In the main. film scoring is a subliminal art, intended to be more felt than heard, but there are sometimes movies that require a score to illuminate them in such a way that it would not be amiss even if the orchestra was seen on the sidelines. The Thief of Bagdad and The Jungle Book are films of this kind, and the music Miklos Rozsa provided for them is a vital and delightful factor in their enduring success. Indeed, in the creation of film fantasy and the part played by musical scoring, there are no better examples than these.
The Thief Of Baghdad was put into production in the spring of 1939 in England by Sir Alexander Korda. By that time Rozsa has scored five Korda films, leaving little doubt that he would be given the Baghdad assignment. But doubt soon arrived in the form of director Ludwig Berger, who had just made a film in Paris with the eminent Viennese operetta composer Oscar Straus. Straus, insisted Berger, would write the music for his visualization of these Arabian Nights adventures. Unfortunately the result was music appropriate for Viennese Nights adventures, which sent music director Muir Mathieson running to Korda and making it known that the music was absolutely impossible. Recalls Rozsa, "I was then put in a very strange position. Korda told me to go ahead and write my score but not to tell anyone. He afterwards put me in an office next to Berger's and told me to play my music as loudly as I could on the piano. I did this for three days, until Berger came in and asked what it was I was playing. I told him it was my concept of the score. He said I was wasting my time since he already had a score, but what, by the way, was that last piece I was playing? I said it was an idea for the love theme. And what, he wanted to know, was that spirited little theme I was playing ahead of it? An idea for the song for Sabu. 'I Want To Be A Sailor.' He nodded and left. The next day he sent Straus a telegram saying that the distance between London and Paris made the collaboration impossible and that he would have to hire someone close at hand. He begged to be forgiven but I'm sure Straus never did."
The Thief Of Baghdad was almost three-quarters completed when war broke out in September 1939. All film production in England was put on hold, and in the case of the expensive Korda production investment was suddenly withdrawn. Since he had long had a distribution contract with United Artists in Hollywood, Korda decided to complete the film in California and set up an arrangement for possible future production there. Rozsa was brought to Los Angeles in May of 1940 to write the music for the new segments and to complete his recording of the score. This would also be his first opportunity to conduct one of his film scores: Muir Mathieson had conducted all previous Rozsa scores but he was not included in the move from London. Thereafter, Rozsa would conduct all his music for films.
The suite from this glowing score covers much of the plot of the enchanting film, surely one of the most successful of its kind ever realized on the screen. It begins with the King's fanfares and proceeds with the arrival in the port of Baghdad of the villainous Jaffar (Conrad Veidt), who intends to conquer the city with sorcery. Jaffar imprisons the handsome young heir to the throne, Ahmed (John Justin) but the mischievous little Abu (Sabu) steal the key to the dungeon and together they escape to Basra. There they see a procession and for the first time Ahmed catches sight of the Princess (June Duprez), and instantly falls in love with her Rozsa's love theme makes this abundantly and passionately clear. jaffar also desires the Princess and offers her father, the Sultan, a clockwork horse like Pegasus, which flies above the city with the Sultan on his back. The Sultan agrees to give his daughter but then meets his death when Jaffar presents another toy. the six-armed Silvermaid, which dances for the Sultan and then kills him. The final movement of the suite describes the happiness in the marketplace of Basra, as the people rejoice in the victory of Ahmed and Abu over the wicked Jaffar and the marriage of Ahmed and his lovely Princess. It is all a fairytale par excellence, and made the moreso by this splendid music.
Korda's success with The Thief of Baghdad paved the way for three more films to be made in Hollywood - That Hamilton Woman (more graciously titled Lady Hamilton in England), Lydia, and The Jungle Book, all of them scored by Miklos Rozsa. The latter reunited the composer with Sabu and would result not only in a wonderful music score but a recording in concert form, with Sabu as the narrator and Rozsa conducting the NBC Orchestra in an RCA album, among the first ever made of a film score. Issued in the summer of 1942 the album sold over forty thousand copies, a remarkable sale for a concert work in those years. In 1955 Rozsa again recorded the suite for RCA, this time with Leo Genn as the narrator. Another recording was made in Nurnberg in 1981 with the German narrator Elmar Gunsch, from which the suite minus narration has been drawn for this presentation.
As in the case of The Thief Of Baghdad, Rozsa's music for The Jungle Book goes beyond the normal functions of film scoring. It is not background music, it is accompaniment in which the music is part of the story telling process. Korda allowed for a loving treatment of Rudyard Kipling's story of the Indian boy Mowgli (Sabu), who wanders off into the jungle as a baby and is reared by a wolf pack. Both the beauty and the danger of the jungle are skillfully set by Rozsa's rich descriptivness - Mowgli is characterized by a folksong - like melody and the sadness of the mother who never forgets him is marked by a lullaby. But it is in his musical characterizing of the various animals that Rozsa achieves something quite rare in the annals of composition. The nature of each is captured by instruments that cleverly and charmingly spot them. The lumbering thunder of the elephants is marked by trombones and tubas, horn glissandoes speak for the hunting call of the wolves, cackling contra-bassoons limn the chuckling of Baloo the bear, muted brasses speak for Jaccala the crocodile, Bagheera the black panther slips through the jungle to the sound of shimmering strings, another contrabassoon, this time more dignified, signals the wise old python kaa and the gurgling of an alto saxophone suggests the mocking laugh of hyena. The hissing sound of the brass tells us of the poisonous cobra, the silly chatter of the monkeys comes across with the cheecky high notes of the woodwinds and the low. muted trombones warn us of the treacherous, murderous tiger, Shere Khan. The fight between Shere Khan and Mowgli is described by Rozsa with all its ferocity and all its triumaph, a victory that allows the animals to return to the peace and beauty of their jungle, thanks to the courage of the boy who loves understands them.
Had Miklos Rozsa composed only these two films scores he would merit a place among the listing of important, influential film composers. The Thief Of Baghdad and The Jungle Book are remarkable compositions, yet they represent merely a small part of a catalog that is incredible in its scope. Rozsa has proved himself a master of every form of film-romantic, ancient adventures and modern crime - and all of it in addition to his career as one of this century's most successful composers of concert and chamber compositions. His is a place in music unlike that of anyone else.
-Tony Thomas
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