Hollywood’s Musical Moods

1972 / 52 min. / color
Directed by Christian Blackwood

“Hollywood’s Musical Moods” is a documentary about the composers who created the musical backgrounds for the movies of Hollywood’s “golden age” 1933-1956.

When the technical problem of adding sound to the heretofore ‘silent’ pictures was solved in 1926, music began to play an even more important role than in the ‘silent’ days. Composers, inspired by operas, musical theater, or the romantic melodramas of the late 19th and early 20th century, adapted these sources for the movies. Most composers had their beginnings in classical music in Europe. They ‘pulled all stops’ for Hollywood, creating a new genre of composition: film music.

“Hollywood’s Musical Moods” was conceived by Arthur Kleiner and directed by Christian Blackwood. Kleiner, a pianist from Austria who came to New York as a refugee in 1938, accompanied the screenings of the great films of the silent era at MoMA for nearly 30 years. Although called silent films, they were anything but silent. Wherever they played they always were presented with music performed live on all manner of instruments, from upright pianos to full symphony orchestras. Outstanding composers were Clark Wilson (for Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd films), Leo Kempinski (“Greed”), Maurice Baron (“Sunrise”). The master Wurlitzer organist Chauncey Haines and sound engineer George Groves who pioneered the “talking picture”, deserve much credit for their contribution.

Arthur Kleiner questions the surviving greats of “the golden age” such as David Raksin and Miklos Rosza on their work in Hollywood. Other participants are David Mendoza, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, Alfred Newman and Domenico Savino, Clips from movies, such as “Spellbound”, “Laura” and “High Noon” demonstrate the vital role of music in fiction films.

“Hollywood’s Musical Moods” was produced in 1972 and is being re-released in 2011 as part of several of documentaries on the history of film, directed by Christian Blackwood.