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Re: More Musical Sleuthing... :)

Well, I know a little something about this. In 1938, there was an ASCAP strike against the movie industry in using what the musicians' called an unfair use of "canned music" - or pre-recorded music. It was not uncommon for movie studios - the majors and the minors - to reuse musical "cues" from other films in their film music libraries. Universal did this a few times with music on the main titles of DRACULA - an edited and re-orchestrated version from "Swan Lake" ballet - that was recycled into the main titles {with a few notes of an "Egyptian" theme) for THE MUMMY and hen, SECRETS OF THE BLUE ROOM. FLASH GORDON - to use another example - had music cues used from THE BLACK CAT, THE WERE-WOLF OF LONDON and other films. Low budget studios used the services of film music libraries like Abe Meyer's Synchronizing Service that used either library recordings of music or had musicians record cues from their printed library of music scores.

After the 1938 ASCAP strike, the major studios were forced to do one of two things. Pay the studio musicians for a newly recorded version of music from an older film, or pay the musicians and still use the original library music recordings. Low budget studios got around this by hiring ASCAP musicians to create some new music while adding in snippets of older library music cues.

So, the reason some music sounds a little different is that the musicians re-recorded a new score from the old compositions. Some composers were masters at taking bits and pieces of their own previous works or taking other composers' works and changing the tempo or mood to create new works. Hans Salter at Universal was a master at this, using his own works at times or taking bits of Frank Skinner's scores and working them into new compositions.

Re: More Musical Sleuthing... :)

Thank you, Leonard!

This is fascinating and something that I never really thought about. It all makes a lot of sense. It is interesting to hear familiar bits of music that are used in multiple Charlie Chan movies during both the Fox/20th Century-Fox run as well as those produced by Monogram Pictures. With the latter, as they were a much lower-budgeted company, would they possibly just pay in-house composers and musicians for a specific piece of music and then use that music as much as they needed without further payment?

Again, thank you! This is an interesting topic and one that most of us are not familiar at all!

Sincerely,
Rush

Re: More Musical Sleuthing... :)

Well, the idea of having musicians re-play older compositions was to make sure the musicians in ASCAP didn't get cheated. As for Monogram, I've heard the same musical themes by their "house composer" Edward Kay show up in a Bela Lugosi horror film and be re-used or re-worked for a mysterious scene in a CHARLIE CHAN film or a suspenseful scene in a BOWERY BOYS comedy. The studio heads wanted music to be churned out as fast as possible for their lower budgeted films so you can't fault the composers too much for re-using their older scores or re-working bits of them into new ones. Even the "big boys' at the big studios - like Max Steiner or Erich Wolfgang Korngold, re-used parts of earlier music scores, because they too were pushed to the limit at times to get the music scoring finished. My favorites at Universal were composers like Franz Waxman, Hans Salter and Frank Skinner. Paramount had great composers like Victor Young, MGM had Herbert Stothart, etc. Fox had great composers like Alfred Newman. I wish I knew more about Samuel Kaylin. It seems like he may have been one of Fox's musical directors who pulled bits and pieces of other composers works and stitched them together to make up new scores for the CHAN films!

Re: More Musical Sleuthing... :)

Why do I have the feeling that I talked about some of this before on a different thread? Are the COVID-19 restrictions finally getting to me? Anyway, it's fun to go through some of Monogram's various productions and hear some of the same music in different kinds of films! I guess I have a "musical ear" or something where I pick this stuff up!

What little I know is that many movie studios - the big guys and the little independents - had musical libraries of actual recorded music tracks or written scores and "musical directors' would sometimes make use of those if budgets or time was tight.

Re: More Musical Sleuthing... :)

Leonard, don't worry if you have mentioned any of this information before! As I have told my students, "Repetition is the mother of learning!"

Take care, and thank you, once again, for your contributions on this topic. FUN, and INTERESTING indeed!

Sincerely,
Rush

Re: More Musical Sleuthing... :)

Leonard,

10,000 thanks for your insights. This is what we've suspected is the case. We both (MnR) would have LOVED to spend a year with one of these music people putting together music for multiple "B" movies.

If anyone knows of a memoir or biography (autobiography?) from these "film music people," please let us know.

For musicians, this is a fascinating topic. Imagine waking up, having your morning coffee and figuring out where you're going to find music to modify into the accompaniment to some random Charlie Chan--or Mr. Moto--or Secret Agent X9 flick...because you have a deadline and rent to pay.

Mike: "What was that spy bit in the last Chan movie? Maybe I can swipe that for my Secret Agent movie gig."

Rachel: "We gotta eat, sweetie...try looking in the Monogram library. You'll find something to use. In the meantime, have another muffin. And we need to mail the rent next week."

:)

Re: More Musical Sleuthing... :)

Some of the information I've gotten comes from this great book:

Musique Fantastique, Second Edition
100 Years of Fantasy, Science Fiction & Horror Film Music
A Historical Appreciation & Overview
By Randall D. Larson

It features miniature biographies of some of the "big guns" of film composers who specialized - or are best known for - horror, mystery, adventure films of "Hollywood's Golden Age": Max Steiner, Frank Skinner, Hans Salter, etc. This is one book you CAN judge by it's cover - the Boris Karloff version of The Frankenstein Monster as an orchestra conductor. Great research and good insights - not enough on the "B-Movie" composers like Edward Kay, etc. - but worth getting for film music scholars and fans!