His name is synonymous with staccato violin notes that remind audiences of knife stabbing and have made many reluctant to take a shower. Composer Bernard Herrmann is the master behind iconic scores for films like THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER (’41) and PSYCHO (’60). The Academy Award-winning composer scored the two films that are often argued to be the best of all-time: CITIZEN KANE (’41) and VERTIGO (’58). His work continues to be reused in pop culture, from his whistling TWISTED NERVE (’68) theme used in Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL: VOLUME 1 (2003) to Lady Gaga using part of VERTIGO’s prelude in her “Born This Way” music video.

Known best for his collaborations with directors Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, other works of Herrmann’s often go overlooked. Below are a few of his scores that are less often discussed.

JANE EYRE (’43)

In this adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre (Joan Fontaine), who is hired by the wealthy Edward Rochester (Orson Welles), works as the governess for Rochester’s daughter which leads to her discovering secrets in the house. “On a project like ‘Jane Eyre,’ I didn’t need to see the film beforehand. One just remembers the book,” Herrmann said in a 1975 interview, discussing this film’s score.

JANE EYRE was Herrmann’s first project with 20th Century-Fox, which started a 19-year partnership with the studio and a long friendship with composer and Fox music director Alfred Newman. Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck initially sought composer Igor Stravinsky to score the film, but negotiations fell through. Producer David O. Selznick and Welles were the driving force behind hiring Herrmann for the project, according to Herrmann’s biographer Steven Smith.

Herrmann’s score has a dark, gothic feel that matches the theme of the novel. New York Herald Tribune composer critic Paul Bowles described the score as “gothic extravagance and poetic morbidities. It contains some of the most carefully wrought effects to be found in recent film scores,” Bowles wrote. According to Smith, Herrmann called it his first “screen opera.” The score foreshadowed work on another Brontë project — his “Wuthering Heights” opera that didn’t see a full theatrical performance until 2011.

ON DANGEROUS GROUND (‘51)

Directed by Nicholas Ray, an adaptation of Gerald Butler’s book Mad with Much Heart. The film follows a rough city police officer, Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan). After Jim is too violent with a suspect, he is sent to a rural area as punishment. His job is to help with a manhunt for the murderer of a child. A blind woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino) is the sister of the murderer, and she tries to convince Jim to protect her brother.

ON DANGEROUS GROUND is one of Herrmann’s few film noir scores. Film noir expert and host of TCM’s Noir Alley Eddie Muller said, “Herrmann’s score is one of the most distinctive crime scores of the era.” In a June 2019 introduction of the film, Muller noted “Herrmann’s score is unlike any other music written for film noir. A dramatic clash of brass, strings and percussion that goes a long way to unify the film’s unusual — almost schizophrenia — structure.”

Herrmann admired Ray’s storytelling and engineered a creative score that illustrated good and evil. For Lupino’s character, Herrmann used the viola soloist Virginia Majewski, who Herrmann advocated to have on-screen credit. Herrmann also had the rare freedom to compose, orchestra and conduct the entire score. The most notable cue is “The Death Hunt,” that has a driving, frantic tempo and can be compared to his later NORTH BY NORTHWEST (’59) score. Muller noted that to make sure “The Death Hunt” cue was effective, Herrmann fought to have the sound mix corrected during the scene so that the barking dogs wouldn’t drown out his score.

THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO (1952)

Based on an Ernest Hemingway short story, Gregory Peck plays Harry, a novelist who uses his earnings to travel. While on safari in Africa, Harry suffers an injury that results in a deadly infection. As he lies dying, he thinks back on his life and past romances, and his safari companion Helen, played by Susan Hayward, nurses Harry through his illness.

While some of Herrmann’s most famous scores drive thrillers and adventures, scores like THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO show he can create beautiful, gentle and charming tunes. His cues are dreamy and wistful, matching the mental state of the ill Harry, whose mind travels to the past while on his death bed. Herrmann’s cue entitled, “The Memory Waltz,” is particularly dreamy. Herrmann said he tried to create music of “a highly nostalgic nature” as a man dies and deals with his “emotional past.”

On the film’s release, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther praised Herrmann’s score. “For it is Mr. Herrmann’s music, singing sadly and hauntingly, that helps one sense the pathos of dead romances and a wasted career. A saxophone and a piano in a Paris studio, an accordion on an old Left Bank bar and an arrogant guitarist in a Spanish café—these are also actors in the film. Perhaps they come closer to stating what Hemingway had to say.”

MARNIE (1964)

Marnie (Tippi Hedren) is a thief who suffers from psychological trauma of her past, which comes to a head after she marries a widower (Sean Connery) from a wealthy Philadelphia family who does not readily accept her. MARNIE was the end of an era. It marked the last of seven films that Herrmann collaborated on with director Alfred Hitchcock on, beginning with THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (’55).

Much had changed for both Herrmann and Hitchcock by 1964, including how they were both viewed by Hollywood executives. Herrmann and Hitchcock were being pressured to be more “hip” for 1960s audiences. The studio even urged Hitchcock not to hire “old-fashioned” Herrmann. But if Hitchcock did hire Herrmann, they encouraged him to also have a title pop song, according to Smith. The film was a box-office failure — Hitchcock’s first failure in many years. Today, the film is now appreciated by audiences, but Herrmann’s score still is often overlooked when compared to other Hitchcock titles.

The main title of MARNIE features blaring horns, which sound haphazard against more melodic violins — illustrating the mix of trauma and beauty. A notable cue is “The Foxhunt,” which begins with a jaunty, almost cheerful, tune filled with horns and violins. But the cue turns more haphazard and frantic as it continues. While this was Herrmann’s last completed score for Hitchcock, Herrmann started work on TORN CURTAIN (’66) but was replaced due to artistic differences.

IT’S ALIVE (’74)

The Davies family (Sharon Farrell and John P. Ryan) are expecting their second child. But when their baby is born, he is a monster who kills anyone in his path. The 1970s marked a new era for Bernard Herrmann. He began working with younger filmmakers who appreciated his work of the past. These included Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma. One of these collaborations spawned a friendship with director of IT’S ALIVE, Larry Cohen, who cited Herrmann as a major influence in his career up until his death in 2019.

Herrmann enjoyed the experience with his film because he enjoyed working with Cohen. To add to the eerie, creepy vibe of the film, Herrmann incorporated a Moog synthesizer into the score. He also uses a viola for a mournful note, according to Smith. Herrmann also had fun naming his cues, such as “The Milkman Goeth” when the baby kills the milkman.

Herrmann was set to work with Cohen again for the film GOD TOLD ME TO (’76), but Herrmann died in 1975 before he could begin.

Jimmy Stewart was one of the biggest stars at MGM in 1940s and 1950s. In fact, he had just earned the lead actor Oscar for his indelible comedic performance in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (‘40) when he became the first major performer to enlist in the U.S. Army in March of 1941, a full eight months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Stewart, then 32, had made his film debut in THE MURDER MAN (‘35) and quickly became a leading man at the studio, earning his first Oscar nomination for his memorable portrayal of an earnest young senator in Frank Capra’s MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (‘39). Audiences and critics loved the lanky, tall young man who excelled at playing an Everyman, the boy-next-door who was earnest, kind and often brave. Stewart, who was an experienced amateur flyer, spent a year training pilots at Kirtland Army Airfield and then in the fall of 1943 was sent to England. He ended the war with 20 combat missions, won awards for his service and remained in the USAF Reserve, where he was promoted to brigadier general in 1959. He retired in 1968.

When he returned to films in Capra’s holiday favorite IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (‘46), he was 38 years old. He looked older; his hair was graying. He had only been out of the service for a year. There was a gravitas to his performance, a gravitas of someone who had seen the horrors of war. His George Bailey was still the Everyman, but one in despair, someone who is about to commit suicide. He earned his third Oscar nomination for his beloved performance. And, he followed that up with strong turns in the newspaper drama CALL NORTHSIDE 777 and Alfred Hitchcock’s ROPE (both ‘48).

But I think Stewart did his best work in the 1950s. He was certainly adventurous playing flawed, conflicted characters and eccentric individuals. There was a dangerous, nervous cat-like quality to his roles. And there was often a sexiness to his performances. He also worked with some of the best directors, including Hitchcock, Anthony Mann, Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger.

Stewart began his fruitful collaboration with Mann—they made eight films together—with the gritty Western WINCHESTER ’73 (‘50). Mann had made a name for himself in the late 1940s with such low-budget atmospheric films noir as RAW DEAL (‘48). Mann brought a noir sensibility to WINCHESTER ’73, in which Stewart plays the Everyman on the edge doggedly trying to find the Winchester ’73 rifle that was stolen from him, while laser-focused on tracking down the man (Stephen McNally) who stole it and also murdered his father. Stewart is just terrific playing a conflicted man who is filled with rage.

My favorite Stewart-Mann production is THE NAKED SPUR (‘53). In this exceptional Western, Stewart is even more wired. He plays a Civil War vet who lost his land during the war and becomes a bounty hunter. But he more than meets his match with his latest capture, a wily outlaw (Robert Ryan) and the two companions he picks up (Millard Mitchell, Ralph Meeker) to help him. THE NAKED SPUR isn’t just a Western adventure, it’s a psychological one. The scene at the end when Stewart loses it in front of the outlaw’s companion (Janet Leigh) – crying, yelling and shaking with hatred and grief – is an astonishing piece of acting.

Stewart and Mann didn’t just do Westerns. They scored a huge hit with the biopic THE GLENN MILLER STORY (‘54) and STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND (‘55). The latter was close to Stewart’s heart because it revolved around the Air Force and flying. He plays a baseball player who is reactivated in the Air Force to test flight new planes. The film gets bogged down on land when it concentrates on his private life with June Allyson, but he and the film soar when it takes to the air.

The same year he made WINCHESTER ’73, Stewart also began another fruitful collaboration with director Henry Koster. In fact, he received his fourth Oscar nomination for the delightful HARVEY (‘50) based on Mary Chase’s popular Broadway play about an eccentric Elwood P. Dowd, who has an invisible six-foot tall white rabbit named Harvey as his best friend. Stewart had filled in for the part on Broadway in 1947 when star Frank Fay went on vacation. Though Dowd is an alcoholic, the Production Code prevented Koster from showing him taking a drink. Almost 20 years later, Stewart and Helen Hayes appeared on Broadway in a revival of the play, and then in 1972 reprised their roles for a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation.

The following year, Koster and Stewart teamed up again for the taut British thriller NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY (’51). Stewart is entirely believable as a brilliant but absent-minded engineer who has a hard time convincing anybody that an expensive new airplane model is not safe. The film also paired him with his DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (’39) leading lady, Marlene Dietrich.

Stewart is probably best remembered in the 1950s for his work with the Master of Suspense in REAR WINDOW (‘54); THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (‘56) and VERTIGO (‘58). So much has been written and discussed about those films, all I want to say is that REAR WINDOW and VERTIGO are my two most favorite Hitchcock thrillers, and Hitch had to have really delved into Stewart’s psyche to get that brave, daring turn from the actor in VERTIGO. I know that it’s a polarizing film, but I think it’s brilliant, demanding and a psychological thrill ride. I am still very much on the fence with the only film Stewart made with Wilder, THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS (‘57). 

Based on Charles Lindbergh’s award-winning best-seller chronicling his landmark 1927 flight across the Atlantic to Paris, the film is beautifully shot and consistently engrossing. But the big problem is that Lindberg was 25 when he made the flight and Stewart was 48 when he made the film. Just as with STRATEGIC, Lindbergh’s story was very inspiring to Stewart so, he lost weight, got in shape and lightened his hair to play Lucky Lindy. He’s very charming in the part, but there’s no getting over the fact he’s nearly 50 years old.

Stewart ended the decade with a real crackerjack of a legal drama, Otto Preminger’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER (‘59). Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Actor for Stewart and Supporting Actor for Arthur O’Connell, ANATOMY OF A MURDER raised more than a few eyebrows for its sexual frankness at the time, with Stewart talking about rape, panties and even semen. He’s perfectly cast as the witty, brilliant small-town attorney who seems to enjoy fishing more than taking cases. He gets the case of his career, though, when he’s hired to defend a hot-tempered Army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) accused of murdering the man who allegedly raped his wife (Lee Remick).

Stewart has a wonderful rapport with Eve Arden as his longtime secretary who secretly loves him and Arthur O’Connell as his alcoholic buddy, an attorney who gets his mojo back when he helps Stewart on the case. And the scenes his scenes with the flirtatious Remick and George C. Scott as the slick big city prosecuting attorney just couldn’t be better. Nevertheless, Stewart lost the Oscar to Charlton Heston for BEN-HUR (’59). Stewart was presented with an Honorary Award from the Academy in 1985.