Terry Teachout ponders an interesting question: is there a great Hollywood film score written for a comedy rather than a drama or a thriller? It's hard to think of one, though I am tempted to put Danny Elfman's Beetlejuice in the near-great category. Does Charade, with the fabulous Henry Mancini music, count as a comedy? I agree with much of Terry's top-ten Hollywood film-score list: certainly Vertigo, Chinatown, Adventures of Robin Hood, On the Waterfront, and Laura make the grade. I prefer Copland's Of Mice and Men to The Heiress. I also love Mancini's Touch of Evil (possibly a very dark comedy), Ellington and Strayhorn's Anatomy of a Murder, Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings, and — must be honest — John Williams's Star Wars. Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, and other classics have great title themes, but the scores don't control the unfolding of the narrative as do, say, Jerry Goldsmith's music for Chinatown and Bernard Herrmann's for Vertigo. I've limited myself to one film per composer; otherwise I'd be tempted to pick three or four more Herrmann scores. Vertigo belongs among the great musical works of the century.
Lisa Hirsch has the answer: Carl Stalling.
