Member-only story
Great Movie Music of the Sixties: Part One
The films of the 1960s boasted memorable songs and some spectacular musical scores
The 1960s was a transitional decade for Hollywood movies. Battered by the impact of television, the films of the first half of the Sixties were largely a combination of epic spectacles and lavish musicals that could leverage the big screen in movie theaters with maximum effect. Examples include Exodus and Lawrence of Arabia as well as West Side Story and Mary Poppins.
While that trend persisted into the mid-sixties with such films as The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago, the latter half of the decade saw a gradual movement to less elaborate quirkier films that appealed to a younger demographic. The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, and Easy Rider reflect this change.
Movie scores were essential to distinguish films from one another and reinforce particular themes. Some movie theme songs and scores were so popular they turned into hits separate and apart from the films themselves. Movie musicals, of course, included many notable tunes; as a result, original soundtrack albums were commonly released during the decade.
In Part One of this two-part article, I cover some of the most memorable movie music produced from 1960 to 1964. I hope you enjoy it!
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
The Magnificent Seven, an American Western about seven gunslingers hired to protect a Mexican town from bandits, was an adaptation of a 1954 Japanese film, Seven Samurai. Under the direction of John Sturges and with Yul Brynner leading an all-star cast, The Magnificent Seven proved that the love for Westerns by American audiences wouldn’t die easily. Nor would the iconic theme song written by Elmer Bernstein; after the film’s release in October 1960, the main theme took on a life of its own, becoming all the more pervasive three years later when it was used to promote “Marlboro Country” in Marlboro cigarette commercials. Bernstein’s score was nominated for an Academy Award.
