Max Steuber (1888 - 1971) They Died With Their Boots On A rich, musical heritage... When Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner of Vienna, late of...
Max Steuber (1888 - 1971)
They Died With Their Boots On
A rich, musical heritage...
When Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner of Vienna, late of London and
Broadway, hopped aboard that train
bound for Hollywood, he was heading west in more ways than one, Almost from the beginning
of his association with the movies, Steiner was called upon to create musical
accompaniment for stories about our country's sagebrush days, After some song and
dance musical direction chores, the first dramatic scoring Steiner did for RKO
was for Edna Ferber's Cimarron, a sprawling saga about the Oklahoma land grab
and the building of an empire, Immediately, the "loping march" became a
staple in Max's magic bag of tricks, Stoic and sentimental in the same measure, the theme for Cimarron
paved the way for three decades of music to accompany pioneering,
prospecting, gunslinging and endless battles with the Red Man.
While the term Horse Opera relates more to the "traditional"
tale-telling in western stories, the term also reflects quite properly the Steiner approach to
scoring western pictures.
Steiner's usual Wagnerian approach to scoring was even more overt in these oaters, with both the melody lines
and the synchronization to action more pronounced. Like Tiomkin, Steiner instinctively
reflected the passion of a grateful, supremely talented immigrant. When writing
about American ideas and, more importantly, American ideals, the music was truly
heartfelt, even when underscoring the desperate struggles that made us into a great
nation. Listen to Steiner's majestic march for Gold Is Where You Find It coupled with a darling
of a romance theme for George Brent and Olivia De Havilland. When Claude Rains and the
other farmers march on the encroaching mining company, Steiner's minor key variation of the main
theme underscores the ultimate
futility of yesterday's farmer doing battle with tomorrow's corporation. America's growing pains. The
next year, 1939, brought Steiner's "Grand Saloon", Dodge City, to the screen. This
picture had everything - wagon-trains, iron horses, herds of buffalo, public hangings, bar-room brawls, saddle-pal
humour, back-alley murder, all topped off with a fierce steam engine shoot-out.
Add Errol Flynn and Olivia
de Havilland (gorgeous in gingham), Alan Hale, Victor Jory and the spirited direction of Michael Curtiz and you have a Technicolor classic. Neither the story nor the music are terribly complicated, but they are both infectious and
furiously entertaining.
Civil War themes were a major part of many of the westerns that Steiner scored at Warner Bros. There were invariably quotations and interpolations of "Dixie", 'Battle Hymn of the Republic" and many other period tunes associated with
the struggle between North
and South. Battle sequences, while
primarily scored with Max's famous
chord progressions and visual
stings, also
featured
contrapuntal employment of Union
and Rebel musical associations Brigham Young University as well as references to
individual characters. In fact,
Steiner's unmatched talent for deft
interpolation was used to its fullest advantage in his western scores. While the Oscar-winning
'.committee" score to Stagecoach was one whose major themes were based upon
traditional songs, Steiner's westerns were primarily original, but with cowboy and period
tunes used as reference and punctuation. A transitional title card might be
covered by a full-blown quote from the first few bars of "Oh, Susannah", ending in
a minor key and segueing to the hero's theme as he sauntered into town with his trusty
sidekick. This incorporation of familiar melodies ensured that Steiner's scoring
fabric would be woven with musical thread that would invariably strike a favourable, if
sometimes wistful, response from the audience. Today's cynical audiences and
critics would look down on this practice as being "schmaltzy." But to a
generation of Americans, new and old alike, who were embarking on, enduring, and
ultimately recovering from a devastating challenge to their liberty, "schmaltz"
such as employed by Max Steiner was a welcome reminder of the heritage they were committed to
preserving.
As the movies grew up, Steiner's approach to scoring grew more
sophisticated.
Pursued was a brooding,
film-noir western and Steiner took an appropriately darker approach to the music. His score for
John Ford's The Searchers is a classic evocation of tragedy and irony embodied in a
lone determined figure. Steiner's last western, A Distant Trumpet featured some notable
advancement in his thematic treatment of the American Indian. At the same time,
his march theme remarkably echoed, in structure and orchestration, his first score
for Warners, The Charge of the Light Brigade. After Steiner, the American West was left
in the musical hands of the likes of Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, Alex
North and Lennie Niehaus. Their treatments were, to be sure, more restrained and,
perhaps, more psychological than those of dear old Max. But there can be no denying
that the Western scores of Max Steiner, to an extent unapproached by any other composer,
reflected all about America that makes one marvel and be proud. For a boy who grew up on the knee of the Emperor of
Austria, that was quite an
accomplishment.
Ray Faiola November, 1998
(Ray Faiola, in addition to his duties as Director of Audience Services
for CBS Television, has
supervised audio production on several classic film score restorations.)
"Most westerns depicted the Indian as a painted, vicious savage. In
They Died With Their Boots On,
I tried to show him as an individual who only turned vindictive when his rights as
defined by treaty were violated by white men..." - Raoul Walsh, Director,
They Died with Their Boots On
When Oscar-winning composer Max Steiner walked onto the huge Warner
Brothers' lot in 1941, it was as if
he owned the world - and
in a way, he did - the
world of some
of the best
movies ever made. Max Steiner was at the height of his career, one of the greatest composers of that
near-mythical time and place that was Hollywood's Golden Age. It was a life of round-the-clock deadlines, pages of music
manuscript and long sessions
with arguably the greatest musicians ever. The world of Warner Brothers movies truly seemed to belong
to Max Steiner, expressed in colourful music that, even today, is unequalled in its ability
to exhilarate an audience - and make them laugh or cry.
In a two year period, he had composed music for Sergeant York, Sante
Fe Trail, Virginia City and more. Now, sitting down that first time to watch Raoul
Walsh's new western about General
George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn - They Died With Their Boots On - Steiner saw the opportunity to
create epic music for
an incredible legend and national myth. History? History was for
classrooms, this was
the movies. And They Died With Their Boots On is a prime example of
movie-making at its best.
And why not? It was directed by a man of the movies, Raoul Walsh. He had
done it all. One of the first
real movies, The Great Train Robbery, saw actor Walsh get shot by desperadoes; Walsh filmed
newsreels of Pancho Villa, and the man who invented modern film-making, D.W. Griffith,
cast the dashing Walsh as John Wilkes Booth in The Birth of A Nation. He would go on to star
in one of the most popular films of the silent era, What Price Glory?
, and later, he would play the same sort of role opposite Joan Crawford in Sadie Thompson.
Raoul Walsh directed the first 70mm western, The Big Trail, and gave Marion
Morrison a new name - John
Wayne - and the Duke's first starring role. He became one
of the great directors at Warner Brothers - and one of the most admired, professionally
and personally. Men liked him, women loved him. Walsh also was best friends and
serious drinking pals with Warner's superstar, Errol Flynn. Their bouts were legendary
and the practical jokes fast and furious. After Flynn had an angry falling out with
Warner's other great director, Michael Curtiz, who had worked with Flynn on films such as The
Sea Hawk and The Charge of the Light Brigade, Walsh stepped in to direct They
Died With Their Boots On.
They Died With Their Boots On was the eighth film in six years
that featured Flynn and
the beautiful Olivia de Havilland. It was their last together - she wanted more challenging roles - and their final scene plays with a
special sense of poignancy and real life farewell.
They Died With Their Boots On opened to strong box office and
critics liked it, too. But it would mark the beginning of a long period of decline for Flynn as
drinking and
carousing
took its toll. Not unti11945, in the classic war film, Objective Burma,
also directed by Walsh, would
Flynn find another role as strong as that of Custer in They Died With Their Boots On.
Max Steiner's action-filled, romantic score brings back vivid memories
of the great
stars at
Warner Brothers during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and of this enduring, classic western.
"When the picture was finished, I sat in the projection room with
Jack Warner and watched a
rough cut. After it was over, Jack nodded. 'That is one of Flynn's best. If Custer
really died like that, history should applaud him." - Raoul Walsh
They Died With Their Boots On
[1]
Main Title -
West Point: Menacing drums and
brass herald the Warner Brothers emblem. Line drawings, like steel engravings from a history book, background main titles as Garry Owen takes
prominence, the march of choice for Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry
who will "die with their boots on." (Because of the nature of the music for the main
titles, Steiner didn't use his traditional Warners fanfare, which he composed in 1937.) At West Point, cadets march across parade-grounds
and a montage ends, featuring new recruits for America's premier military academy. (This cue was originally
used for a similar sequence in Santa Fe Trail (1940), also starring Errol Flynn
and Olivia de Havilland. Flynn played Jeb Stuart and Ronald Reagan starred as Custer!)
[2] Custer Arrives -Trick -West Point Montage: Muted brass like little
tin horns announce a be-splendoured
visitor amid orders to "Turn out the guard!" Steiner takes up the response of troops with full
orchestra as the mysterious "officer" rides up muleback with servant and hounds in
tow, instinctively saluting the troops and advancing for inspection. "I'm
George Armstrong Custer of Monroe, Michigan..." Turnabout becomes fair playas Custer, along with his flea-ridden hounds,
is "assigned" new
quarters (actually a senior
officer's quarters). Later found out, Custer refuses to identify his prankster, Senior Cadet Edward
Sharpe. But at inspection, Custer
punches Sharpe, earning
him a meeting with Lt. Colonel Philip H. Sheridan, the man who will become his mentor.
[3] West Point Montage: Steiner varies Custer's march-theme in a dissonant version as Custer's demerits are
listed.
[4]
West Point Graduation - Punishment Guard - Haste -
Escort:
Custer's nemesis, Sharpe,
graduates and Custer predicts war if Lincoln is elected.
[5]
Libby - Civil War Montage: Custer
walks punishment on the parade-grounds as a radiant Libby, dressed in
hoop-skirts and sunhat, crosses and asks for directions. The errant cadet, unable to speak,
ignores her. Mistaking silence for rudeness, Libby grows irritated. Raoul Walsh's direction
is playful and Steiner
follows suit in flirtatious
warmth. A call to the commandant's office breaks Custer's duty and he takes a detour to
apologize to
Libby, who
now ignores him. Libby's Theme is introduced, one of Steiner's most memorable melodies. Small fanfares present a soldier to his
lady, and violins take up a full
play of Libby. "Well, I can't imagine, ma'am... any pleasanter journey than walking
through life with you..."
Music and film are wedded here in a dramatic circle that will be closed by the film's end and marked
by similar words - and
Steiner's Libby. (An old vaudevillian adage advised, "Sing Danny Boy and they'll love
you!" For Libby, Steiner revises this traditional ballad, retaining Danny Boy's
exquisite sentimentality and finding new tenderness for Libby and her love, a move most likely
appreciated by
the very
Irish Mr. W alsh. ) A montage including interpolations of "Dixie" and
"Battle
Hymn of the
Republic", framed by bursts of orchestral fury backgrounds America's most tragic war.
[6]
Polka - Mazurka: Gen. Winfield
Scott invites Custer to lunch - and the new officer's
career blossoms over creamed Bermuda onions. Steiner often arranged "source" music for scenes
as here with a small dinner orchestra made up of string, octet, harp, piano, clarinet and
flute, performing a medley featuring "Echo Du Mont Blanc" by Julien and
"Lorgnette" by Talexy. Although this cue was mixed very low in the film, Steiner's perfectionistic tendency made even
this little cue a minor masterpiece.
[7] First Battle Sequence:
"The Battle Hymn
of the Republic" and charging brass herald Custer's assignment to the 2nd Cavalry where he meets up with Sharpe. The next attack? Bull Run where
Custer and the 2nd Cavalry clash with Confederate troops. A wounded Custer
is ordered to hospital by General Sheridan who later awards Custer a medal of
valour. The general gives Custer a letter of introduction to Libby's father. Some
of this chase music was adapted from Steiner's Virginia City (1940) score.
[8] Meeting Father: Steiner's film-music counterpoint is classic comedy
as Custer sees Libby's father
through a stereoscopic viewer. (See pages 25-27.)
[9] Mystic Teapot - Owl: The first phrasings of Libby's Theme are heard over and over again as she and her
companion/servant, Callie, read tea-Ieaves, searching for Libby's romantic future. Callie
predicts that someone will ring a door-bell - and the house door-bell rings. Custer is
standing there and Libby's Theme receives its full treatment within this pivotal
sequence. Callie ushers Custer to the front door and tells him to secretly meet Libby that
night. Later, Callie escorts Custer to Libby, who appears on a balcony after Callie's
signal, the call of a hoot-owl. A romantic interlude follows, cut short by a hoot from a
real owl.
[10] Haste - Civil War: A clerk's mistake cuts
orders for Custer's promotion to brigadier general, Michigan Cavalry Brigade. The focus of the fighting
shifts to Gettysburg.
[11] Sharpe - Troops - Battle #2 - Band Medley: Confederate cavalry
pose a dire threat; Union
headquarters discovers Custer's bogus promotion and frets over Custer's competence. Disobeying an order,
Custer and the Michigan Brigade break the back of Jeb Stuart's cavalry attack. General
Scott is delighted. The Civil War ends with Custer's return to Monroe, accompanied by a medley
of traditional songs, including "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", "The Battle Cry of
Freedom", "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" and "The Girl I Left Behind Me". (Heard
here for the first time, only a fraction of this medley is heard in the final release of the film.)
Libby's father has a change
of heart in wake of Custer's
well-earned heroism, Custer and Libby announce their engagement and marriage.
[12]
Wedding: Mendelssohn's traditional bridal march weds Libby and Custer; the wedding march also symbolically weds
Libby to the life of a cavalryman as the new couple fatefully enter marriage
through an archway of drawn sabres. Steiner had a way of interpolating songs and other
reference music and making it his own. Here, he orchestrates Mendelssohn with organ
and two sets of chimes and
vibraphones,
which
seamlessly segues into the Custer/Libby Love Theme.
[13]
The Letter: Despondent and drinking as civilian life passes him by, Custer spurns an offer by Sharpe to become president of a
trading-company. A
desperate Libby visits her adopted uncle, Gen. Scott and asks him for an assignment for her husband. Scott agrees. Later, Boots & Saddles
trumpets as the Michigan Brigade sends Custer a commemorative gold watch with a
miniature portrait of Libby on the fob. General Scott's letter arrives ordering
Custer to Fort Lincoln in the Dakota territory. Low strings for Libby's Theme as
she bids good-bye to the comfortable life that she has lived for one on the wilds of the
frontier.
[14] Indians: The Sioux
theme foreshadows the Little Big Horn as Indians steal horses; Custer captures Crazy Horse
whom he takes to Fort
Lincoln.