MOVIE MUSIC UK

Article by Craig Lysy

Born: 8 August 1899, Chicago, Illinois
Died: 10 November 1956

Victor Young’s early life was not an ordinary one by any measure. He was born of Jewish heritage into a family with musical talent; his father William being a successful tenor in Joseph Sheehan’s touring Opera Company. Sadly, following the untimely death of his mother in 1909, Young and his sister Helen were abandoned by their father. Undeterred, he and his sister embarked on a truly remarkable journey that would take them back to their family’s ancestral homeland of Poland, then a dominion of the Russian Empire, where their grandparents lived. Young’s grandparents were ecstatic at their return and lovingly raised them as their own. Victor’s musical gift was recognized quickly and his grandfather provided him with a violin, which he began playing in earnest at the age of ten. Young quickly mastered the instrument by the age of thirteen and gained acclaim as a prodigy. His grandfather fostered his education, enrolling him in the prestigious Warsaw Imperial Conservatory where he would study the violin under Isador Lotto, achieving the Diploma of Merit. Additional studies in Paris included study of the piano under the tutelage of Isidor Philipp.

At age 15 Young began soloing with the Warsaw Philharmonic under the baton of Juliusz Wertheim. He performed across Europe including the cities of Berlin, Vienna and Paris. With the onset of World War I returning to the United States was foreclosed. So he remained in Poland and continued his studies at the Warsaw Imperial Conservatory, graduating with honors. During the war years he barely earned enough money to subsist on by playing with the Philharmonic, in small ensemble quartets and quintets, and giving violin lessons. In late 1918 he had the good fortune to meet his future wife, Rita Kinel, who would smuggle food to him, as the occupying Germans confiscated most of the food supplies for their soldiers.

Young returned to his birthplace of Chicago in 1920, joining the Central Park Casino Orchestra as a violinist. His talent led him to take on both arranging and then conducting jobs, first for radio programs and then later the theater. In the late 1920s he also spent some time attending to popular music, working as a violinist-arranger for Ted Fiotito. In 1930 Chicago bandleader and radio-star Isham Jones commissioned Young to rewrite music for Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust. Young reworked the up-tempo number, radically transforming it into a slow flowing instrumental ballad, which featured its melody now carried as an elegant romantic violin solo. Later, lyricist Mitchell Parish would help fashion the piece into a popular love song. From 1931 to 1934 Young lived in New York, where he was contracted as a conductor with Brunswick Records. He recorded countless scores of popular dance music, waltzes and classical pieces. His studio ensembles included some of the premier New York jazz musicians of the time, including Bunny Berigan, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Arthur Schutt and Eddie Lang.

In late 1934, Jack Kapp took over Decca Records and signed Young to a contract as musical director, a relationship that would last his entire life. He continued recording in New York until 1935, when he joined his friend Al Jolson in the first cross country migration of New York talent to Los Angeles. Also waiting for him there was his Polish fiancée Rita, who he would soon marry. Once settled, he initially found employment as a violinist in Sid Grauman’s Million Dollar Theatre Orchestra. Ever ambitious, he shortly thereafter formed his own orchestra known as The Victor Young Orchestra, as well as Victor Young and His Singing Strings. From here he went on to secure the job of concert-master for Paramount-Publix Theatres. His introduction to the film industry followed when he was hired as the assistant director of the Balaban and Katz cinema chain, where he composed and arranged as many as five silent film scores a week. He also served as the musical director for the radio show ‘Harvest of Stars’, as well as a talent scout for Edison Records.

In 1936 his notoriety brought him to the attention of Paramount Pictures studio executives, who signed him as their chief composer and arranger, thus beginning in earnest his career in the Hollywood studio motion picture industry. He had a productive year, writing six scores including Big Broadcast of 1937, My American Wife, Fatal Lady, Frankie and Johnnie, Klondike Annie and Anything Goes; however, while each were good efforts, none earned year end award consideration and so his contract was not renewed. When he received two Academy Award nominations for Breaking The Ice (1939) and Army Girl (1939), studio interest was rekindled and he received from Paramount an offer he could not refuse, thus beginning a fruitful collaboration that would last from 1940 and 1949. The eight Academy Award nominations that followed in the next two years – for Golden Boy (1940), Man of Conquest (1940), Gulliver’s Travels (1940), Way Down South (1940), North West Mounted Police (1941), Dark Command (1941), Arizona (1941) and Arise My Love (1941) – established his reputation as one of the pre-eminent film composers of his time;. In 1941, at the age of 42, the world lay at Young’s feet, with only one element missing that would crown his success – an Academy Award win.

The 1940s, which began with a stunning eight Academy Award nominations in two years, proved to be a very productive decade for Young. He earned additional critical acclaim across a wide swath of genres for such notable scores as the two romances Hold Back The Dawn (1942) and Take A Letter, Darling (1943), the Western Silver Queen (1943), the maritime adventure Reap The Wild Wind (1942), the World War II dramas Flying Tigers (1943) and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), the Spanish Civil War drama For Whom The Bell Tolls (1944), the mystery films The Uninvited (1944) and Love Letters (1946), the films noir The Blue Dahlia (1946) and The Accused (1949), the comic Road films (Road to Singapore (1941), Road to Zanzibar (1942) and Road to Morocco (1943)), and lastly, the musical The Emperor’s Waltz (1949). 1940 also marked the beginning of a remarkable collaboration with renowned director Cecil B. DeMille; between the years of 1940 and 1952 Young scored all of DeMille’s pictures, including Northwest Mounted Police (1940), which earned an Academy Award nomination, Reap the Wild Wind (1942), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), Unconquered (1947), Samson and Delilah (1949), which also earned an Academy Award nomination and lastly, The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). Young would have taken on DeMille’s next film, the massive biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956) had his health not been failing – instead, he recommended that the up-and-coming composer Elmer Bernstein be given the assignment, and the rest is history.

The decade of the 1950s started off well enough with nine scores and another Academy Award nomination for My Foolish Heart (1950). Throughout the decade Young continued to provide exceptional quality writing across a multiplicity of genres, including the westerns Rio Grande (1950) and The Maverick Queen (1956), the swashbuckling adventure Scaramouche (1952), the romances The Quiet Man (1952) and Three Coins in a Fountain (1954), the religious drama The Left Hand of God (1955), the adventure films of Blackbeard the Pirate (1952) and Son of Sinbad (1955) and lastly, Strategic Air Command (1955), a cold war military drama. In 1956, when Young seemed at the height of his powers, the years of relentless overwork finally caught up with him, and he suddenly died of a stroke in his home at Palm Springs, California. Three scores that he completed that year – Omar Khayyam (1957), Run of the Arrow (1957) and The Buster Keaton Story (1957) – were published posthumously, while a fourth incomplete score to the film China Gate (1957) was eventually completed by his life long friend Max Steiner. Sadly, Young received his only Academy Award posthumously for his sterling adventure score to Around the World in 80 Days (1956). We close our story by acknowledging two final awards; Young was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording, located at 6363 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

YOUNG’S COMPOSITIONAL STYLE

Victor Young was a workaholic who relentlessly drove his body year after year, often without sufficient sleep, nourishment and relaxation time. Those who worked with him use words like “frenzied,” “manic,” and “intense” to describe his relentless and almost obsessive singular focus. Over time, as his health declined he rejected the advice of doctors and friends to slow down, as though driven by a deep burning passion that could not be assuaged. Witness the musings of his longtime friend and admirer Henry Mancini;

“Vic loved life in all its forms. He was a gracious man but worked too hard and I think it drove himself to an early grave.”

Some critics have asserted that Young’s film compositions, while polished, lacked the élan of Bernard Herrmann or the florid melodrama of Max Steiner. On the surface, there appears to be some merit to this observation. However, a deeper and more thoughtful assessment brings one to a far different conclusion. Unlike his contemporaries, Young infused his music subtly within the film’s fabric, often achieving a seamless confluence of understated beauty. What is beyond dispute is the man’s gift for melody, as evidenced by his extensive song writing. Young was, when all is said and done, a songwriter at heart. He had that most coveted and rarest of gifts – an effortless natural capacity to create timeless melodies that perfectly captured a film’s spirit. Time and time again Young’s melodies and songs brought both meaning and heart to the films he was assigned. Henry Mancini related;

Melodies are such a part of his (Victor’s) nature that all he had to do was sit at the piano and they fell out of his sleeves.”

Melodies indeed were at the heart of all his film scores, which helps explain why so many directors, including greats such as Cecil B. DeMille and John Ford, sought his services, and why today film score lovers continue to marvel and admire his songs and film scores.

YOUNG’S LEGACY

Young was a stocky man of diminutive stature who is remembered by those closest to him for his signature cigar, which seemed permanently affixed to his mouth. His friend, songwriter Jack Lawrence, related “Victor looked more like a gangster from Chicago than the soulful musician he was.” Young, to the day of his passing, could never explain why he worked so hard and with an almost obsessive passion. When asked during an interview why he chose to become a film score composer he shook his head and responded, quite inexplicably, “Why, indeed?”

What sets Victor Young apart, and what ultimately defines him, was the breath of his enormous talent. While he wrote no pieces for the concert hall, he was accomplished as a composer for film, Broadway, television and popular songs. Like his contemporary Dimitri Tiomkin, he often incorporated into his films a title song, which perfectly captured the heart of the film’s narrative. His contributions to Broadway musicals included Pardon Our French (1950) and Seventh Heaven (1955). In the television realm he scored the TV movie Once Upon an Eastertime (1954), eight episodes of the Medic series (1955), his iconic theme “The Call of the Faraway Hills” was used for series Shane, and he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his scoring of the TV special “Light’s Diamond Jubilee”. Throughout his career also Young worked with renowned vocalists of the day, including Don Ameche, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Smith Ballew and the Boswell Sisters. He also collaborated with song lyricists such as Ned Washington, Ed Heyman, and Joe Young. Songs for which we remember him include “Sweet Sue” popularized by Tommy Dorsey, “Beautiful Love”, “Love Me Tonight”, “A Ghost of a Chance”, the classic “Stella by Starlight” from the movie The Univited, the melodic jazz treasure “Love Letters”, “Golden Earrings”, “My Foolish Heart”, “When I Fall in Love” (a huge hit for Nat King Cole), and “Around the World”. In the final analysis, the sheer volume and enduring popularity of Young’s music ensure his immortality among the ranks of the great songwriters and film composers of the 20th century.

AWARDS

Young received 22 Academy Award nominations, winning one. He has the dubious honor of receiving the most Oscar nominations before winning an Academy Award: 21. Tragically, his only win for Best Score – Around the World in Eighty Days in 1956 – was awarded posthumously. Worth noting is the fact that he is one of only two film composers who have received four Academy Award nominations in the same year, the other being Alfred Newman. In fact, Young achieved this feat twice, once in 1940 and a second time in 1941.

Academy Award Wins:

• 1956 Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score – Around the World in Eighty Days

Academy Awards Nominations:

• 1939 Best Original Score – Breaking the Ice
• 1939 Best Original Score – Army Girl
• 1940 Best Original Score – Golden Boy
• 1940 Best Original Score – Man of Conquest
• 1940 Best Original Score – Gulliver’s Travels
• 1940 Best Scoring – Way Down South
• 1941 Best Original Score – North West Mounted Police
• 1941 Best Original Score – Dark Command
• 1941 Best Original Score – Arizona
• 1941 Best Original Score – Arise My Love
• 1942 Best Original Dramatic Score – Hold Back The Dawn
• 1943 Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score – Take a Letter, Darling
• 1943 Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score – Silver Queen
• 1943 Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score – Flying Tigers
• 1944 Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score – For Whom the Bell Tolls
• 1946 Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score – Love Letters
• 1946 Best Original Song – “Love Letters” from Love Letters
• 1949 Best Original Musical Score – The Emperor’s Waltz
• 1950 Best Original Song – “My Foolish Heart” from My Foolish Heart
• 1951 Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score – Samson and Delilah
• 1957 Best Original Song – “Written on the Wind” from Written on the Wind

FILMOGRAPHY

1930s:
The Light That Failed (1939), Escape to Paradise (1939), Gulliver’s Travels (1939), All Women Have Secrets (1939), The Llano Kid (1939), The Night of Nights (1939), Our Neighbors – The Carters (1939), Raffles (1939), Law of the Pampas (1939), Honeymoon in Bali (1939), Golden Boy (1939), Range War (1939), Death of a Champion (1939), Island of Lost Men (1939), Way Down South (1939), Grand Jury Secrets (1939), Heritage of the Desert (1939), Undercover Doctor (1939), Man of Conquest, (1939), Union Pacific (1939), Fisherman’s Wharf (1939), Flirting with Fate (1938), Peck’s Bad Boy with the Circus (1938), Breaking the Ice (1938), Army Girl (1938), The Gladiator (1938), Romance in the Dark (1938), The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938), Wells Fargo (1937), Ebb Tide (1937), Double or Nothing (1937), Vogues of 1938 (1937), Easy Living (1937), Mountain Music (1937), Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), Swing High, Swing Low (1937), Maid of Salem (1937), The Big Broadcast of 1937 (1936), My American Wife (1936), Fatal Lady (1936), Frankie and Johnnie (1936), Klondike Annie (1936), Anything Goes (1936).

1940s:
My Foolish Heart (1949), Samson and Delilah (1949), Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Song of Surrender (1949), Chicago Deadline (1949), Streets of Laredo (1949), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949), The Accused (1949), The Paleface (1949), Miss Tatlock’s Millions (1948), Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), Beyond Glory (1948), Dream Girl (1948), State of the Union (1948), The Emperor Waltz (1948), The Big Clock (1948), I Walk Alone (1948), Where There’s Life (1947), Unconquered (1947), Golden Earrings (1947), The Trouble with Women (1947), The Imperfect Lady (1947), Calcutta (1947), Suddenly It’s Spring (1947), California (1947), The Searching Wind (1946), Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946), The Blue Dahlia (1946), To Each His Own (1946), Two Years Before the Mast (1946), Masquerade in Mexico (1945), Kitty (1945), Love Letters (1945), You Came Along (1945), The Great John L. (1945), A Medal for Benny (1945), Practically Yours (1944), And Now Tomorrow (1944), Ministry of Fear (1944), Frenchman’s Creek (1944), The Great Moment (1944), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), And the Angels Sing (1944), The Uninvited (1944), True to Life (1943), Riding High (1943), Hostages (1943), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Buckskin Frontier (1943), China (1943), Salute for Three (1943), The Outlaw (1943), Young and Willing (1943), The Crystal Ball (1943), No Time for Love (1943), Silver Queen (1942), Road to Morocco (1942), My Heart Belongs to Daddy (1942), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Forest Rangers (1942), The Glass Key (1942), Flying Tigers (1942), Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1942), Priorities on Parade (1942), Sweater Girl (1942), Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942), Take a Letter, Darling (1942), The Great Man’s Lady (1942), Reap the Wild Wind (1942), The Remarkable Andrew (1942), The Fleet’s In (1942), Glamour Boy (1942), Skylark (1942), Nothing But the Truth (1941), Buy Me That Town (1941), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), Aloma of the South Seas (1941), World Premiere (1941), Kiss the Boys Goodbye (1941), Caught in the Draft (1941), One Night in Lisbon (1941), Reaching for the Sun (1941), Road to Zanzibar (1941), I Wanted Wings (1941), The Roundup (1941), Virginia (1941), Love Thy Neighbor (1940), Moon Over Burma (1940), A Night at Earl Carroll’s (1940), Arizona (1940), Three Men from Texas (1940), The Mad Doctor (1940), Dancing on a Dime (1940), North West Mounted Police (1940), Arise, My Love (1940), I Want a Divorce (1940), Rhythm on the River (1940), Knights of the Range (1940), Mystery Sea Raider (1940), Untamed (1940), Those Were the Days! (1940), Three Faces West (1940), The Ghost Breakers (1940), The Way of All Flesh Buck Benny (1940), Rides Again (1940), The Light of Western Stars (1940), Dark Command (1940), Road to Singapore (1940), The Farmer’s Daughter (1940), Santa Fe Marshal (1940).

1950s:
China Gate (1957), Omar Khayyam (1957), Run of the Arrow (1957), The Buster Keaton Story (1957), The Brave One (1956), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), The Vagabond King (1956), The Proud and Profane (1956), The Maverick Queen (1956), The Conqueror (1956), A Man Alone (1955), The Tall Men (1955), The Left Hand of God (1955), Son of Sinbad (1955), Never Comes Sunday (1955), Break Through the Bars (1955), Dr. Impossible (1955), A Time to Be Alive (1955), Boy in the Storm (1955), Strategic Air Command (1955), Timberjack (1955), The Country Girl (1954), Drum Beat (1954), Light’s Diamond Jubilee (1954), About Mrs. Leslie (1954), Trouble in the Glen (1954), Johnny Guitar (1954), Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), Knock on Wood (1954), Jubilee Trail (1954), Forever Female (1953), Flight Nurse (1953), Little Boy Lost (1953), Fair Wind to Java (1953), Shane (1953), A Perilous Journey (1953), The Sun Shines Bright (1953), The Stars Are Singing (1953), Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952), The Star (1952), Thunderbirds (1952), One Minute to Zero (1952), The Story of Will Rogers (1952), The Quiet Man (1952), Scaramouche (1952), Anything Can Happen (1952), Something to Live For (1952), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), My Favorite Spy (1951), The Wild Blue Yonder (1951), Honeychile (1951), A Millionaire for Christy (1951), Appointment with Danger (1951), Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), The Lemon Drop Kid (1951), Payment on Demand (1951), Belle Le Grand (1951), Rio Grande (1950), The Fireball (1950), September Affair (1950), Our Very Own (1950), Bright Leaf (1950), Riding High (1950), Paid in Full (1950), Gun Crazy (1950) and The File on Thelma Jordon (1950).

RECOMMENDATIONS

SHANE: A TRIBUTE TO VICTOR YOUNG
Richard Kauffman conducts the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

This is a nice compilation CD that offers a fine introduction to the maestro. The album includes not only film score selections, but also a medley of his greatest songs! It offers five cues from Shane (1953), A suite from For Whom the Bells Toll (1943), Seven cues from Samson and Delilah (1949), three cues from The Quiet Man (1952) and the a wonderful tribute to the songs of Victor Young, which features “Golden Earrings”, “When I Fall in Love”, “Sweet Sue”, Stella by Starlight”, My Foolish Heart” and “Love Letters”. The album concludes with the wonderful Epilogue to Around the World in 80 Days (1956).

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS (1944)
Robert Heindorf conducts the Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra

I believe that this score may be among the finest Young ever wrote. The story of two lovers caught in the tides of war offered him a large canvass for which he fully met his task. From the opening tolling bells he imbued his soundscape with the animating spirit of Spanish composers Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Manuel de Falla. The score is filled with the ethnic richness and Castilian colors brought by guitar, castanets and tambourine. For the Republican fighters he created a dramatic snare drum propelled theme, which propelled the action. Against this he juxtaposed a passionate love theme for Robert and Maria, which also was rendered as a song “A Love Like This”. This supreme effort was perfectly attenuated to the film’s narrative, fully capturing its idealism, romance and the tragedy of war.

THE QUIET MAN (1952)
Kenneth Alwyn conducts the Dublin Screen Orchestra

For this quintessential Irish tale about an American who returns to his ancestral homeland to reclaim the family farm, Young harnessed the magic and verdant wonder of the Emerald isle. He referenced traditional melodies such as “The Rakes of Mallow”, “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” a classic Irish Jig , which draws upon a melody from “The Irish Washerwoman”, and lastly, “The Isle of Innisfree”, for which he expanded with his orchestral into a timeless and resplendent love theme. This score has a wonderful pastoral elegance and offers wonderful passages for woodwinds and strings. This tender, sentimental and heartfelt scores is one of the finest Young ever wrote, and offers testimony to his mastery of his craft.

SHANE (1953)

Young signed on for this classic Western and penned one of the greatest scores of the genre. I must say that that his music more than matches the natural beauty Wyoming’s Grand Teton mountain range, the setting for this tale. His score’s Main Theme, “The Call of the Faraway Hills” surely contends for the honor of one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed for film. Young fully capture’s the spirit of the film’s homesteading conflict, the quiet nobility of the hero Shane, and the wonderment and adulation of the family’s young son who comes to worship him. This score is an essential for collectors of film score art.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956)

Young quickly realized that the three-hour film traversed a huge swath across the globe and that his music needed to speak to the ethno-cultural sensibilities of the various locals. He responded by providing a multiplicity of eight themes, nationalistic anthems, ethnic songs, which fully captured the film’s many and diverse settings. His primary theme, the Travel Theme has a classic Golden Age sensibility, which animates the film. Its construct is that of a lush and eloquent waltz, which flows with a carefree old world charm. It may be the best waltz ever written within film score canon. His writing features superb interplay and the music is perfectly attenuated to the film’s narrative and imagery. This is one of the finest Golden Age scores ever written and I highly recommend it for inclusion in your collection. It just does not get any better than this!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Burlingame, Jon. Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks. New York: Billboard books, 2000.
2. Victor Young Biography, Songwriters Hall of Fame
3. Victor Young – Wikipedia
4. Victor Young at the Internet Movie Database
5. Victor Young at the Internet Broadway Database
6. Victor Young – biography at Allmusic.com
7. Victor Young’s Fan Web: The Unofficial Composer Website
8. Classic Themes.com “Film Composers whose themes are sometimes presented in memorable light music arrangements . . .
9. Victor Young – Myfiles.co.uk