Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Early in his musical career, while playing piano with a popular jazz band, German-born Franz Waxman began orchestrating early German musical films; his first important assignment was orchestrating and conducting Frederick Hollander’s score for Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. The film's producer, Erich Pommer, hired Waxman to write his first significant score, for Fritz Lang’s Liliom, in 1933. By 1935 Waxman had left Europe for Hollywood, where he was hired to compose the original score for James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein.

More than a hundred film scores followed, typically at a rate of seven a year, over the next three decades. Throughout that period Waxman continued composing serious concert works, and in 1947, he founded the Los Angeles Music Festival, which he directed for 20 years. Waxman earned 12 Academy Award® nominations and won Oscars back-to-back for the remarkable music he created for Sunset Blvd. (1950) and A Place in the Sun (1951).

His impressive range allowed him to write not only effective, but often inspired scores for adventures, comedies, dramas, mysteries and horror films. Among his other notable scores are those he composed for Captains Courageous (1937), The Young in Heart (1938), Rebecca (1940), Objective, Burma! (1945), Humoresque (1946), The Silver Chalice (1954), Mister Roberts (1955), Sayonara (1957), The Nun’s Story (1959) and Taras Bulba (1962). Waxman died in 1967 at age 60, still in his creative prime.

7:30 p.m.
Suspicion
Cast Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Leo G. Carroll.

Director Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison, Alma Reville (based on the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles). Cinematography Harry Stradling. Film Editing William Hamilton. Art Direction Van Nest Polglase. Associate Art Direction Carroll Clark. Set Decoration Darrell Silvera. Costume Design Edward Stevenson. Music Score Franz Waxman. Sound John E. Tribby. Special Effects Vernon L. Walker. RKO Radio. 1941. 35mm. 99 minutes.

Academy Award Winner: Actress (Fontaine).
Academy Award Nominee: Music Score of a Dramatic Picture (Waxman), Outstanding Motion Picture (RKO Radio).

9:20 p.m.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Cast Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Donald Crisp, Ian Hunter, C. Aubrey Smith, Barton MacLane.

Director Victor Fleming. Screenplay John Lee Mahin (based on the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson). Cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg. Film Editing Harold F. Kress. Art Direction Cedric Gibbons. Associate Art Director Daniel B. Cathcart. Set Decoration Edwin B. Willis. Costume Design Adrian, Gile Steele. Music Score Franz Waxman. Sound Douglas Shearer. Special Effects Warren Newcombe. Make-up Jack Dawn. Dance Direction Ernst Matray. Montage Effects Peter Ballbusch. MGM. 1941. 35mm. 122 minutes.

Academy Award Nominee: Black-and-White Cinematography (Ruttenberg), Film Editing (Kress), Music Score of a Dramatic Picture (Waxman).

Prints courtesy of Warner Bros.