The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

Although the title of Herrmann's second film of 1956 had an echo of the Hitchcock thriller he had just completed, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit could not have been more different. A wordy adaptation of a bestselling novel about the life of a business executive (referenced in season two of Mad Men), it starred Gregory Peck as a man struggling with the pressures of working for a New York television network whilst haunted by memories of the men he killed in combat. Even though its running time was 156 minutes, the film did not require a great deal of music. Herrmann provided a score dominated by strings. The standout moment (innocuously titled "The Coat") is a four and a half minute sequence that uses muffled timpani to ratchet up the tension for a flashback in which Peck's character kills a young German sentry. This is one of the eight tracks that can be heard on Bernard Herrmann At Fox Volume 1 (VSD-6052)