If you were to go through your CD collection, how many movie soundtracks would you find? If you go through your iPod, how many songs from movies will you encounter? If you think that number is significant, you have Merian C. Cooper, Max Steiner and the 1933 classic “King Kong” to thank.
Before 1933, many films used background music to help set the mood. When Cooper took on the task of directing “King Kong”, he thought that the film should be used for music which was brought more to the forefront of the senses of the film viewer. Cooper contacted Steiner for help.
While Steiner has written music for films before, he has never taken on a project like composing an original score for a full film. No one before. The idea was unheard of in the early 1930s.
For the first time in film history, a film director and a music director worked hand in hand in the development of a film. Steiner changed his score for “King Kong” when Merian C. Cooper made revisions to the scene to better suit Steiner’s score. While this is in common practice today, it was unheard of before Kong. Upon the release of “King Kong,” many of the studio executives realized that they needed to take action to improve the overall motion of their movie. And they praised the two in their vision.
In the last few years, the importance of music scores has mostly shifted to horror movies and the quickly emerging gangster movie genre. When asked about this change, Steiner stated that “it will only be a few years until all the movie music reminds everyone of what Merian C Cooper did in ‘King Kong.’
As the 1930s turned into the 1940s, movie goers saw the roles that musical scores played in movies. Today, very few of us think about movie musicals‘s impact on our emotions. You could say that the steps taken by Cooper and Steiner in “King Kong” have now been taken for granted. Musical scores used to make great classic movies many of us remember about the rest. to our souls. Just imagine what it would be like to watch “Before the Wind,” “Jaws” or “E.T.” without original musical scores? Thanks to Cooper and Steiner for their work on King Kong for preventing such a loss.
