I Am Big, It’s the Pictures That Got Small
Sound Technologies and Franz Waxman’s Scores for Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Twilight Zone’s “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” (1959)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.30618Keywords:
Film, Television, Franz Waxman, Adaptations, ScoreAbstract
Franz Waxman composed over 150 film scores, the most famous of which is Billy Wilder’s film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950). The film plot bears a striking resemblance to Rod Serling’s teleplay for The Twilight Zone, “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” (1959). Waxman, composer of the film, was approached to compose a score for a television episode that was what many term a shortened version of Wilder’s film for the small screen, but with supernatural elements. This article serves to remedy the dearth of literature on this topic and to form an examination of the ways that Waxman conceived of music to accompany films with similar themes but on different screens. Through this comparison of the two scores, a clearer picture of Waxman’s approaches to composing music for moving images will be presented.
References
Academy Research Council Theatre Sound Standardization Committee. n.d. Theatre acoustic recommendations. In The Sound Track book of the theatre: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 264-281. Chicago: The Sound Track.
Beach, Christopher. 2015. A hidden history of film style: Cinematographers, directors, and the collaborative process. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Belton, John. 1992. 1950s magnetic sound: The frozen revolution. In Sound Theory/Sound Practice, ed. Rick Altman, 154-170. New York: Routledge.
Brode, Douglas and Carol Serling. 2009. Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th anniversary tribute. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books.
Carroll, Noël. 2013. Minerva’s night out: Philosophy, pop culture, and moving pictures. Somerset, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118322925
Cinematographos. 2012, June 29. Franz Waxman and the Sunset Boulevard. YouTube. Accessed March 3, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjGUnCYdYiQ
Cooke, Grayson. 2009. We had faces then: Sunset Boulevard and the sense of the spectral. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 26, No. 2, 89-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509200600737762
Cooke, Mervyn. 2008. A history of film music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511814341
Dawson, Max. 2012, March 22. Reception problems: Postwar television and the amateur experimenter. Presentation at Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, Boston, MA. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://maxdawson.tv/2012/05/28/receptionproblems
Dolan, Robert Emmett. 1967. Music in modern media: Techniques in tape, disc, and film recording, motion picture and television scoring and electronic music. New York: G. Schirmer.
DuMont Television Advertisement. 1950. Saturday Evening Post. Accessed from Duke University Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess_TV0457
Fisher, Lucy. 1988. Sunset Boulevard: Fading stars. In Women and Film, ed. Janet Todd, 97-113. New York: Holmes & Meier.
Gier, Christina. 2014. Music and mimicry in Sunset Boulevard (1950). In Anxiety muted: American film music in a suburban age, ed. Stanley Pelkey and Anthony Bushard, 31-48. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199936151.003.0002
Gorbman, Claudia. 1987. Unheard melodies: Narrative film music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Grams, Martin Jr. 2008. The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Lanham, MD: OTR Publishing.
Hagen, Earle. 1971. Scoring for films. Los Angeles: E.D.J. Music.
High Fidelity. 1957, May. Tapetone Mus-et TV tuner. High Fidelity, 99; 101.
Hollywood Quarterly. 1950. Music from the films: A CBC broadcast. Hollywood Quarterly, 5, No. 2, 132-137. https://doi.org/10.2307/1209443
Hubbell, Richard T. 1945. Use of sound in television. Televiser: Journal of Video Production, 1, No. 4, 27-28.
Hutchinson, Thomas H. 1950. Here is television: Your window to the world. New York: Hastings House.
Kalinak, Kathryn. 1992. Settling the score: Music and the classical Hollywood film. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
———. 1981. The fallen woman and the virtuous wife: Musical stereotypes in The Informer, Gone With The Wind, and Laura. Film Reader, 5, 76-82.
Lev, Peter. 2006. The fifties: Transforming the screen, 1950–1959. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Little, George P. n.d. Acoustical materials and their use in the theatre. In The Sound Track book of the theater: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 282-286. Chicago: The Sound Track.
London, Kurt. 1970. Film music. New York: Arno Press.
MacDonald, Lawrence E. 1998. The invisible art of film music: A comprehensive history. Lanham, MD: Ardsley House.
Magnavox Television Advertisement. 1952. The New Yorker. Accessed from Duke University Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess_TV0173
Melbye, David. 2016. Irony in The Twilight Zone: How the series critiqued postwar American culture. Lanham, MD and Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield.
Miller, W.E. 1950. Television in your home: Everything the potential viewer needs to know. London: Iliffe.
Mitchell, Robert A. 1948, July. Control of sound-film reproduction. International Projectionist, 5-6.
——— 1949, April. Projection preparations for the “seasonal” theatre. International Projectionist.
——— 1959, July. Distortion factors in sound reproduction. International Projectionist, 5-6.
Mott, Robert L. 2014. Sound effects: Radio, TV, and film. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Co.
Nye, A.W. n.d. The nature of sound. Academy Technical Digest Reprint No. 11. Hollywood: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Ogron, Ben. n.d. “Modernizing” the sound system. In The Sound Track book of the theatre: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 249-250. Chicago: The Sound Track.
Popular Mechanics. 1941, December. Movies that mimic life. Popular Mechanics, 66-69; 166.
Ray, George. n.d. Loudspeaker equipment: Its applications in theatre sound systems. In The Sound Track book of the theatre: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 233-243. Chicago: The Sound Track.
Rodman, Ron. 2009. Tuning in: American narrative television music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340242.001.0001
Schonberg, Harold C. 1958, October 5. Hi-fi audio show: Annual high fidelity event this year points out surge of stereo. New York Times, X20.
Sedmer, David. 2012. The legacy of broadcast stereo sound: The short life of MTS, 1984–2009. Journal of Sonic Studies, 3, No. 1. Accessed January 15, 2015. http://journal.sonicstudies.org/vol03/nr01/a03
Skiles, Marlin. 1976. Music scoring for TV and motion pictures. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab Books.
Spadoni, Robert. 2007. Uncanny bodies: The coming of sound film and the origins of the horror genre. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Stadel, Luke. 2016. Radio/television/sound: Radio aesthetics and perceptual technics in early American television. E-Media Studies, 5, No. 1. http://journals.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/1/xmlpage/4/article/458
Staggs, Sam. 2002. Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the dark Hollywood dream. New York: St. Martins.
Steiner, Fred. 2004. An examination of Leith Stevens’ use of jazz in The Wild One. Film Music Notebook, 2, Nos. 2–3 (1976). Reprinted in Elmer Bernstein’s Film Music Notebook: A Complete Collection of the Quarterly Journal, 1974–1978, 240-249; 280-288. Sherman Oaks, CA: The Film Music Society.
Sunier, John. 1960. The story of stereo, 1881–. New York: Gernsback.
Television Allocations Study Organization. 1959. Engineering aspects of television allocations: Report of the Television Allocations Study to the Federal Communications Commission, 16 March 1959. Washington: Television Allocations Study Organization.
Thomas, Tony. 1979. Film score: The view from the podium. South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes.
United States Census. n.d. 20th Century Statistics—Section 31. Accessed June 28, 2015. https://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Van Cour, Shawn. 2011. Television music and the history of television sound. In Music in Television: Channels of Listening, ed. James Deaville, 57-59. New York and Abington: Routledge.
Van Niman, R.T. n.d. Theatre amplifiers: Amplifier design. In The Sound Track book of the theatre: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 214-232. Chicago: The Sound Track.
Waxman, Franz. n.d.a. Sunset Boulevard. Musical score. Franz Waxman Papers, Syracuse University Library, Oversize Box 101, Folder C.
———. n.d.b. The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine. Musical score. CBS Collection #72, University of California, Los Angeles, Box 89, Folder 2081-2090.
Welsch, Tricia. 2013. Hollywood legends: Gloria Swanson: Ready for her close-up. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Wierzbicki, James. 2012. Music in The Twilight Zone. In Music in science fiction television: Tuned to the future, ed. K.J. Donnelly, 1-13. New York and Abington: Routledge.
Wireless World. 1955, June. Television and V.H.F. sound. Wireless World, 251.
Wissner, Reba. 2013. A dimension of sound: Music in The Twilight Zone. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press.
———. 2017. No time like the past: Hearing nostalgia in The Twilight Zone. Journal of Popular Television, 5, No. 2 (Forthcoming).
Wolf, S.K. n.d. Theatre acoustics for reproduced sound. Academy Technical Digest Reprint No. 6. Hollywood: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Wolfe, Peter. 1997. In the zone: The twilight world of Rod Serling. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press.
Wolfreys, Julian. 2004. Occasional deconstructions. Ithaca, NY: State University of New York Press.
Beach, Christopher. 2015. A hidden history of film style: Cinematographers, directors, and the collaborative process. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Belton, John. 1992. 1950s magnetic sound: The frozen revolution. In Sound Theory/Sound Practice, ed. Rick Altman, 154-170. New York: Routledge.
Brode, Douglas and Carol Serling. 2009. Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th anniversary tribute. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books.
Carroll, Noël. 2013. Minerva’s night out: Philosophy, pop culture, and moving pictures. Somerset, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118322925
Cinematographos. 2012, June 29. Franz Waxman and the Sunset Boulevard. YouTube. Accessed March 3, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjGUnCYdYiQ
Cooke, Grayson. 2009. We had faces then: Sunset Boulevard and the sense of the spectral. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 26, No. 2, 89-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509200600737762
Cooke, Mervyn. 2008. A history of film music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511814341
Dawson, Max. 2012, March 22. Reception problems: Postwar television and the amateur experimenter. Presentation at Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, Boston, MA. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://maxdawson.tv/2012/05/28/receptionproblems
Dolan, Robert Emmett. 1967. Music in modern media: Techniques in tape, disc, and film recording, motion picture and television scoring and electronic music. New York: G. Schirmer.
DuMont Television Advertisement. 1950. Saturday Evening Post. Accessed from Duke University Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess_TV0457
Fisher, Lucy. 1988. Sunset Boulevard: Fading stars. In Women and Film, ed. Janet Todd, 97-113. New York: Holmes & Meier.
Gier, Christina. 2014. Music and mimicry in Sunset Boulevard (1950). In Anxiety muted: American film music in a suburban age, ed. Stanley Pelkey and Anthony Bushard, 31-48. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199936151.003.0002
Gorbman, Claudia. 1987. Unheard melodies: Narrative film music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Grams, Martin Jr. 2008. The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Lanham, MD: OTR Publishing.
Hagen, Earle. 1971. Scoring for films. Los Angeles: E.D.J. Music.
High Fidelity. 1957, May. Tapetone Mus-et TV tuner. High Fidelity, 99; 101.
Hollywood Quarterly. 1950. Music from the films: A CBC broadcast. Hollywood Quarterly, 5, No. 2, 132-137. https://doi.org/10.2307/1209443
Hubbell, Richard T. 1945. Use of sound in television. Televiser: Journal of Video Production, 1, No. 4, 27-28.
Hutchinson, Thomas H. 1950. Here is television: Your window to the world. New York: Hastings House.
Kalinak, Kathryn. 1992. Settling the score: Music and the classical Hollywood film. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
———. 1981. The fallen woman and the virtuous wife: Musical stereotypes in The Informer, Gone With The Wind, and Laura. Film Reader, 5, 76-82.
Lev, Peter. 2006. The fifties: Transforming the screen, 1950–1959. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Little, George P. n.d. Acoustical materials and their use in the theatre. In The Sound Track book of the theater: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 282-286. Chicago: The Sound Track.
London, Kurt. 1970. Film music. New York: Arno Press.
MacDonald, Lawrence E. 1998. The invisible art of film music: A comprehensive history. Lanham, MD: Ardsley House.
Magnavox Television Advertisement. 1952. The New Yorker. Accessed from Duke University Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess_TV0173
Melbye, David. 2016. Irony in The Twilight Zone: How the series critiqued postwar American culture. Lanham, MD and Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield.
Miller, W.E. 1950. Television in your home: Everything the potential viewer needs to know. London: Iliffe.
Mitchell, Robert A. 1948, July. Control of sound-film reproduction. International Projectionist, 5-6.
——— 1949, April. Projection preparations for the “seasonal” theatre. International Projectionist.
——— 1959, July. Distortion factors in sound reproduction. International Projectionist, 5-6.
Mott, Robert L. 2014. Sound effects: Radio, TV, and film. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Co.
Nye, A.W. n.d. The nature of sound. Academy Technical Digest Reprint No. 11. Hollywood: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Ogron, Ben. n.d. “Modernizing” the sound system. In The Sound Track book of the theatre: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 249-250. Chicago: The Sound Track.
Popular Mechanics. 1941, December. Movies that mimic life. Popular Mechanics, 66-69; 166.
Ray, George. n.d. Loudspeaker equipment: Its applications in theatre sound systems. In The Sound Track book of the theatre: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 233-243. Chicago: The Sound Track.
Rodman, Ron. 2009. Tuning in: American narrative television music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340242.001.0001
Schonberg, Harold C. 1958, October 5. Hi-fi audio show: Annual high fidelity event this year points out surge of stereo. New York Times, X20.
Sedmer, David. 2012. The legacy of broadcast stereo sound: The short life of MTS, 1984–2009. Journal of Sonic Studies, 3, No. 1. Accessed January 15, 2015. http://journal.sonicstudies.org/vol03/nr01/a03
Skiles, Marlin. 1976. Music scoring for TV and motion pictures. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab Books.
Spadoni, Robert. 2007. Uncanny bodies: The coming of sound film and the origins of the horror genre. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Stadel, Luke. 2016. Radio/television/sound: Radio aesthetics and perceptual technics in early American television. E-Media Studies, 5, No. 1. http://journals.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/1/xmlpage/4/article/458
Staggs, Sam. 2002. Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the dark Hollywood dream. New York: St. Martins.
Steiner, Fred. 2004. An examination of Leith Stevens’ use of jazz in The Wild One. Film Music Notebook, 2, Nos. 2–3 (1976). Reprinted in Elmer Bernstein’s Film Music Notebook: A Complete Collection of the Quarterly Journal, 1974–1978, 240-249; 280-288. Sherman Oaks, CA: The Film Music Society.
Sunier, John. 1960. The story of stereo, 1881–. New York: Gernsback.
Television Allocations Study Organization. 1959. Engineering aspects of television allocations: Report of the Television Allocations Study to the Federal Communications Commission, 16 March 1959. Washington: Television Allocations Study Organization.
Thomas, Tony. 1979. Film score: The view from the podium. South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes.
United States Census. n.d. 20th Century Statistics—Section 31. Accessed June 28, 2015. https://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Van Cour, Shawn. 2011. Television music and the history of television sound. In Music in Television: Channels of Listening, ed. James Deaville, 57-59. New York and Abington: Routledge.
Van Niman, R.T. n.d. Theatre amplifiers: Amplifier design. In The Sound Track book of the theatre: A selection of the best articles from The Sound Track, 214-232. Chicago: The Sound Track.
Waxman, Franz. n.d.a. Sunset Boulevard. Musical score. Franz Waxman Papers, Syracuse University Library, Oversize Box 101, Folder C.
———. n.d.b. The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine. Musical score. CBS Collection #72, University of California, Los Angeles, Box 89, Folder 2081-2090.
Welsch, Tricia. 2013. Hollywood legends: Gloria Swanson: Ready for her close-up. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Wierzbicki, James. 2012. Music in The Twilight Zone. In Music in science fiction television: Tuned to the future, ed. K.J. Donnelly, 1-13. New York and Abington: Routledge.
Wireless World. 1955, June. Television and V.H.F. sound. Wireless World, 251.
Wissner, Reba. 2013. A dimension of sound: Music in The Twilight Zone. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press.
———. 2017. No time like the past: Hearing nostalgia in The Twilight Zone. Journal of Popular Television, 5, No. 2 (Forthcoming).
Wolf, S.K. n.d. Theatre acoustics for reproduced sound. Academy Technical Digest Reprint No. 6. Hollywood: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Wolfe, Peter. 1997. In the zone: The twilight world of Rod Serling. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press.
Wolfreys, Julian. 2004. Occasional deconstructions. Ithaca, NY: State University of New York Press.
Published
2017-05-03
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Wissner, R. (2017). I Am Big, It’s the Pictures That Got Small: Sound Technologies and Franz Waxman’s Scores for Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Twilight Zone’s “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” (1959). Journal of Film Music, 7(1), 77-92. https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.30618
