Max Steiner Music Society

3-3/4 ips tapes produced by Quality Sound Productions, unknown address. The story is Max made phonograph lacquers of his sound track recordings because it took a while for the optical recording to be developed and available for review. So these are the same performances as utilized in the associated movies, sans voice and sound effects. This is the equivalent of what we now call "session tapes". The current repository of the originals is Brigham Young University of Utah, next to the golden tablets. After 1950, high fidelity tape recordings were used throughout the industry and you would think that Max would have converted, but then it would not be as cute a story.

Since these were transfered from records, they have scratches and other surface defects, and of course are mono. To quote the producers "If you are distressed by the sometime poor sound of your tape, please bear in mind the source of the music. Forty year old studio acetates do not make for Hi-Fi. Your tape is a faithful copy of the original"

These were the personal collection of a Mr Joseph F. Heffron, who had a habit of recording radio programs over the tapes. The first sequence below appears to have been formatted for audio cassette in addition to the open reel tapes.

undated-

171 Adventures of Don Juan 24:50 exceptional [WB 1949]

172 Escapade in Japan 46:26 minimal pops [Universal 1957] According to the voice announcement, this is the first tape in the MSMS series (?) .

173 Charge of the Light Brigade [WB 1936] surface static in quiet sections

174 Sergeant York [WB 1941] generally poor condition.

175 Garden of Allah [Selznic-UA 1936]

176 Jezebel

177 White Banners [WB 1938]/Four Daughters

178 Sweepings/Little Minister

179 Searchers

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1973 release dates-

180 Little Lord Fauntleroy

181 A Star is Born

182 Tovarich/Gold is Where You Find It*

183 Oklahoma Kid/Virginia City

184 Letter

185 Three Musketeers

186 Symphony of Six Million/Bird of Paradise/King Kong

187 Morning Glory/Lost Patrol/Down to Their Last Yacht

188

189 Follow the Fleet/God's Country and the Woman*/Slim/That Certain Woman

190 Green Light

191 Lost Horizon

192 Life of Emile Zola/Submarine D-1/First Lady

193 Crime School/Amazing Dr Clitterhouse/Sisters

194 Dark Victory

195 Dodge City/Old Maid/Dust be My Destiny/We are not Alone/Four Wives

196 Dr Ehrlich's Magic Bulletx

197 All This and Heaven Too

198 City for Conquest/A Dispach from Reuters/Santa Fe Trail

199 Great Lie/Bride Came COD/Dive Bomber [2 copies]

200 Kenneth Suhre Memorial, narration James E. Reising (earlier release, not in sequence)

201 They Died with Their Boots On/One Foot in Heaven

202 Saratoga Trunk

203 Casablanca/Mission to Moscow/Watch on the Rhine

204 Gone with the Wind

205

206

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1974 release dates

207 Treasure of the Sierra Madre

208

209 Adventures of Don Juan

210 Flame and the Arrow

211 Fred Astair/Helen of Troy

212 Since You Went Away

213 Tomorrow is Forever

214 Silver River

215

216

217 Rocky Mountain/Dallas

218 Distant Drums

219 Mara Maru/Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima

220 Lion and the Horse/So Big

221 Come Next Spring/[Without Honor]

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1975 release dates

222 Shining Victory/In This Our Life/[Captain of the Clouds]

223 Gay Sisters

224 Passage to Marseille/Arsenic and Old Lace/Conspirators/Mildred Pierce/San Antonio/Unfaithful

225 Pursued

226 Deep Valley

227 My Girl Tisa/April Showers/Decision of Christopher Blake

228 Backfire/Young Man with a Horn/Caged/Bright Leaf/Breaking Point

229 Glass Menagerie

230 Close to My Heart

231 On Moonlight Bay/Jim Thorpe, All American

232 McConnell Story/Illegal/Darby's Rangers/Haning Tree/FBI Story/Cash McCall/Ice Palace/Dark at the Top of the Stairs/Parrish

233 Susan Slade/Spencer's Mountain/A Distant Trumpet/Youngbloode Hawke

234 Intermezzo/Adventures of Tom Sawyer

235 My Reputation/Informer

236 Voice of the Turtle

237 Woman in White

238 Fighter Squadron

239 South of Saint Louis/A Kiss in the Dark

240 Fountainhead

241 Lady Takes a Sailor

242 Operation Pacific

243 Lightning Strikes Twice

244 Raton Pass

245 Force of Arms/Violent Men

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1976 release dates

246 Break of Hearts/She Ballet/Cloak and Dagger/Life with Father/Sugarfoot/Victim/A Summer Place/Those Calloways/Two on a Guillotine

247

248 Max Steiners Vocals/Max Steiner on the Air

1980 release dates

249 Out Takes 1

250 Out Takes 2 [Priscilla Lane/Dick Powell]

251 Out Takes 3

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No release dates, these are actual movie sound tracks, complete with dialog, not phonograph recordings. Produced by MSMS.

811 King Kong "complete" [RKO 1933]

813 Charge of the Light Brigade "complete"[MGM 1936 MGM had Steiner under contract for 1 film score a year]

815 Bird of Paradise "complete" [RKO 1932]

816 Casablanca [WB 1942]

819 Two on a Guillotine [WB 1965]

822 Roberta "complete" [RKO 1935]

832 Cimarron [RKO 1930]

833 Captains of the Clouds [WB 1942]

843 Virginia City [WB 1940]

852 Submarine D-1 [WB 1937]

853 Of Human Bondage [RKO 1934]

858 Gold is Where You Find It [Cosmopolitan (WB) 1938]

862 Rio Rita [RKO 1929 Steiner's first film]

874 A Stolen Life [WB 1946]

881 Old Maid [WB 1939]

882 Fort Dobbs [WB 1958]

893 Bride Came COD [WB 1941]

894 Each Dawn I Die [WB 1939]

897 Great Lie [WB 1941]

*In 1978 the producers sent a special tape to Joseph with "Gold is Where You Find It" and "God's Country and the Woman"

Max Raul Steiner (10 May 1888 Vienna Austria- December 1971, Hollywood) came to the United States in 1914 on the steamer Lapland to escape WWI. Three years later he filled out his draft card in Manhattan NY. Occupation musical director and wife name Marrie, the military described him as short stature, flat footed and wearing glasses. The 1920 census in Manhattan has him married to Beatrice, 4 years his elder and living with mother-in-law. Four years later he married Audry Louise, she was 19 at the time. He was conductor at Ziegfields and was brought to Hollywood in 1929 to adapt their Broadway hit "Rio Rita" for film, one of the first "talkies". For the 1930 census in Los Angeles he listed birth place as Hungary, not Vienna. His first serious movie score was the 1933 version of King Kong. While prolific in producing sound tracks (he directed the studio orchestra), his quality never suffered. Had he only written "Gone with the Wind" he would be well remembered, but that was just one of several written in 1939, including the oscar nominated "Dark Victory". His skill at combining music with film landed him additional work directing the Warner Bros studio orchestra for "musical" films as well.

The Max Steiner Music Society started in about 1965 and terminated in 1981, the audio engineer was James E. Reising who edited the raw transcribtions and organized them into programs. The cassettes tapes started at 7ドル.50 depending on length, the 140 minutes of GWTW was priced at 12ドル. A selection of 17 LPs were made by Tony Thomas Productions of Burbank in the early 80s. More recently they have been revived by Citadel Records on CD but these don't seem to be associated with MSMS. A complete digital revamp of the lacquers at BYU is being done by Chelsea-Rialto for future release on CD.

Albert K. Bender was president and organizer of MSMS, his previous claim to fame was an observer of UFOs and originated the concept of "Men in Black".

1959 was a turning point for film scores. That year MGM came out with the film track recording, Rosza conducting the Rome Symphony, for Ben Hur on LP to sell at the movie houses. It was a smash idea, and as that was the year most people started buying home stereo equipment, the MGM Ben Hur album was a perfect demo for the new gear. The possibility for revenue was not lost on Warner Brothers, and they commissioned Muir Matheison to prepare an album based on Steiner's GWTW score. The original sound track was mono, so a new recording was produced in Vitaphonic stereo.

WST 1322 Gone With the Wind, a new stereophonic recording by Muir Mathieson conducting the Sinfonia of London, 1959.

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Physical inventory 9/1/2007