Ben Hur (1925)
- Most expensive movie of the silent era ($4,000,000)=$160,000,000 today
- First shown on December 30, 1925 in New York City at the George M. Cohan Theater
- Two composers were hired to write the score: David Mendoza and William Axt
- Composing team had worked together on other assignments including The Big Parade (1925), and Don Juan (1926).
- Don Juan used the musical score recorded on disc (Vitaphone) making it the first film with a fully synchronized score.
- David Mendoza went back to composing for radio and theater
- William Axt composed over ninety scores for MGM studios between 1925 and 1939-later becoming the head of MGM's music department in the 1930s (early rise of the Studio System)
- A newly restored copy of the 1925 print is accompanied by a newly composed score by the modern composer Carl Davis
Carl Davis
- Gained an excellent reputation composing scores for old silent films that have been restored
- Napoleon (1927, restored 1980)
- The Crowd (1928, restored 1981)
- Show People (1928, restored 1982)
- Flesh and the Devil (1927, restored 1982)
- The Thief of Bagdad (1924, restored 1985) and many other films
- Newer films include: The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Far Pavillions, King David
Shares a common trait of other contemporary composers:
- Listens to and studies classical scores including Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, Serge Prokofiev and Dimitri Shostakovich
Restored 1925 movie with Carl Davis' score.....
Compare Carl Davis' score to Miklos Rozsa's 1959 score to Ben-Hur...
Battleship Potemkin
- Battleship Potemkin (Pronounced "Pa-chompkin") is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time.
- In 1925 Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) made this silent classic
- Eisenstein's masterful montage to Odessa Steps has been accompanied over the years by music of several composers.
- The original score was provided by German composer Edmund Meisel (1874-1930) and was said to create an even greater impact on the viewing audience
- Potemkin was banned in Berlin by government decree if accompanied by Meisel's music because it could cause an uproar.
- Composers such as Dimitri Shostakovich and Eric Allaman have also composed newer scores for this film classic