at RKO he produced eleven films nine of them in the "horror picture" category an unfair statement to the kinds of films he produced. Val was a sensitive intellectual who as history would show produced not "horror films" but extremely well thought out psychological dramas. Using the talents of Jacques Tournier, Robert Wise, Mark Robson, and many others Val produced films using the concept of "what you don't see" to frighten you. In addition, there was some point or moral message to the film itself in spite of being forced to work with such titles as "I Walked With A Zombie", "Isle Of The Dead", and "The Curse Of The Cat People".

At the time these films were being produced, Roy Webb was under contract and the studio head of the music department for RKO. Being a smaller size studio it became his assignment to do these pictures. While Roy was very much at home scoring the light musical he soon discovered he had a talent for writing music to Val's psychological thrillers as well as other films such as "Notorious", "The Spiral Staircase", and others. Webb composed a series of very restrained low key scores that gracefully blended into the film. The size of the orchestra was a lot more chamber size instead of symphonic. The average size was 38 players according to John Morgan, the person responsible for the reconstruction of the scores. In fact to give the orchestra a better balance a couple more horns were added but Morgan maintained the size of the orchestra to keep the cues as authentic as possible.

The first of the five films included on the CD and the most prominent is Cat People which features the "Do-Do" theme, a traditional French melody. This theme has been used by Stravinsky in his lullaby Berceuse du Chat as well as Debussy in Children's Corner. Webb uses several different variations of "Do-Do" including a F-major lullaby to minor key harmonic variations producing a dissonant result. While Webb created other themes for the film, the "Do-Do" is the one you will hum to yourself long after you have seen the film. Restrained and low key are the key words for the entire score. The words loud and bombastic were not in Roy's vocabulary for this or any of the Lewton scores.

His treatment of " The Main Title" in Bedlam switches from the heroic brass four note motif to a baroque style string theme back to the minor keyed brass four note motif once again. The other cue of interest is "The Quaker" a religious style theme complete with organ. At only seven minutes this is the shortest of the five films but depicts the horrible conditions in Bedlam (contraction for Bethlehem), an asylum in the "age of reason".

The Body Snatcher, based on the Robert Louis Stevenson story, is filled with Scottish melodies and themes including "We'd Better Bide a Wee" along with a creepy cue which depicts the body stealing. The finale in which the runaway carriage crashes the doctor to his death is filled with dissonant music finally ending in the original Scottish melody. Even though this is a louder cue with percussion Webb stops just short of "going over the top" with it.

The Seventh Victim features ten tracks and shows Webb weaving some of his finest atmospheric music into this film. Roy was a master at creating music for a dialogue scene. It was heard yet it wasn't, never interfering with the spoken commentary yet lurking in the background quietly, brought to the forefront of the scene for a key moment or two and then into the background again.

In addition to some excellent music for suspense sequences the song "O Marie Congo" is featured and sung in two of the tracks for I Walked With A Zombie. This film starts with the 4 note motif from Beethoven's Fifth followed by the Morse Code of the letter 'V' for victory. Written during the war this again is yet another example of the finesse of Webb.

Roy "Forgotten Man" Webb was involved in nearly 300 films and was nominated for seven Oscars during his career in Hollywood yet few are familiar with any of his work. Hopefully, there will be additional material released for this excellent film composer. Marco Polo does its usual excellent job of recording. The team of Morgan and Stromberg fit just as nicely with the Bratislava Orchestra as the Moscow. The liner notes by Scott Macqueen, a noted historian, are very detailed and informative. Recommended.

Track Listing: Running Time: 69 minutes 53 seconds

Marco Polo 8.225125 (1999)

Music composed by Roy Webb. Performed by The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava). Conducted by William T. Stromberg. Scores reconstructed and orchestrated by John Morgan and William T. Stromberg. Recorded and mixed by Hubert Geschwandtner. Album produced by Milos Betko, John Morgan and William Stromberg.

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