Joy in the Morning

Herrmann's only score of 1965 was Joy in the Morning, a joyless adaptation of a Betty Smith novel about marriage in Brooklyn. The movie seems to have left Herrmann uninspired and the music he provided was a shameless retread of the material he had written for Hitchcock the previous year. In fact, so similar was the main theme that Hitchcock (always with an eye on the money) wondered whether he might have some claim on the music rights. On November 4th he sent a lengthy telegram to Herrmann, who had by then decamped to London. The director began by reiterating his desire for his regular composer to score his planned espionage thriller, but then launched into a long lecture on the responsibilities of the artist:

I AM VERY ANXIOUS FOR YOU TO DO THE MUSIC ON TORN CURTAIN STOP I WAS EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED WHEN I HEARD THE SCORE OF JOY IN THE MORNING NOT ONLY DID I FIND IT CONFORMING TO THE OLD PATTERN BUT EXTREMELY REMINISCENT OF THE MARNIE MUSIC IN FACT THE THEME WAS ALMOST THE SAME STOP UNFORTUNATELY FOR WE ARTISTS WE DO NOT HAVE THE FREEDOM THAT WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE BECAUSE WE ARE CATERING TO AN AUDIENCE AND THAT IS WHY YOU GET YOUR MONEY AND I GET MINE STOP

What Hitchcock probably didn't know was that the music for Marnie was already second-hand by the time he acquired it. Herrmann had used the string melody as the theme for the Princess in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. So, if it had gone to court, the Master of Suspense could have ended up owing money to Ray Harryhausen.

Joy in the Morning is, surprisingly, available on disc on an FSM release (Vol. 5 No. 3). In a way, it's testament to Herrmann's reputation that even his weakest most derivative scores are available on CD. I don't own the score and have never heard it. Still, if Hitchcock says it sounds like Marnie, who am I to argue?