The Korngold-Flynn
Connection
No star of Hollywood's Golden Age had better musical support than Errol
Flynn. It was his good fortune to be signed by Warner Bros. at a time when
original dramatic composition for films was beginning to be taken seriously, especially
by Warner's. The head of production, Jack L. Warner, flatly stated, "Films
are fantasy - and fantasy needs music" .He gave his head of the music
department, Leo Forbstein, freedom to hire the best possible studio orchestra,
and a team of composers, arrangers and orchestrators. In addition to this,
Warner's were far ahead of the other studios in sound recordings techniques,
abetted by Jack Warner's demand that he really wanted to be able to
"hear" the music.
And so for the
next dozen years or so the celluloid adventures of Errol Flynn, both
swashbuckling and amorous, were backed by the richly symphonic scores of Max
Steiner (no less than fourteen Flynn scores), Franz Waxman (three), and Erich
Wolfgang Korngold (seven), each a composer steeped in the expressively dramatic
and melodic school of middle-European composition. As in the case of so many
success stories, it was a matter of the right people being in the right place
at the right time.
Nothing in their
prior experience would have led either Korngold or Flynn to believe they would
one day become associated. Flynn was hired by Warner Brothers in London in 1934 on the basis of having made one minor film
for them. They shipped him off to the Burbank, California, studios the following January, where he did little
but play two bit parts in secondary films. Captain Blood was set to
start shooting that summer, with Robert Donat playing the lead. When he dropped
out for health reasons, Warner's decided to take a chance on replacing him with
the handsome young Tasmanian-born Errol, with results that need no further
amplification.
Korngold by this
time had made his debut with the brothers Warner. The esteemed composer was
brought from Vienna by impresario Max Reinhardt to arrange and
conduct the Mendelssohn stage score for Reinhardt's film version of A
Midsummer Night's Dream. Much had to be done to the original in order for
it to adjust to the requirements of filming, including enlargements for which
Korngold selected portions of Mendelssohn's Third Symphony and his Songs
Without Words. While the film met with mixed critical reviews, there was no
doubt that Hollywood had come across a composer who had a
talent for scoring movies. Would he, Warner's wondered, be interested in
scoring Captain Blood? The affirmative answer led to a contract leading
to Korngold writing another fifteen scores over the next ten years, with six of
them Flynn vehicles containing some of his finest work: The Prince and the
Pauper (1937), Another Dawn (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938),
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940),
and Escape Me Never (1946).
When Korngold
decided to end his association with films in 1947- by this time he was somewhat
alarmed to find himself regarded as a "film composer" -and devote
himself to absolute music, he was asked by producer Henry Blanke, "Erich,
when you first came to us you seemed so enthusiastic about the possibilities of
music in films. Now you no longer seem interested. Why?" Replied Korngold,
"Now I can understand the dialogue". Had he understood the dialogue
of Another Dawn he probably would have turned the film down. He did not
yet speak English and the script had to be explained to him. Possibly he was in
a state of euphoria, having just won an Oscar for his impressive score for Anthony
Adverse. If he assumed Warner's were now rewarding him with a picture of
similar scope, he was sadly mistaken.
Even by 1937
standards Another Dawn was a mild and improbable soap opera. Actually,
it was not a Flynn vehicle. It was designed for Kay Francis, then a little on
the downside of a long career, with Flynn obviously injected to boost the box
office prospects and Korngold brought in to make it all seem beautifully
romantic. In that respect, the film is a success, but only in that respect. The
story is set in a remote British Army outpost in the Sahara
Desert, with Colonel Wister (Ian Hunter) in
command and Captain Denny Roark (Flynn) as his adjutant. Wister goes on leave
to England and there marries Julia (Francis), who admits that she is still in
love with the memory of a man killed in the first World War .Wister declares
his love is enough for both of them, which might be the case if he had not
brought his bride to the outpost. There Roark is soon in love with her,
although as a true cricket-playing British gentleman he does nothing about it.
But the situation becomes even stickier because Roark reminds Julia of her lost
love, and try as she may she cannot stop falling in love with the dashing young
officer. Roark goes off with a contingent of cavalry to negotiate with the
Arabs, who are in revolt. In a battle in the desert only he and a sergeant
survive to return to the outpost.
One evening while
the colonel is away on an assignment with the Arabs, Julia and Roark fall into
each other's arms, although knowing immediately that theirs is a love that can
never be. The colonel, whom they both deeply respect, is too honourable a man
to be cheated. However, the colonel, kind and decent though he may be, knows of
their love and he chooses to sacrifice his life in their favour. Although Roark
has chosen to fly an airplane that will bomb a dam and release the waters the
Arabs have denied the area, it is Wister who flies the mission, knowing there
is not enough fuel for the return journey. The film ends with the lovers gazing
into the early morning light, knowing that he did it "to give us another
dawn".
Emerging at a
scant 73 minutes Another Dawn needed all the help it could get.
Realising that it was a limp story the producers cut and shortened a number of
scenes to make it move faster, thereby confusing Korngold who found it hard to
understand why some of his music was being dropped. The film was also shot with
two endings -the one with Flynn surviving and the other with him taking the
deadly mission and the colonel surviving. The studio opted to let the
increasingly popular Flynn get the girl. This pleased everyone but Korngold,
who had already written an ending for the other version, one with a lot more
music in it. Now he had quickly to write a much shorter one for a film that
concludes with a very brief scene of the lovers and just two or three lines of
dialogue. However, it is Korngold's original ending that John Morgan and
William Stromberg have chosen for this recording, along with sections that were
not in the film. Those who have never seen the film will assume from this
recording that it must indeed be a grand affair, and those familiar with
Korngold will recognize the main love theme as the one he later used as the
opening strains of his celebrated violin concerto.
Of the seven
Korngold-Flynn pictures the one in which the actor is clearly miscast is Escape
Me Never. In this he plays a ballet composer living in Venice with a waif (Ida Lupino) and her baby. Later, in London, after becoming successful he realises she is the one
he truly loves, having by this time gone through other amorous adventures. The
only reason for seeing Escape Me Never is the music score, which abounds
with romantic themes. By now Korngold could indeed understand the dialogue but
he was not about to pass up a film about a composer, especially one that would
allow him to write an original ballet. In the film, the ballet (Primavera) is
interrupted by a temperamental ballerina and never resumed. Now, in this
arrangement by John Morgan, the ballet is brought to a logical ending by the
use of subsequent material heard in the background.
It has been
remarked many times over the years that films often end up with scores that are
better than the films themselves. In the case of Another Dawn and Escape
Me Never no other conclusion is possible.
Tony Thomas
Arranger's Note
Escape Me Never
was Korngold's last score
for Warner Bros. Part of the composer's assignment was to compose a portion of
a mythical ballet which is never played complete in the film. Since Korngold
only composed music up to the point where it is dramatically stopped in the
film, we have attempted to reconstruct a complete musical piece with a
beginning, middle and end, using music from other parts of the film. The
orchestra Korngold uses is expanded to include four flutes, two pianos, organ,
harmonium, organ, celeste, and two vibraphones, in addition to the normal sized
Warner Bros. orchestra.
Another Dawn is presented here, after a great deal of
restoring, as Korngold originally intended. Because of massive pre- and
post-scoring editorial changes, much of the music was severely trimmed or
eliminated in the final film. Parts of cues were hastily stitched together to
fit new timings and the sound mix often buried the music to near inaudibility.
After researching the original conductor books and timing notes on the original
music sessions, we were able to reassemble the music and include virtually all
the major cues in the score. We only eliminated cues which repeated substantial
material from other music; as well as very short "stinger" type cues.
As this premiere recording demonstrates, Another Dawn is a major
Korngold score filled with enthusiastic, colourful writing, common to the
composer during this period.
@ 1996 John W.
Morgan