Original score from the 2009 documentary feature film directed by Karen Thomas, starring Scott Subiono, Sewell Whitney and Sigourney Weaver.

THE STORY: Eight hundred German filmmakers (cast and crew) fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The film uses voice-overs, archival footage, and film clips to examine Berlin’s vital filmmaking in the 1920s; then it follows a producer, directors, composers, editors, writers, and actors to Hollywood: some succeeded and many found no work. Among those profiled are Erich Pommer, Joseph May, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Peter Lorre. Once in Hollywood, these exiles helped each other, housed new arrivals, and raised money so others could escape. Some worked on anti-Nazi films, like Casablanca. The themes and lighting of German Expressionism gave rise in Hollywood to film noir.

THE SCORE: “While scoring the film, I got to rub shoulders with the best composers of Hollywood” explains composer Peter Melnick (L.A. Story, Farce of the Penguins, Convicts). “Musically speaking, these were great years, harmonically sophisticated and melodically rich. I wanted to approach the score, not as a tourist in that musical era, but as though I were of that period, myself. The story commences in 1920s Germany and ends up in post-war America, and the music make the same journey, from the dark but lively Berlin cabaret sound to the popular music of the ‘30s and ’40s.” The trip also includes the sinister jazz-inflected scores associated with film noir, not to mention the Wild West sounds that owe as much (if not more) to Dmitri Tiomkin than to Aaron Copland.

MMS09001 CINEMA’S EXILES: FROM HITLER TO HOLLYWOOD (Original Television Soundtrack)
Music Composed by PETER MELNICK
Release date (digital): April 15, 2016