Favorite Film Music Poll

Back in the year when Film Music Review began in 1998, I ran a open poll for readers to see which film scores from the past would be picked.

Since this list was posted years ago it hasn’t been available for a long time. Now I’m reprinting it here for your consideration.
The composer with the most film scores is Bernard Herrmann with 5 film scores, followed by Miklos Rozsa with 3 film scores.

Please remember these are not necessarily my choices although many of them are on my
100 Essential Film Scores of the 20th Century list.

This list below does confirm the general view among film score followers that Bernard Herrmann was the most influential composer from that time (5 of his film scores are on the list). It also reflects a shortage of film scores from the 1930s and 1970s– only the expected title from the multitudes of STAR WARS fans. Even with this shortage, the other decades are pretty evenly distributed: 1940s (4 titles), 1950s (6 titles), and 1960s (5 titles).

I think this remains a very good sampling of great film scores from the 1930 to the 1970s.

Here are the top ten vote getters listed in reverse order:

10. (7 way tie – all with the same number of votes)
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL – Bernard Herrmann, 1951
THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK – Alfred Newman, 1959
EL CID – Miklos Rozsa, 1961
FAHRENHEIT 451 – Bernard Herrmann, 1967
PSYCHO – Bernard Herrmann, 1960
THE SEA HAWK – Erich Wolfgang Korngold, 1940
SPARTACUS – Alex North, 1960

9. (3 way tie)
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD -Erich Wolfgang Korngold
HIGH NOON – Dimitri Tiomkin, 1952
SPELLBOUND – Miklos Rozsa, 1945

6. (2 way tie)
THE BIG COUNTRY – Jerome Moross, 1958
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – Elmer Bernstein, 1962

See the list of past editorials at this link:

http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/fmreditorials.htm

http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/fmreditorials.htm

Roger Hall, FMR Managing Editor
15 April 2020