A DISPATCH FROM REUTERS
(1940 - Music by Max Steiner)
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Directed by William Dieterle

Starring Edward G. Robinson as Paul Julius Reuter

A Dispatch from Reuters (1940) tells the story of this man, a German-born British immigrant who wanted to "make the world a little smaller." He started his business in 1850, using carrier pigeons to fly stock prices between Aachen and Brussels. Two years later he had opened an office in London to transmit stock quotations between London and Paris via a new underwater cable. Eventually he was gathering information by means of a large telegraph network and feeding news to the London papers. All the while he built a reputation for speed and accuracy. It was an astounding achievement to relay a major speech by French Emperor Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte) as it was being delivered. Later, he scooped Europe with news of Lincoln's assassination.


Technical Data: Reel Tape N.198b {19 minutes}

Music Composed by Max Steiner
Orchestrations Arranged by Hugo Friedhofer
Music Supervised by Leo F. Forbstein

GREEN LIGHT
(1937 - Music by Max Steiner)
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Directed by Frank Borzage and Starring Errol Flynn, Anita Louise Margaret Lindsay and Cedric Hardwicke

Dr. Newell Paige is a dedicated surgeon and physician who is devoted to his patients and to the ethics of his profession. Covering for his mentor, Dr. Endicott, who is consumed by personal problems, Paige operates on a wealthy donor to the hospital, Mrs. Dexter. However, Dr. Endicott rushes in at the last moment and in his haste botches the surgery. Mrs. Dexter dies. An inquiry ensues and Dr. Endicott refuses to take or pass blame. The presumption of guilt then falls on Dr. Paige, who resigns rather than blame his mentor. By accident, Paige meets and falls in love with Mrs. Dexter's daughter Phyllis. When they each learn the other's true identity, Paige leaves rather than cause Phyllis pain, since she blames him for her mother's death. Paige travels to a rural settlement to join his friend Dr. Stafford in a dangerous experiment intended to eradicate spotted fever, which has decimated the local population. Influenced by the religious and ethical expoundings of church dean Harcourt, Paige risks his life in hopes of giving something of value to mankind.



Max Steiner's music is beautifully romantic but oddly unmemorable---which is hard to believe considering his catalog of work (the rousing "Charge of the Light Brigade", for instance, or the classics "The Wizard of Oz" or "Casablanca"). The choristers (boys) of St. Luke's Episcopal Church effectively lend their voices to a few scenes, and would do so in Flynn's follow-up film, "The Prince and the Pauper".

Technical Data: {Reel Tape n.190} {59 minutes}

Music Composed by Max Steiner
Musical Direction by Leo F. Forbstein
Orchestrations by Hugo Friedhofer

This is the second score for an Errol Flynn's film. Max Steiner scored 17 films starred by him inclduing some memorables as Charge of the Light Brigade, Dodge City, Adventures of Don Juan, They Died with Their Boots On, Santa Fe Trail, The Prince and the Pauper ...

Some of them have already some kind of release (LP, CD original, CD with a re-recording). I plan to include some of the unreleased ones here.

CITY FOR CONQUEST
(1940 - Music by Max Steiner)
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Directed by Anatole Litvak and Starring James Cagney and Ann Sheridan

Cagney is Danny Kenny, a truck driver who enters "the fight game" and Sheridan plays his girlfriend, Peggy. Danny realizes success in the ring and uses his income to pay for his brother Eddie's music composition career, while Peggy goes on to become a professional dancer. When Peggy turns down Danny's marriage proposal for her dancing career, Danny, who wanted to quit the fight game, continues on & is blinded by rosin dust purposely placed on the boxing gloves of his opponent during a fight. His former manager finances a newsstand for the now semi-blind Danny. The movie ends with brother Eddie becoming a successful composer and dedicates a symphony at Carnegie Hall to his brother who listens to the concert on the radio from his newsstand. Peggy, now down on her luck, but in the audience at Carnegie, rushes to Danny at his newsstand where they reunite. The movie is based on a novel of the same name.

The film has one of the finest of Max Steiner's scores from this period, one in which Steiner was able to slip what amounted to a chunk of a symphony into the movie, in an unusual extended music sequence at the end that also helped to make this one of the most ambitiously structured movies of its period.


Technical Data: Reel Tape N. 198a {6 tracks} {16:16 minutes}

Music Composed by Max Steiner
Orchestrations by Hugo Friedhofer and Ray Heindorf
Musical Direction by Leo F. Forbstein

DIVE BOMBER (1941 - Music by Max Steiner)
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Directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn and Fred MacMurray

A new flight surgeon and a Navy pilot overcome personal differences to work on solving the problem of Altitude Sickness which causes blackouts at high altitude. The real stars of the film are the pre-World War II navy aircraft featured in full color

When Dr. Doug Lee fails to save the life of navy pilot Swede Larson, who blacked out and crashed after entering a steep dive, the flyer's friends take an immediate dislike to him and disparage his efforts to learn more about the problem by becoming a flyer himself. Lee's new superior officer, Dr. Lance Rogers, also exhibits resentment toward the presumptuous newcomer. They ultimately become friends and form a mutual bond of personal and professional respect when their research develops a high altitude flying suit which they hope will prevent the kind of blackouts that killed Swede. Unfortunately the process of experimental testing of the new device proves to be a dangerous undertaking.

Technical Data: Reel Tape N. 199b {12 tracks}{22:41 minutes}

Music Composed by Max Steiner

Musical Direction by Leo F. Forbstein
Music Arranged and Orchestrated by Hugo Friedhofer