Hans 1, Salter
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CLASSIC SCORES OF MY~TERYAND HORROR BY FRANK SU1WNER 4' HANS 1, SALTER SLOVAK RADIO SYMP+IONY ORCHES7RA (BRA~ISLAVA) WILLIAM 7. STROMBERCi Hans J. Salter 1896-1 994 .Frank Slcinner 1897-1 968 UNIVERSAL'S CLASSIC SCORES OF MYSTERY AND HORROR Reconstructed and orchestrated by John Morgan except 'Man Made Monster' (25-26)' orchestrated by William T. Stromberg The Ghost of Frankenstein Halls 3. Salter (1942) Universal signature (Jinznzy McHrcglz) Main Title Blowing up the Castle Freeing the Monster Renewed Life Frankenstein's Castle Arrival at Vasaria [81 Erik's Dilemma Baron Frankenstein's Diary The Monster's Trial Elsa's Discovery Dr. Kettering's Death Ygor's Scheme Baron Frankenstein's Advice A New Brain Searching the Castle Monster Kidnaps Child / Monster's Desire Brain Transfer Mob Psychology Monster Talks Death of the Unholy Three End Cast Son of Dracula Hnizs J. Snlfer (1943) Main Title Blaclc Friday Hails Salter; Cl~arlesHenderson, Cltm'les Previn (1940) Hypnosis Man Made Monster Hails J. Snlter (1941) Corlzy Electro-Biology Sherloclc Holmes and the Voice of Terror Frailk Skilzner (1942) Main Title Limehouse Christopher Doclts Voice of Terror The Spider No Time to Lose March of Hate End Title Two years before his death, celebrated Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko, in a sentimental gesture aimed at his seven-year-old son, merrily decided one weekend to mount a mini-festival at home highlighting the old Universal horror pictures he had enjoyed so much during his own youthful days. In a Clricogo Tribrrrre column headlined, "Horrors of the Past are G-rated Today," Royko wrote of renting videos of Universal's Drncrrlo, Frnrrker~steirrand Frorrkerrstehr Meets tlre ll'o(fA4or1, then each night viewing one of the classic horror films alongside his son. Predictably, Royko's son found the old movies anemic at best, sleep-inducing at worst. Of the three films, only Frorlkerrsteirr A4eets tlre ll'o!f Morr registered any impact on the boy, largely because of the film's troubled lycanthrope. For all the critical carpings about actor Lon Chaney Jr.'s limitations as an actor, the pathos he displayed as were\volf Larry Talbot apparently proved enough to command the youth's attention and sympathy - at least, Inore so than the over-the-top histrionics of Colin Clive's mad scientist or downright Transylvanian weirdness of Bela Lugosi's vampire count. Insightful film scholars may well recognize another reason for the contemporary impact of a film such as Frarrkerrsteirr Meets tlre lVolfMnrr- a problematic production in its time and today regarded as a camp horror romp alongside more exalted film such as D~.nc~rlrrand Frrrrrkerrsteirr, Whatever it may have lacked in terms of innovation and inspiration, Frorrkerrsteirr A4eets tlre W'o!f Ator1 boasted, for much of its mnning time, a richly atmospheric music score that held many of the film's seemingly disparate elements together and smoothed out the picture in terms of pacing and mood. Indeed, if ever a genre needed mt~sicalassistance in creating a sufficient amount of atmosphere, it was the horror film of the 1930s and 1940s. Todav.<, earlv Uni\~ersal milestones such as Dmcrrlo and even Frnrlkerrsteirr (both 193 1 ) occasionally come off as stilted, partially because they lack full music scores. Even subsequent films such as lVere~volf" ofLor~cIorr " (1935) and Drocrrln's Dnrrghter (1936) pale partially because of their tepid music. Only Gennan composer Franz Waxman showed producers and directors where they must go in future 11orror endeavors, furnishing during his all-too-brief tenure at Universal a wizardly, tmly landmark score for director James Whale's triumphant sequel The Bride of Frc~rrker~steirr(1935). By the time Universal's second wave of horror films came crashing down on American audiences, beginning with Rowland V. Lee's So11 of Frorrker~steht,filmed in 1938 and released early the following year, Waxman had moved on to other scoring assignments at MGM and then Warner Brothers. However, the example he set was not forgotten. During the period immediately leading up to and including World War II, Hans J. Salter and Frank Skinner quite unintentionally became noted for their scoring of Universal's outlandish monster movies. Admittedly, a great number of other talents were pivotal during those years: outspoken, imaginative, Dresden-born screenwriter Curt Siodmak, a one-time newspaperman who in 1942 consented to script Fror~kerlsteirlMeets the Wo/f Moll only because he had payments to make on a new automobile and Universal executives knew they had him over a barrel; make-up wizard Jack Pierce, whose own curse was that Universal deemed Lon Chaney Jr. as the man to portray all monsters, meaning Pierce had to spend hours fashioning for the cameras a man he reportedly found disagreeable; director of photography George Robinson, whose work on the far spookier Spanish version of Dlnclrlo way hack in 1931 prepared him for all sorts of monstrous mayhem during the 1940s: B-movie director and former teacher and comic Erle C. Kenton, a one-time Mack Sennett trouper whom critics today delight in denigrating as a director, even while finding an endless multitude of novel, one-of-a- kind touches in his horror films; and, finally, actor Lon Chaney Jr., who despite a horrible penchant for drunkenness on the set (particularly while in the monster make-up on The Gl~ostof Fror~ker~stei~~)somehow managed to portray Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolf Man and a centuries-old mummy named Kharis before running out of luck at Universal. But of all these creative forces, none proved as consistently clucial to the success of the Universal monster movies as Hans J. Salter and Frank Skinner. It is nearly impossible to overstate the importance of Universal's music department during this period, especially upon the arrival of Hans Salter. The studio's busy staff composers produced a visceral style of music that rival studios sought to match, usually without success. Characterized by a formal mastery and deep sense of tradition going back to the German masters, yet imbued with a carefree verve and restless originality that stamped it as utterly American, this style of horror music allowed literature's most fanlous vampire nobleman to haunt a spooky Southern plantation in Sorr ofDrrrc~rlrr (1943), made Hollywood's favorite undying monster mindful of global conquest in Tlre Ghost of Frnrlkerlsteir~(1942) and introduced troubled lycanthrope Larry Talbot to various mad doctors, misfits and monsters while seeking out a lasting and merciful death in such films as Frnrrkerrsteirr Meets the Il'olfA4~1rr (1943) and Holrse of Frnrlkerlsteirl (1944). Even Curt Siodmak, who had a hand in many of these films (and who has never handed out praise readily when it came to his Universal peers), proved quick to recognize what Inany film historians have missed - the music. But then Siodn~akhas always shown a keen awareness of the power of music in film, to the extent he brilliantly suggested the use of a Bach chaconne in Max Steiner's heaven-storming score The Benst IVitIr Five Firlgers (1946) and conjured up tlie lyrics for the wine festival song Fnro-Lo Fnrv-Li in the thick of Frnrlkerlsteirr Meets the Il'olfMurr. In an interview on occasion of this album, the feisty, ever-opinionated 97-year-old author, screenwriter and director remembered Universal's music department - and, again, particularly Salter - as pivotal in both the immediate and continuing popularity of tlie studio's hol~orfilms. "He was extraordinarily good," Siodmak said of Salter. "Fifty percent of the success of those movies is in the music. Take the music out and see what you have. Of course, I'm talking about goodcomposing, and I think Hans Salter fit in perfectly ~14thsuch composers as Alfred Newnian and (Erich Wolfgang) Korngold." Author and film historian Tony Thomas was another lonely voice in the wilderness when it came to heaping praise on Universal's perennially overlooked staff composers. Before modern-day re-recordings of Salter and Skinner's niassive film scores were attempted, Thomas steadfastly kept Salter's arork before the public, producing long- playing records of the few brittle film soundtracks that survived, including Tlle Ghost of Frorlkerlsteir~. "The mere listing of his titles indicates not only that Salter turned out an incredible volume of work but that Salter and his confrere Frank Skinner were the principal authors in a whole sub-genre of film scoring," Thomas wrote later. "Between them they did Universal's Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Man, Invisible Man, Sherlock Holmes and sundry other ghoulish items. This is not to say that Salter and Skinner made this kind of score their exclusive province. While writing music for these pictures, they also scored every other kind of film prodoced by Universal - westerns, romances, comedies, dramas and musicals." Indeed, when film historian Preston Neal Jones conducted his revealing, much-quoted interview with Salter in the late 1970s and asked the mild-mannered composer to list his favorite film scores, Salter reeled off Belid of the River- (a western starring Jimmy Stewart), T/rtrrrder-on the Hill (a mystery starring Claudette Colbert) and Tlre Mcrg~r(ficelrtDoll (a particular favorite for Salter starring Ginger Rogers as socialite Dolley Madison) -but not one horror film. What's more, he indicated his late friend and colleague Frank Skinner felt the same way. "There were some pictures he was fond of," Salter told Jones, "but the Frankenstein pictures were not among them." Few musical collaborators in film history have proven as intriguing as Salter and Skinner. Illinois-born Skinner, with his easy-going, down-home, Midwestern sensibilities and dance-band background, might have seemed an odd choice to team with Vienna-born Salter, whose experience included study under prominent (and controversial) composers Alban Berg and Franz Schreker, directing operettas and stage productions (including A Miclsro~~rrrer-Night's Dr-en111with incidental music by Mendelssohn) and working for Berlin's famed UFA studios before Hitler's nightmarish visions sent him packing for other horizons.