Elmer Bernstein: #1 film music composer?

Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) was born in New York, son of a Jewish dad who was a high-school music teacher in the Austrian Empire and mum was Jewish Ukrainian. He was educated at the Walden School NY and at New York Uni. He then went to Juilliard School of Music due to America's C20th great composer, Aaron Copland, wanting his protege Bernstein to go there. Elmer was no relative of Leonard Bernstein (1918-90), but they were friends & colleagues.

Elmer Bernstein Collection, 2010,

Amazon

Yet it was as a dancer that Bernstein began his working life, doubling as a concert pianist when the opportunities arose. At the same time he tried to earn a living as a painter and was also a small-time actor.

In WW2 he served in the U.S Army Air Force with Major Glenn Miller, arranging for Miller's famous Army Air Force Band and composing scores for military radio broadcasts. Luckily this led to the first serious compositions of his career.

In 1950 he began writing film music, and in 1952, he was demonstrating the drama and originality that later marked his works. These early works had included scores for new, growing United Nations radio programmes, tv and industrial documentaries. In Hollywood his first film was Saturday's Hero (1951), a university football film. After completing his film assignments, the composer became another in a long list of liberal professionals who Senator Joseph McCarthy saw a threat to the American way of life due to alleged Communist leanings. It was the time of the Red Scare and Bernstein's important thinking threatened his career activities in the mid 1950s. His scores then were for largely unremarkable films, and only one tv series was famous: Gunsmoke (1955)!

But he re-established his reputation with the very jazzy score for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The Frank Sinatra movie came that year as the rather less notable The View From Pompey's Head (1955), yet that film was just as significant in Elmer’s career. And he proved his versatility with his stir-ring music for The Ten Commandments (1956), one of the films where the music was more thrilling than the action. The album was an outstanding success, and his favourite project ever. Bernstein’s other notable scores included those for the Tony Curtis classic Sweet Smell of Success (1957) with Burt Lancaster, Some Came Running (1958) and Walk on the Wild Side (1962). The 1962-3 period was particularly notable and appropriately, in 1963-9 Bernstein worked as vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

The composer created these scores during a career that produced some of Hollywood’s most memorable film music. His original scores for films ranged over a wide variety of styles, with jazz, light musical comedies and especially westerns. He had such skill for the Western genre that over 15 years he wrote 6 scores starring John Wayne eg True Grit (1969) and The Shootist (1976).

violinist Isaac Stern, conductor Henri Temianka, composer Johnny Green 

with Elmer Bernstein, 1980

Bernstein adapted the style of his music to mirror the action of each particular film, and his scores were often seen as more notable than the films themselves. His works were viewed by many critics as great examples of contemporary music which was why Hollywood nominated him for an Oscar 14 times!! Yet he won only one Oscar for the sound-track score of Julie Andrews film Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Nominations included the scores for Sinatra’s film The Man With The Golden Arm (1955), Summer and Smoke (1961), the film of Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird (1966), Hawaii (1966) and Return of the Seven (1966). That the 12 months included not just To Kill a Mockingbird, but also Hud (1963) starring Paul Newman, the film that consolidated Steve McQueen's stardom.

The Chosen (1981), which could have become as a concert work, blended into the music style of the Hassidic tradition, presumably for Bernstein’s Brooklyn audience’s sake. Elmer's score was matched by great performances by Robby Benson, Barry Miller, Maximillian Schell and Rod Steiger.

I didn’t know the scores Bernstein wrote for two Broadway musicals, How Now, Dow Jones 1967 and Merlin (1983). Nor did I know his later films including Cape Fear (1991), The Grifters (1990) and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). Readers should be able to check these out, if interested.

Bernstein was married twice, first to Pearl Glusman 1965, then to Eve Adamson; there were 4 children and 5 grandchildren. Elmer's son Peter Bernstein wrote Elmer Bernstein, Film Composer, revealing dad’s life from an intimate, behind-the-scenes perspective. Elmer had the drive needed to succeed in the very competitive Hollywood industry. In a busy career in 54 years, his many landmark scores were recognisable and loved everywhere.

He composed works for symphony orchestras, scores for tv programmes and the documentary The Making of the President 1960 won an Emmy Award. In 1974 he published Elmer Bernstein Film Music Collection, Animal House in 1978, Airplane! in 1980, box-office smash Ghostbusters 1984 and My Left Foot 1989.

Later in life, Elmer gained cult status among British football fans when his familiar old theme for The Great Escape (1963) was adopted by them and shared at matches. It became a symbol of unity and defiance, for me as well as for the soccer fans. Having written the scores for 200+ films, Elmer Bernstein was one of Hollywood's most prolific composers. He was also one of the small group of outstanding musicians who devoted their careers to the cinema. His roster included some of the most memorable film themes ever written, particularly scores for The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape. Both have been reworked into concert suites. He passed in 2004 at 82.

Some movie scores that Bernstein wrote

hamlette

The American Film Industry ranked Elmer Bernstein's score for The Magnificent Seven (1960) as the 8th greatest US film score and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) as the 17th greatest US score for all time.