Music
Once principal photography was completed, Preminger hired David Raksin to score the film. The director wanted to use "Sophisticated Lady" by Duke Ellington for the main theme, but Raksin objected to the choice. Alfred Newman, music director for Fox, convinced Preminger to give Raksin a weekend to compose an original tune. Inspired by a Dear John letter he had received from his girlfriend, Raksin wrote the haunting theme for which Johnny Mercer later wrote lyrics. It eventually became a jazz standard recorded by more than four hundred artists, including Stan Kenton, Dick Haymes, Woody Herman, Nat King Cole, The Four Freshmen, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Frank Sinatra. Preminger was so pleased with Raksin's score the two collaborated on four additional films. (refer to "Laura (1945 song)")
Read more about this topic: Laura (1944 film)
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“Yes; as the music changes,
Like a prismatic glass,
It takes the light and ranges
Through all the moods that pass;”
—Alfred Noyes (1880–1958)
“Did the kiss of Mother Mary
Put that music in her face?
Yet she goes with footstep wary,
Full of earth’s old timid grace.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Since a man must bring
To music what his mother spanked him for
When he was two ...”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)