News for Apr. 25, 2006

Ape crusade

4/25/06, 10:28 am EST - Xoanon

If director Merian C. Cooper's "King Kong" was the Eighth Wonder of the World -- as the giant ape was billed in the original 1933 blockbuster -- it can be argued that Max Steiner's score for the film was the ninth. Prior to "Kong," there had been no major symphonic scores written specifically for motion pictures, only spliced-together collections of classical music -- or more likely, no music at all. But with the first downbeat of his mournful, foreboding score, Viennese composer Steiner heralded the age of classic motion picture music. As for the giant simian, throughout his various incarnations in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, the character Kong has remained a surprisingly strong source of inspiration for some of film's most vivid music. [More]