Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann

Birth : 1911-06-29, New York City, New York, USA

Death : 1975-12-24

History

Bernard Herrmann (born Max Herman; June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975) was an American composer best known for his work in composing for motion pictures. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. An Academy Award-winner (for The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1941; later renamed All That Money Can Buy), Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo. He also composed scores for many other movies, including Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Cape Fear, and Taxi Driver. He worked extensively in radio drama (composing for Orson Welles), composed the scores for several fantasy films by Ray Harryhausen, and many TV programs, including Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone and Have Gun–Will Travel.

Profile

Bernard Herrmann

Movies

Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes
Original Music Composer
The Red Shoes is a tale of obsession, possession and one girl's dream to be the greatest dancer in the world. Victoria Page lives to dance but her ambitions become a battleground between the two men who inspire her passion. Matthew Bourne’s magical adaptation of the classic Powell and Pressburger film is set to the achingly romantic music of golden-age Hollywood composer Bernard Herrmann, the production is orchestrated by Terry Davies, with stunning designs by Lez Brotherston, lighting by Paule Constable, sound by Paul Groothuis and projection design by Duncan McLean. Filmed live at Sadler’s Wells in London especially for cinemas.
The Twilight Zone: A 60th Anniversary Celebration
Original Music Composer
Six episodes of the original series, restored and on the big screen for the first time, and a special retrospective documentary encompass this Fathom Event.
Back to Room 666
Original Music Composer
What is the future of cinema? In 1982, in Cannes, Wim Wenders invited many movie makers to answer this question. 26 years later, the question remains, but Wenders is now on the other side of the camera.
The Key to Reserva
Music
Finding an unfinished script written by Alfred Hitchcock himself, Martin Scorsese attempts to recreate it himself as Hitchcock would have.
Psycho Path
Musical
Documentary on the making of Gus Van Sant's "Psycho."
Psycho
Original Music Composer
A young female embezzler arrives at the Bates Motel, which has terrible secrets of its own. Although this version is in color, features a different cast, and is set in 1998, it is closer to a shot-for-shot remake than most remakes, Gus Van Sant often copying Hitchcock's camera movements and editing, and Joseph Stefano's script is mostly carried over. Bernard Herrmann's musical score is reused as well, though with a new arrangement by Danny Elfman and recorded in stereo.
Bon week-end Monsieur Bennett !
Music
Mr. Bennett is a model citizen, a tender father and an irreproachable husband, he yearns for a quiet life. On a weekend he receives a visit from a strange man called Pédro Juarez. Mr. Bennett’s past suddenly resurfaces and his peaceful existence is turned upside down ...
The Egg
Music
The shower scene from Psycho reenacted with an egg.
Psycho IV: The Beginning
Music
Norman Bates recalls his childhood with his abusive mother on a radio show about boys who commit matricide.
Cada ver es...
Original Music Composer
The life and thoughts of Juan Manuel Espada, keeper in charge of the morgue sited at the Medicine University of Valencia.
Psycho Shampoo
Music
A short parody of the iconic shower murder scene from Hitchcock's "Psycho" framed as a shampoo commercial. This short was produced for the LA-based comedy theater group Our Lady of Laughter and used as part of their show "Rabies!" in 1979.
It Lives Again
Original Music Composer
An epidemic of mutant monster babies sweeps America.
God Told Me To
In Memory Of
A New York detective investigates a series of murders committed by random New Yorkers who claim that "God told them to."
Obsession
Original Music Composer
New Orleans businessman Michael Courtland’s life is shattered when his wife and daughter are tragically killed in a botched kidnap rescue attempt. Many years later whilst visiting Italy he meets and falls in in love with Sandra Portinari, who bears a striking resemblance to his wife.
Taxi Driver
Thanks
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.
Taxi Driver
Music Director
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.
Taxi Driver
Original Music Composer
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.
It's Alive
Orchestrator
Lenore Davis and her husband Frank are about to have their second child. As she gives birth, the newborn baby vanishes and leaves behind five dead bodies. It's up to the police and Frank to figure out where their mutated child has gone.
It's Alive
Conductor
Lenore Davis and her husband Frank are about to have their second child. As she gives birth, the newborn baby vanishes and leaves behind five dead bodies. It's up to the police and Frank to figure out where their mutated child has gone.
It's Alive
Original Music Composer
Lenore Davis and her husband Frank are about to have their second child. As she gives birth, the newborn baby vanishes and leaves behind five dead bodies. It's up to the police and Frank to figure out where their mutated child has gone.
Sisters
Original Music Composer
Inquisitive journalist Grace Collier is horrified when she witnesses her neighbor, fashion model Danielle Breton, violently murder a man. Panicking, she calls the police. But when the detective arrives at the scene and finds nothing amiss, Grace is forced to take matters into her own hands. Her first move is to recruit private investigator Joseph Larch, who helps her to uncover a secret about Danielle's past that has them both seeing double.
Endless Night
Original Music Composer
Shiftless dreamer Michael Rogers fantasizes about a lifestyle above his means and marries a wealthy, young girl who just came of age. They hire a famous architect to build their dream home amidst a series of suspicious incidents. The spouse has dark intentions toward his naive, inexperienced bride. Secrets from his past and sinister ties to their house guest Greta lead to a terrible turn of unexpected events.
The Road Builder
Original Music Composer
The dreary existence of middle-aged spinster Maura Prince takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of young handyman Billy Jarvis, but there is more to Billy than meets the eye. Based on the novel Nest in a Fallen Tree by Joy Cowley.
Bezeten - Het gat in de muur
Original Music Composer
A young medical student observes his neighbour's love life through a hole in his apartment wall.
Twisted Nerve
Original Music Composer
Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he retreats into an alternate child personality he calls Georgie. After being caught during a theft attempt at a department store, he befriends a female customer who is sympathetic to him, but his friendship soon turns into obsession.
Companions in Nightmare
Original Music Composer
One of the patients in a group-therapy session conducted by a famous psychiatrist is a murderer.
The Bride Wore Black
Original Music Composer
Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves the town. She will track down, charm and kill five men who do not know her. What is her goal? What is her purpose?
Death in the Afternoon
Original Music Composer
A man stabbed to death is haunted by his memories and fantasies while dying alone.
Fahrenheit 451
Conductor
In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…
Fahrenheit 451
Original Music Composer
In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…
Marnie
Original Music Composer
Marnie is a thief, a liar, and a cheat. When her new boss, Mark Rutland, catches on to her routine kleptomania, she finds herself being blackmailed.
A Talk with Hitchcock
Self
"Master of Suspense" Alfred Hitchcock speaks candidly in this one-on-one interview with director and host Fletcher Markle, filmed in 1964 for the television documentary series "Telescope." During the discussion, Hitchcock talks about his early career as a silent-film editor, offers his take on the building blocks of his works and relates his theories on the impact of horror films on society and human behavior.
Jason and the Argonauts
Conductor
Jason, a fearless sailor and explorer, returns to his home land of Thessaly after a long voyage to claim his rightful throne. He learns, however, that he must first find the magical Golden Fleece. To do so, he must embark on an epic quest fraught with fantastic monsters and terrible perils.
Jason and the Argonauts
Original Music Composer
Jason, a fearless sailor and explorer, returns to his home land of Thessaly after a long voyage to claim his rightful throne. He learns, however, that he must first find the magical Golden Fleece. To do so, he must embark on an epic quest fraught with fantastic monsters and terrible perils.
The Birds
Original Music Composer
Chic socialite Melanie Daniels enjoys a passing flirtation with an eligible attorney in a San Francisco pet shop and, on an impulse, follows him to his hometown bearing a gift of lovebirds. But upon her arrival, the bird population runs amok. Suddenly, the townsfolk face a massive avian onslaught, with the feathered fiends inexplicably attacking people all over Bodega Bay.
Cape Fear
Original Music Composer
Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.
Tender Is the Night
Original Music Composer
Against the counsel of his friends, psychiatrist Dick Diver marries Nicole Warren, a beautiful but unstable young woman from a moneyed family. Thoroughly enraptured, he forsakes his career in medicine for life as a playboy, until one day Dick is charmed by Rosemary Hoyt, an American traveling abroad. The thought of Dick possibly being attracted to someone else sends Nicole on an emotional downward spiral that threatens to consume them both.
Mysterious Island
Original Music Composer
During the US Civil War, Union POWs escape in a balloon and end up stranded on a South Pacific island, inhabited by giant plants and animals. They must use their ingenuity to survive the dangers, and to devise a way to return home. Sequel to '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' .
The 3 Worlds of Gulliver
Original Music Composer
Doctor Gulliver is poor, so nothing - not even his charming fiancée Elisabeth - keeps him in the town he lives. He signs on to a ship to India, but in a storm he's washed off the ship and ends up on an island, which is inhibitated by very tiny people. After he managed to convince them he's harmless and is accepted as one of their citizens, their king wants to use him in war against a people of giants. Compared to them, even Gulliver is a gnome.
Psycho
Original Music Composer
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Original Music Composer
An Edinburgh professor and assorted colleagues follow an explorer's trail down an extinct Icelandic volcano to the earth's center.
Blue Denim
Original Music Composer
Two naive high-school students must deal with the unexpected consequences after a night of passion.
North by Northwest
Original Music Composer
Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
Original Music Composer
When a princess is shrunken by an evil wizard, Sinbad must undertake a quest to an island of monsters to cure her and prevent a war.
The Naked and the Dead
Original Music Composer
Fighting men in World War II learn the value of courage and quickness at the risk of losing their lives.
Vertigo
Original Music Composer
A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
A Hatful of Rain
Original Music Composer
A Korean War veteran's morphine addiction wreaks havoc upon his family.
The Wrong Man
Original Music Composer
In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emmanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Conductor at Albert Hall
A couple vacationing in Morocco with their young son accidentally stumble upon an assassination plot. When the child is kidnapped to ensure their silence, they have to take matters into their own hands to save him.
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Original Music Composer
A couple vacationing in Morocco with their young son accidentally stumble upon an assassination plot. When the child is kidnapped to ensure their silence, they have to take matters into their own hands to save him.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Original Music Composer
Tom Rath (Gregory Peck) is a suburban father and husband haunted by his memories of World War II, including a wartime romance with Italian village girl Maria (Marisa Pavan), which resulted in an illegitimate son he's never seen. Pressed by his unhappy wife (Jennifer Jones) to get a higher-paying job, Rath goes to work as a public relations man for television network president Ralph Hopkins (Fredric March). Drawn into poisonous office politics, Tom finds he must choose his career or his family.
The Trouble with Harry
Original Music Composer
When a local man's corpse appears on a nearby hillside, no one is quite sure what happened to him. Many of the town's residents secretly wonder if they are responsible, including the man's ex-wife, Jennifer, and Capt. Albert Wiles, a retired seaman who was hunting in the woods where the body was found. As the no-nonsense sheriff gets involved and local artist Sam Marlowe offers his help, the community slowly unravels the mystery.
The Kentuckian
Original Music Composer
A frontiersman and his son fight to build a new home in Texas.
The Egyptian
Original Music Composer
In eighteenth-dynasty Egypt, Sinuhe, a poor orphan, becomes a brilliant physician and with his friend Horemheb is appointed to the service of the new Pharoah. Sinuhe's personal triumphs and tragedies are played against the larger canvas of the turbulent events of the 18th dynasty. As Sinuhe is drawn into court intrigues he learns the answers to the questions he has sought since his birth.
Garden of Evil
Original Music Composer
A trio of American adventurers marooned in rural Mexico are recruited by a beautiful woman to rescue her husband from Apaches.
King of the Khyber Rifles
Original Music Composer
Freshly arrived Sandhurst-trained Captain Alan King, better versed in Pashtun then any of the veterans and born locally as army brat, survives an attack on his escort to his Northwest Frontier province garrison near the Khyber pass because of Ahmed, a native Afridi deserter from the Muslim fanatic rebel Karram Khan's forces. As soon as his fellow officers learn his mother was a native Muslim which got his parents disowned even by their own families, he falls prey to stubborn prejudiced discrimination, Lieutenant Geoffrey Heath even moves out of their quarters, except from half-Irish Lt. Ben Baird.
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef
Original Music Composer
Mike and Tony Petrakis are a Greek father and son team who dive for sponges off the coast of Florida. After they are robbed by crooks, Arnold and the Rhys brothers, Mike decides to take his men to the dangerous 12-mile reef to dive for more sponges. Mike suffers a fatal accident when he falls from the reef leaving Tony to carry on the business. But now he has a companion, Gwyneth Rhys.
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Original Music Composer
Writer Harry Street reflects on his life as he lies dying from an infection while on safari in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.
5 Fingers
Original Music Composer
During WWII, the valet to the British Ambassador to Ankara sells British secrets to the Germans while trying to romance a refugee Polish countess.
On Dangerous Ground
Original Music Composer
A big-city cop is reassigned to the country after his superiors find him too angry to be an effective policeman. While on his temporary assignment he assists in a manhunt of a suspected murderer.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Original Music Composer
An alien and a robot land on Earth after World War II and tell mankind to be peaceful or face destruction.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Original Music Composer
In 1900, strong-willed widow Lucy Muir goes to live in Gull Cottage by the British seaside, even though it appears to be haunted. On her very first night she meets the ghost of the crusty former owner, Captain Gregg—and refuses to be scared off. They eventually become friends and allies, after Lucy gets used to the idea of a man's ghost haunting her bedroom.
Anna and the King of Siam
Original Music Composer
In 1862, a young Englishwoman becomes royal tutor in Siam and befriends the King.
Hangover Square
Original Music Composer
When composer George Harvey Bone wakes with no memory of the previous night and a bloody knife in his pocket, he worries that he has committed a crime. On the advice of Dr. Middleton, Bone agrees to relax, going to a music performance by singer Netta Longdon. Riveted by Netta, Bone agrees to write songs for her rather than his own concerto. However, Bone soon grows jealous of Netta and worries about controlling himself during his spells.
Jane Eyre
Original Music Composer
After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house to care for his young daughter.
The Magnificent Ambersons
Original Music Composer
The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
All That Money Can Buy
Original Music Composer
Farmer Jabez Stone, about to lose his land, agrees to sell his soul to the devil, known as Mr. Scratch, who gives Jabez seven years to enjoy the fruits of his sale before he collects. Over that time, Jabez pays off his debts and helps many neighboring farmers, then becomes an advocate for the upstanding Sen. Daniel Webster. When Jabez's contract with Mr. Scratch concludes, he desperately turns to Webster to represent him in a trial for his soul.
All That Money Can Buy
Conductor
Farmer Jabez Stone, about to lose his land, agrees to sell his soul to the devil, known as Mr. Scratch, who gives Jabez seven years to enjoy the fruits of his sale before he collects. Over that time, Jabez pays off his debts and helps many neighboring farmers, then becomes an advocate for the upstanding Sen. Daniel Webster. When Jabez's contract with Mr. Scratch concludes, he desperately turns to Webster to represent him in a trial for his soul.
Citizen Kane
Conductor
Newspaper magnate, Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Citizen Kane
Original Music Composer
Newspaper magnate, Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.