The Film
Directed by John Sturges and starring Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Horst Buchholz, James Coburn, Brad Dexter, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, and Charles Bronson, The Magnificent Seven has entered the film canon of well-known American western.
Calvera (Eli Wallach) is in charge of a group of bandits who carry out raids on a Mexican village. Under attack, the villagers seek weapons from the Americans in exchange for their own goods. A gunslinger, Chris (Yul Brynner), convinces the villages that employing gunfighters would be cheaper than buying weapons, thus begins the recruitment of six other fighters—Chico, Luck, Vin, O’Reilly, Britt, and Lee—to form the Magnificent Seven. Their arrival in the village is not universally popular to begin with. They are seen eating the best food, and the women cower from them for fear of being raped. The seven eventually convince the villagers of their positive intent and train them in self-defense. The next attack by Calvera and his bandits is successfully deterred. In disguise, Chico infiltrates the bandits’ camp and learns of their future plans to attack once more. The reason behind this is that the bandits are low on food. The final attack on the village results in a bloody final battle that kills Calvera and many villagers and leaves just three of the Magnificent Seven alive.
The film was nominated for one Academy Award and one Golden Globe.
The Music
The score to The Magnificent Seven was composed by Elmer Bernstein. He was actually the third or fourth choice for the film. The director initially wanted Dimitri Tiomkin to score it, but, the two fell out after a disagreement over High Noon. Aaron Copland was discussed as a possible replacement, and Alex North also allegedly watched rough cuts of the film in preparation for potentially composing a score for it. However, it was Bernstein who ultimately received the commission, and Sturges has since called it one of the best film scores ever written. It was placed eighth on the American Film Institute’s top twenty-five list of greatest all-time film scores.
Two of the Magnificent Seven: Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner. United Artists / Photofest © United Artists
The composer did not watch the film initially. He simply discussed the options with Sturges. Bernstein recalled fondly the enthusiasm the director had for music, saying that “John loved music. I think he would have happily stripped all the dialogue out of all the movies he ever made” in favor of music. After composing a few themes, Bernstein did watch the film, and he was taken aback by the plodding pace of the narrative. He decided that his compositions had to drive the film along. From this desire to have a memorable, exciting theme, the film’s main melody came about. Bernstein was particularly proud of it, claiming, “Every once in a while—it doesn’t happen often—you hit on something that really feels quite thrilling. The opening rhythm [. . .] was like a surge of energy.” Spencer describes the main theme as marvelously rousing and exuberantly heroic, and he is correct. It is a string-dominated melody interjected by a brass countermelody, and the galloping nature of the theme ensures that it drives the film along at a fast pace whenever it appears. Its first appearance is during the opening credits, but it does not make an immediate appearance. First, there are huge chords to let the audience know the film has begun, harking back to classical and early Romantic composers and the opening to symphonies. The main theme soon enters after a string opening and a brass countermelody is heard. Then a guitar variation with woodwinds carries the melody into the opening scenes of the film, but not before the title sequence ends with one final grand rendition of the main theme.
Bernstein got the inspiration for the main theme from a long-standing desire to compose something “American,” which he had not had the chance to do in his previous commissions. He knew a great deal about this style of music, as he was an ardent fan of American folk music, and he had a strong relationship with one of the other composers discussed for the film, Aaron Copland. Copland, argued Bernstein, “invented American music to a great degree,” and Bernstein credited Copland with having “a certain style, a certain sound [that is] very attractive.” He claimed that by the time he got the commission to compose the score to The Magnificent Seven, this style of American music had been in his head for many years, and it finally “had a chance to be set free.” He attributes the energy and rhythmic intensity of the score to this desire to compose something typically American.
Another key musical theme was that depicting Calvera. The use of woodblocks, timpani, and strings provided the melody, which has a Mexican, flamenco-influenced feel. These percussive sounds of danger run into melodic fragments on French horn before the Spanish guitar offers a quieter mood, but one that still signifies great danger. It is a welcome respite from the galloping main theme and shows the broad palette with which Bernstein composed the score.
It is difficult to deny that Bernstein’s approach to scoring The Magnificent Seven saw somewhat of a breakthrough for a purely American aesthetic in film scoring, moving away from the domination of European-born composers from the Golden Age of Hollywood, which was ending. The score found itself on the borderline between replicating the scores of the 1940s and 1950s and moving toward more contemporary forms of composition. It has been argued that The Magnificent Seven theme was the most memorable melody in film scores until Jaws and Star Wars appeared in the 1970s, and it is difficult to challenge this claim. Bernstein wrote his name into film music history with this score. It has an American, western charm that endures to this day.
Recognition
The score was nominated for an Academy Award.
Nominated for a Laurel Award for Top Musical Score (where it came in fourth).
In 1998 won the International Film Music Critics’ Award for Best Re-Released Existing Score.
Recording
Elmer Bernstein, The Magnificent Seven, Soundtrack Factory, 2017. This is a remastered version of the original soundtrack plus four bonus tracks. ****
Bibliography
Hannan, B. The Making of “The Magnificent Seven”: Behind the Scenes of the Pivotal Western. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.
Russell, M., and J. E. Young. Film Music. Vol. 1. New York: Focal Press, 2000.
Spencer, K. Film and Television Scores, 1950–1979: A Critical Survey by Genre. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.
—ML
The Film
Otto Preminger’s film adaptation of Nelson Algren’s gritty novel The Man with the Golden Arm raised eyebrows in 1955 for its frank portrayal of heroin addiction, a subject that was taboo under Hollywood’s then-existing Production Code. As with Preminger’s previous film The Moon Is Blue, Golden Arm was released without the Code organization’s seal of approval.
In the film Frank Sinatra portrays Frankie Machine, a recovering heroin addict whose life is complicated by his supposedly crippled wife, Zosh (Eleanor Parker). She has a clinging dependency on her husband and wants him to return to his former job as a poker game dealer, but he wants to turn his life around by becoming a drummer in a big band.
With the help of Molly (Kim Novak), a former girlfriend who lives downstairs and encourages him to improve his drumming skills, Frankie tries to stay clean and pass an important musical audition, but an unscrupulous drug dealer has other plans for him.
Louie (Darren McGavin) watches as the heroin-addicted Frankie (Frank Sinatra) prepares to shoot up. United Artists / Photofest © United Artists
The Music
Elmer Bernstein’s music for Golden Arm features a groundbreaking score in its vivid use of the jazz idiom. Although there are some noteworthy predecessors in the use of jazz scoring in film, especially A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954), Golden Arm is unique because, with its uptown Chicago setting, jazz sounds are front and center in the score.
The most important musical idea comes at the very beginning of the film, when the credits are accompanied by an up-tempo theme that starts with steady-driven rhythmic patterns on cymbals that alternate with a low-pitched riff for trombones. This music is followed by a rhythmically driven idea for trumpets in a minor key that features a number of trombone riffs between the melodic trumpet phrases. Enhancing the dynamic quality of this theme is a repeated five-note bass pattern that drives the theme forward. Built on top of this bass, the trumpets introduce another segment of the theme that contains a repeated use of descending two-note melodic figures. The brash trumpet motifs, together with the repeated bass pattern and an energetic swirling accompaniment provided by strings, combine to produce a theme that is distinctively jazzy in character.
This theme shows up many times during the film. One of its more noteworthy appearances occurs in an early scene in a bar where Frankie hangs out along with a rather slow-witted friend named Sparrow (Arnold Stang), who follows Frankie around like a pet dog. When Frankie first shows up at the bar after getting out of rehab, the main theme sounds like a live performance inside the bar, but from an unseen band. When Frankie and Sparrow leave the bar, the music suddenly subsides in volume but continues softly in the background for a moment.
Several scenes include bits of the main-title idea, including one in which a drug dealer named Louie tries to coax Frankie to get a heroin injection. High-pitched trills on a piano lead to phrases of the main theme featuring muted trumpets with a low pizzicato riff on string bass. This music is incorporated along with eerie, high-pitched violin and flute tones and drums that continue to sound during Louie’s persistent urging that Frankie give in to his addiction. Bernstein’s multilayered music expresses Frankie’s physical craving for the drug.
A strong repetition of this theme occurs when Frankie finds Louie in the bar and follows him across the street to his apartment. At this point bits of the main-title idea played by brass, strings, and drums are heard. High-pitched vibrato sounds of an organ along with stabbing brass chords and percussive piano chords are heard as Louie prepares his needle. Then the music becomes gradually more dynamic as the injection takes place.
Not all of the score is in the jazz vein. Frankie’s scenes with his wife, Zosh, feature a soft string accompaniment that suggests the fragile state of their marriage. A romantic-style love theme is introduced when Molly returns from work to her apartment where Frankie is practicing on his drum pad (his drumming gives Zosh a headache, so he practices downstairs while Molly is away). A lyrical theme for strings with several violin, clarinet, and flute solos suggests their mutual affection. As they talk, bits of the main-title theme are interjected. An especially intriguing musical moment in this scene occurs when Molly falls asleep. As Frankie drapes a coat over her a tender piano version of the theme is heard, followed by an unaccompanied solo flute. The cue then comes to a quiet ending with the addition of a second flute.
There is considerable jazz used as source music in the film. When Frankie shows up in frail condition for his audition, a big band is already rehearsing. Notable in this scene is the appearance of real-life jazz musicians, including Shelley Mann on drums and Shorty Rogers as the band leader. Rogers also served as arranger for the jazz numbers played in the film.
Man with the Golden Arm is noteworthy for its groundbreaking portrayal of drug addiction and for its extensive use of jazz. It paved the way for many other films that featured jazz, including Johnny Mandel’s score for I Want to Live (1958) and Duke Ellington’s music for Anatomy of a Murder (1959). On its own terms, Golden Arm features a main-title theme that remains one of the most significant musical creations of Elmer Bernstein, a composer who was at the start of a fifty-year-long career when he scored Preminger’s film. This score remains one of Bernstein’s most memorable works and thus deserves to be included in this book.
Recognition
Three Oscar nominations, including Art Direction, Best Actor (Sinatra), and Best Original Score, which was Elmer Bernstein’s first nomination.
Predecessor of many films with jazz scores, several by Bernstein, including Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and The Rat Race (1960).
Recording
Elmer Bernstein, Man with the Golden Arm, Spectrum Music, 2001, CD. This is an import release of the original soundtrack on the 1955 Decca recording. Good mono sound. ***1/2
Bibliography
Bernstein, Elmer. Liner notes. The Man with the Golden Arm. Spectrum Music 544 627-2, 2001, CD.
—LEM
The Film
A list of movies about the missionary work of Catholic priests should include Bruce Beresford’s Black Robe (1991) and Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016). A third film in this rare genre is Roland Joffé’s The Mission, which concerns a group of Jesuit priests who try to convert members of the Guarani tribe in a remote region bordering on Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil in the mid-1700s. Joffé’s film is particularly worth examining because of Ennio Morricone’s score.
Screenwriter Robert Bolt based The Mission on historical documents about the conflict between Spain and Portugal over territorial boundaries and the enslaving of captured Guarani tribesmen. The film primarily concerns two men, Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), and a penitent former slave trader, Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro), who joins the Jesuit society in an effort to build a chapel in a Guarani village. When Catholic Church officials order the mission of San Carlos to be closed, the lives of the Jesuits and their native converts are endangered by the intrusion of soldiers who have been commissioned to shut down the mission by any means necessary.
The Music
The film begins without music as the preliminary production credits are shown. An ongoing narration begins with the dictating of a letter to the pope drafted by Cardinal Altamirano (Ray McAnally) concerning the forced closing of the San Carlos mission.
Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons, center) among South American tribesmen. Warner Bros. / Photofest © Warner Bros.
The first music in Morricone’s score features both traditional string instruments and native drums as an eerie background for a scene in which several Guarani tribe members bear a wooden cross to which a missionary priest has been tied. Once the cross is tossed into a river the music stops and the only subsequent sounds are those of the water, which becomes increasingly turbulent as the cross plunges over a waterfall.
In the next moment, during which the film’s title is shown, soft harp sounds are heard as the cardinal’s narration explains the work by Jesuit priests in converting the Guarani. As the screen reveals shots of Iguaҫu Falls, the score’s first prominent theme arrives with a repeated series of four tones, as in the pitch pattern C-B-G-B. This motif, which stays within a pitch range of only four tones, is associated with the Jesuits throughout the film.
The score’s second motif begins as source music when Fr. Gabriel hopes to win the confidence of the Guarani by playing an oboe that he carries with him on his perilous climb to a high plateau where the tribe lives. The music that he plays is a lilting melody that echoes through the jungle. After one of the natives breaks the oboe, other tribal members feel sympathy for Gabriel and lead him to their village. As they walk along, the oboe melody (called “Gabriel’s Oboe” on the soundtrack recording) is developed into a smoothly flowing cue for oboe and strings.
A third musical motif is a tune for the Guarani that, like the Jesuit theme, stays within a range of four scale steps. This motif, which includes a metrical pattern of three beats, with two longer tones followed by two shorter ones, first occurs when Rodrigo and his men bring a number of captured Guarani to the city of Asunción for sale to the local governor and slave trader Don Cabeza. The breathy sounds of the Andean flute are heard in this motif, while turbulent string sounds add a sinister accompaniment.
Several noteworthy musical cues occur in the sequence where Gabriel gives Rodrigo an unusual penance as atonement for having killed his brother in a jealous rage. In the next scene Gabriel and four other Jesuits accompany Rodrigo in a treacherous climb up the side of a cliff behind a waterfall, with Rodrigo pulling along a large assortment of swords and pieces of armor that have been roped together to weigh them down. At one point in the climb, the score includes the Jesuit motif with discordant low woodwind tones. After the arduous journey, Rodrigo joins the priests and Guarani people in building the mission. The extended cue in this scene features Gabriel’s theme combined with a rhythmic pattern of native drum sounds, along with the Guarani theme that is chanted by choral voices.
This ingenious intermixing of themes, which also includes the simultaneous use of different rhythmic meters, occurs several times. When the cardinal inspects the San Carlos mission that he has been asked to close, Morricone’s musical ideas contribute an uplifting feeling. In the later raid on the village by Spanish and Portuguese soldiers, several motifs are heard, along with discordant harmonies. A final juxtaposition of these themes occurs during the closing credits.
Scattered about the film are musical ideas used as source music, including a festive piece heard during a celebration, in which Rodrigo fatally duels with his brother. There is also considerable religious vocal music, including choral renditions of the chant melody “Ave Maria” as sung by the Guarani, who have been musically trained by the Jesuits.
With its simultaneous combination of multiple melodic and rhythmic ideas, this score is one of Morricone’s most musically ingenious creations and richly deserves to be discussed in this book.
Recognition
Winner of the Palme d’or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.
Seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Original Score. Winner of the Oscar for Chris Menges’s cinematography.
Recordings
Ennio Morricone, Cinema Paradiso: The Classic Film Music of Ennio Morricone, Silva Screen, 1996, CD, SSD 1057. This is one of the best of many recordings of themes from this film. Includes five tracks from The Mission. Excellent sound. ****
Ennio Morricone, The Mission, Virgin, 1992, CD. Excellent sound. ****
Bibliography
Hickman, Roger. Reel Music: Exploring 100 Years of Film Music. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.
MacDonald, Laurence E. The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History. Second edition. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013.