Nostalgic Film Themes
(Medley)

Movements
1. Suspicion
2. My Geisha
3. Beloved Infidel
4. Prince Valiant

Note
Together with Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner, Franz Waxman (1906-1967) represented the great romantic tradition in film scoring. From 1935 through 1966, Waxman composed the music for 150 films and won the Oscar twice in a row for Sunset Boulevard (1950) and A Place in the Sun (1951).

During the 1930s, “Theme from...” titles became popular. This medley is drawn from some of Waxman’s best-known film themes.

The medley opens with music from Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion (RKO – 1941), starring Cary Grant, who his wife Lina, played by Joan Fontaine, thinks he is trying to kill her; with Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, and Dame May Whitty. Waxman’s Oscar-nominated score was the second of four Hitchcock films scored by Waxman. It was preceded by Rebecca (1940) and followed by The Paradine Case (1947) and Rear Window (1954).

Waxman composed "You Are Sympathy to Me" for the score of My Geisha (Paramount – 1962) — a Norman Krasna comedy directed by Jack Cardiff. The plot of the movie concerns a director (Yves Montand) who makes a film of Madama Butterfly in Japan. His wife (Shirley MacLaine) disguises herself as a geisha and gets the leading role, with some help from Edward G. Robertson and more attention than she needs from Robert Cummings.

For the screen adaptation of Sheila Graham’s autobiographical memoir of her relationship with novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, Beloved Infidel (20th Century Fox – 1959), starring Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr and directed by Henry King, Waxman composed an evocative score blending the song he composed into the fabric of the soundtrack.    

Prince Valiant (20th Century Fox, 1954) was directed by Henry Hathaway and starred Robert Wagner, Janet Leigh, and James Mason. It is set in Camelot in the days of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This latter-day swashbuckler with its English pageantry was something of a departure for Waxman. He composed a refreshing, original score ranging in style from the early madrigal to the symphonic idiom of the post-romantic period. It is rousing English music that captures the spectacle of the period and brings to life knighthood and daring deeds of heroism.