Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart 1885-1949
Business was booming on old Broadway in the snowy December of 1927. While Herbert Stothart was conducting his operetta Golden Dawn to packed houses at the Hammerstein Theatre, other future film scorers were conducting musical shows to packed houses at neighbouring theatres. Max Steiner was conducting Vincent Youmans' Hit the Deck at the Belasco Theatre. Roy Webb was conducting Rodgers and Hart's A Connecticut Yankee at the Vanderbilt. Alfred Newman was conducting George Gershwin's Funny Face at the Alvin. The Great White Way was at the peak of its Golden Age… At the same time, Al Jolson's Warner Bros. film THE JAZZ SINGER, a part-Talkie just released, was attracting huge audiences. A new Golden Age, that of Hollywood, was about to dawn. Besides songs, Jolson's picture contained a musical score specially composed, arranged and conducted by his (59th Street) theatre orchestra leader, Louis ("April Showers") Silvers, who had accompanied him to Hollywood. Stothart, Steiner, Webb, Newman and various other top Broa
Reviews
The big budget DRAGON SEED was a box office success for M-G-M in 1944, securing a place in the top ten grossing films of that year, helped no doubt by virtue of its wartime propaganda theme. In the lead, Katherine Hepburn was possibly not the most obvious choice for the role of a Chinese peasant but nevertheless she looked remarkable in early prosthetic-style make-up created by Jack Dawn to provide her with a traditional Oriental appearance. Herbert Stothart composed a rich variety of music for the lengthy 140 minute film, all of which has been preserved on this double CD, in genuine stereo no less, thanks to the use of dual microphone recording techniques.
Herbert Stothart, a pre-eminent pioneer composer of film music, worked at M-G-M from 1929 until his death in 1949. At M-G-M, Stothart was responsible for the scores of many of the studio’s most prestigious films including: The Barretts of Wimpole Street, David Copperfield, The Painted Veil, Anna Karenina, Mutiny on the Bounty, Rose-Marie (and many other operettas), The Wizard of Oz, Pride and Prejudice, Waterloo Bridge, Thousands Cheer, National Velvet, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mrs Miniver and the two scores that are the subject of this album.
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