I am a huge fan of orchestral movie music. Right now, as I type this, I am listening to Elmer Bernstein's recording of Miklos Rozsa's magnificent score for The Thief of Bagdad. Just hearing the score summons up images from the film. Rozsa, of course, also scored Ben-Hur, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and another personal favorite Time After Time. (Anyone know where I can get that one? I-tunes doesn't have it.)
Speaking of Bernstein, his music for To Kill a Mockingbird, with its haunting recurring theme for Scout and Jem, is part of what makes that film my favorite of all time and my vote for best film adaptation of a novel, ever.
Naturally, John Williams' many scores for science-fiction and fantasy films, from Star Wars through Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters and Harry Potter, are constant companions as well. But Williams has some other credits you may not be as familiar with: He wrote the theme for TV's Lost in Space, and his score for The Reivers, a non-genre movie, is delightful.
Alfred Newman's score for The Mark of Zorro, starring Tyrone Power, built almost entirely as it is around the stirring theme music, is a standout, and another one I wish I could find a recording of.
That leads us to Erich Wolfgang Korngold--composer of Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk--and to Max Steiner, famed for Gone With The Wind, but who also scored Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Dodge City, The Searchers, Jezebel (another with a remarkable recurring main theme) and King Kong.
Do you have a favorite film composer or score I haven't mentioned?
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