Theme Song

Many a Hollywood movie lacks a real theme, but practically every movie these days has a theme song. The man on top of the trend is Dimitri Tiomkin, a 54-year-old concert pianist turned composer, who made a deep impression on the industry and the rest of the U.S. with one folksy tune: Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling (from High Noon).

Composer Tiomkin, who speaks fractured English splinted with a Russian accent, explains: "Hollywood begin to come to song mostly from matter of exploitation . . . When I make the title tune for High Noon, I think song help make continuity, musical dissolves, time element ... I thinking this picture a little bit too static. Music give feeling of action. I get inspiration from American bandit songs from Carl Sandburg's American Song Bag." The tune, with Lyricist Ned Washington's help, soon became a jukebox favorite, has sold almost 2,000,000 records. Tiomkin has already earned more in royalties than he got for supplying the movie score.

"In this business," says Tiomkin, "they begin to follow with these ideas. First Dore Schary called on account of High Noon and said. 'Dimitri, I need song from could be good infantry march.' " Tiomkin wrote Take the High Ground and Hold It for MGM's Take the High Ground. Then he composed the theme for Return to Paradise.

Although Do Not Forsake Me is Tiomkin's first popular hit, he has been writing movie music in Hollywood for 20 years (Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It With You, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, Red River, The Big Sky). But not until he worked on U.S. Army orientation films during World War II did he discover the real purpose of his craft. Says he: "I learn to write ... not just for concert but for screen, combine music with sound and dialogue. Sometimes you give a little help to film." But he adds with a sigh and a shrug: "Motionpicture composer not write music for eternity or for symphony orchestra."

Tiomkin agrees that his newest job is a tough one. The picture: a melodrama called Dial M for Murder. Says he: "I can't make theme song with title ... I think it will be little bit novelty song, a kind of song about dialing phone with little bit orchestral effect ... It will be just melody in picture, and then words will be written afterwards so melody be suited for exploitation."

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