Torn Curtain

The spy thriller was a type of picture that Hitchcock could rightly claim as his own by the end of the Fifties - after all, wasn't North by Northwest (with its beautiful women, famous landmarks, and hair-raising stunts) the prototype of a genre that would dominate the Sixties? Throughout that decade James Bond, Derek Flint, Matt Helm, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin were regularly dispatched on missions to rid the world of evil megalomaniacs bent on world domination. In Torn Curtain Hitchcock wanted to debunk the glamorous myth of espionage that he had helped to create - he had made the mould, and, now with his fiftieth film, he wanted to break it.

The film told the story of an American scientist (Paul Newman) who defects to East Germany as a cover in order to learn a secret formula from his old professor. He is pursued by his fiancee (Julie Andrews), who is torn between her love for him and her love for her country. On release the film was met with almost universal derision: "awful", "preposterous" and "irritatingly slack" were some of the choice adjectives in The New Yorker review. Life magazine's film critic Richard Schickel spoke for many when he said, "Hitchcock is tired to the point where what once seemed highly personal style is now merely repetition of past triumphs." In fact, Hitchcock had levelled this very same criticism at Herrmann in a telegram date November 4, 1965. He accused the composer of "conforming to the old pattern" and asked for something new, something with "a beat and a rhythm" that would satisfy the demands of the "young, vigorous and demanding" young audiences. He went on:

...I AM ASKING YOU TO APPROACH THIS PROBLEM WITH A RECEPTIVE AND IF POSSIBLE ENTHUSIASTIC MIND. IF YOU CANNOT DO THIS THEN I AM THE LOSER. I HAVE MADE UP MY MIND THAT THIS APPROACH TO THE MUSIC IS EXTREMELY ESSENTIAL, I ALSO HAVE VERY DEFINITE IDEAS AS TO WHERE MUSIC SHOULD GO IN THE PICTURE AND THERE IS NOT TOO MUCH.

Herrmann replied the very next day with what looked like an acceptance of Hitchcock's terms. With hindsight, however, it's difficult not to detect an element of irony in the composer's tone:

DELIGHTED COMPOSE VIGOROUS BEAT SCORE FOR TORN CURTAIN ALWAYS PLEASED HAVE YOUR VIEWS REGARDING MUSIC FOR YOUR FILM

In referring to rhythm and beat it's quite possible that Hitchcock had in mind the scores of John Barry, who was providing propulsive music for the James Bond series and managing to knock out hit songs for each movie as well. There hadn't been a hit song for a Hitchcock picture since The Man Who Knew Too Much. To Herrmann a "vigorous beat score" would mean a thundering timpani section. Had the two men sat down face to face, they might have worked out the misunderstandings between them, but, with Herrmann writing in London and Hitchcock holed up in his wood-panelled office at Universal, there was no chance of an early agreement.

Herrmann arrived in Los Angeles just after Christmas and played some early sketches (not yet orchestrated) for the director, who immediately pronounced them to be too "heavy". Hitchcock also took the opportunity to remind Herrmann that he wanted no music under the lengthy killing of the secret policeman Gromek. The director rightly saw this as the movie's set piece - the moment that, like the Psycho shower scene, would grab the audience's attention, and be talked about and analysed for its virtuoso technique. Herrmann had heard all this before on Psycho. In going against the director's express wishes on that occasion, he had proved himself to be right, and had been handsomely rewarded in the process.

Again, the opportunity for the two men to iron out their differences was lost. Herrmann finished the score within a couple of months. When he stood before the bizarre orchestra of brass and woodwinds at the Goldwyn Studios in March 1966 and raised his baton to conduct the "Prelude", he had no idea that his professional career was about to implode. Hitchcock came by the recording studio to listen to the day's work. "I heard the first segment," he said, "and I said, 'Finished, no other way, finished; goodbye, here's your money, sorry.' " Not being a man who enjoyed confrontation, Hitchcock then walked out of the studio. Years later, when Herrmann came by his office to attempt a kind of reconciliation, the director hid behind his door and instructed his secretary to say that he was out.

John Addison, who had won an Oscar for his score to Tom Jones, came on board as a replacement for Herrmann. Under the difficult circumstances of a tight deadline, he produced a serviceable score, but it had none of the beat or rhythm that Hitchcock had originally called for. Herrmann ended up cannibalising parts of his unused score for The Battle of Neretva five years later.

The unused score finally emerged on CD in 1998 when Joel McNeely recorded it for Varese Sarabande (VSD-5817). It's quite a grim affair, in keeping with the desaturated look of Hitchcock's visuals. It opens with the thundering "Prelude" with its screaming flutes and blaring trombones, but consists mostly of low-key mood music. The stand-out moment in the score is the one piece of music Hitchcock did not ask for ("The Killing"). On the Torn Curtain DVD there is an extra feature that shows the sequence with Herrmann's music. I agree with Hitchcock, though. The scene works better without music.The need for the killing to be done silently is an important plot point and a blaring orchestra accompaniment undermines the tension.