The box office check-up of 1935 (1936)

MUSIC HELPS STORY TELLING AND SELLING CJ How songs and score contribute to the picture itself and to its advertising by LEO F. FORBSTEIN MUSIC has always been one of the top feataures of any sort of entertainment. It has long been one of the major adjuncts of the modern show business — one of its principal assets. Motion-picture plays, certainly, represent all the best elements of dramatic entertainment as sifted out through the years of experience, so that it seems almost too self-evident to say that music means much to the motion picture. The question has been asked me, "Just how much does music mean in the success of a screen production?" To answer that question, without seeming biased, as a conductor might be, in favor of my favorite art, let me stipulate at the beginning just what angle of "picture success" shall be considered. There are, of course, more angles than one. "Artistic success" might or might not mean "financial failure." So let us discuss success solely from what we expressively term "box-office." In other words, I find I'm called on to inquire as to whether there isn't definite significance in the fact that screen plays embracing truly entertaining music are quite generally hit shows. Practically all pictures include music1, if nothing more than a few minutes of periodic atmospheric melody heard in back of the opening titles. But by "musicals," generally, we mean screen musical comedies or pictures embracing songs. One doesn't have to look far to find important successes — from the standpoint of box office entertainment — among musical pictures. Our own company, Warner, which has been in the van of the so-called "filmusical revival" within the last two or three years, has filmed and screened a whole string of such pictures, all of which have proved popular "fan-fare," and real money-makers. Within the last calendar year, or just before, however, there have been enough stellar musical successes to demonstrate that this demand is by no means temporary. In musical pictures, music has a dual aspect insofar as helping with the success of a production is concerned. The first of these functions, of course, is to create the entertainment value of fhe music and songs. They are an interblended part of the plot in many instances. In others, they are a decorative addition. But they are always a definite and colorful benefit to the picture. The second of these functions is that of advertising. The songs, even the ones which are not title songs, are closely associated with the picture. On the radio, prior to and during the picture's exhibition, they are broadcast widely, with suitable credit. On the sheet music, the name of the show and often pictures of the stars are published and so becomes a splendid advertisement, so such songs, especially if they are hits, serve not only to stiffen the screen show's amusement value, but they serve to publicize the picture and to bring the people into the houses. In other words, they are direct box-office aids. Now as fo non-musical pictures — that is, photoplays which contain no specially written songs, but which are backgrounded wholly or in part by "atmosphere music." Let us see what musical treatment has been given to some of these which are in the successful "box office" class. "Midsummer Night's Dream" is illustrative. One of the biggest of the 1935 productions, it had, fittingly enough, the most elaborate and beautiful musical scores. The wedding of Shakespeare’s poetic fantasies to Mendelssohn's lovely music took place, as you know, long before the talking picture was ever conceived. And this illustrates the point I previously made — that music has always been a major collaborator in the dramatic entertainment field. When we scored the picture, to make this combination perfect, we obtained arrangements and a complete setting of the Mendelssohn music by no one less than Prof. Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Indicative of the magnitude of this background or musical atmosphere, it may be noted that the script or timing sheet of the picture shows a total of 90 different items — numbers or portions of numbers. The total of 90 will readily be perceived as a large one when I tell you that as big a musical as "Gold Diggers of 1935" contained but 40 items and that some pictures have but 20 or fewer. The fewest number, incidentally, was in a mystery picture this last year, "The Murder of Dr. Harrigan." There were but two items — the title music, running one minute and thirteen seconds; and the finale music, running thirteen seconds. Even with atmosphere music, however, it might be said that there is a certain amount of advertising value. While it wasn't true that Mendelssohn songs were aired on the radio and credited to "Midsummer Night's Dream," there was a vast amount of exfremely valuable word-ofmouth publicity. Many people, especially those who enjoy the better things in musical composition and who might turn up their sophisticated noses at the elementary melody and lyric of a popular hit song such as "Lulu's Back in Town," came out of the theatres after seeing "Dream" and waxed enthusiastic over the score. Use of music as an emotional adjunct has always been an accepted technique of the stage. Even in the veriest "kerosene circuit" houses, and with the cheapest of troupers hamming the crude lines of ordinary sfock plays, a piano player in the pit was always considered a major essential during the show. Other members of fhe orchestra, playing only between the acts, could well "double in brass" and take roles in the play. The piano player — because of the "atmosphere" he was an emo[TURN TO PAGE 152] THE BOX OFFICE CHECK-UP OF 1935 89