Pop songs in Hitchcock films

Que Sera, sera,
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see,
Que Sera, sera
Some of you may know that this famous song was first heard in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much.
When Doris Day first heard the tune, she reportedly disliked the song and had to be convinced to sing it. It became her signature song.
How many of you can name another pop tune used in a Hitchcock film? Who said there are no others?
The director used pop themes throughout his career. Many songs were composed, but he only used them when they would serve a purpose in the story. Needless to say, few were actually included in his works.

The first "talking picture" he directed gave him the occasion to use his first pop song in the most pivotal scene of the film. Blackmail was shot as a silent movie and when sound was added, all the scenes that required dialog were reshot with more or less the same cast. In some cases, this cast was rather unfortunate sound-wise: Star Anny Ondra had to be dubbed. In the case of the villain, Hitchcock was luckier: the actor was also a stage singer and he used that talent to have him play the piano and sing in the rape scene, adding a menacing atmosphere to an already stressful scene.
The song is "Miss Up-To-Date", a popular tune of the year in London(from the 1929 stage show Love Lies starring Ritchard). Cyril Ritchard sings it while Anny Ondra is undressing behind a screen, but clearly visible to the audience.

In Juno and the Paycock, the cast sings an old Irish song while a Victrola plays the music, and since the sound technology did not allow that, an orchestra was brought up on stage so that it could play live off-screen.

During a famous crane shot in Young And Innocent, the camera finds the murderer which a twitch in his eyes in a room full of people when the principals cannot even suspect he is the drummer of the band. And what is the leader of that band singing? A catchy, lively tune called "The Drummer man". And the song goes:
"Who's the fellow you seldom think of
When you think of a band?
(...)
I'm right here to tell you sister,
No one can like the drummer man"
If that isn't a clue I don't know what is.

Miklos Rozsa's score to Spellbound became a hit before the film was released. Producer David O. Selznick wanted to cash in on that music every way he could and hired at least 12 lyricists (among them Ned Wasington, Johnny Mercer and Oscar Hammerstein) to adapt the love theme from the film into a ballad. The song chosen was arranged by André Kostelanetz with lyrics by Mack David but failed to capture the public's interest.

Hitchcock made good use of the talent of his stars. And in Stage Fright, he had Marlene Dietrich sing Cole Porter's The Laziest Gal In Town (more about it in a previous blog entry) and La Vie en Rose, courtesy of her friend Edith Piaf.

During the fifties, the search for a pop tune is almost systematic in his work.
In Rear Window, composer Franz Waxman was assigned the task of developing not only a jazzy score but also a song called Lisa, which would apparently be composed throughout the film by pianist Ross Bagdasarian in the apartment opposite James Stewart's. The song is finally heard in the last scene with lyrics and full orchestration but Hitchcock considered the effect he wanted was not achieved.

The pianist followed Hitchcock's career and used it: in The Trouble With Harry, the main character is introduced walking through the countryside and singing "Flaggin' The Train To Tuscaloosa" later rerecorded by Ray McKinley for a single. But Ross Bagdasarian composed a pop song completely unrelated with Bernard Herrmann's first score for Hitchcock. Obviously it's nowhere to be heard in the film. Ross originally recorded it under the name "Alfi and Harry" for obvious reasons and Les Baxter later gave his own version with a little more success. Here it is:

Vertigo is such an iconic film that the use of a pop song must seem outrageous to anyone who knows the film, yet two were composed. One called Madeleine, using Herrmann's theme with lyrics by Larry Orenstein and arrangements by Jeff Alexander. I was not able to find a recording for it, but the song was copyrigted June 6, 1958 with a new piano arrangement submitted August 19, 1958, after the film was released.
The lyrics were:
Madeleine, so strangely beguiling,
Her eyes leave you helpless and spellbound.


Madeleine, so tenderly smiling,
Who cares if you're Heaven or Hell-bound?
To your arms she'll fly
And then with a sigh,
One day you'll awaken,
Forsaken.

Madeleine, so many pursue her,
But who, tell me, who ever knew her?
No one ever knew her.


The other one was simply called Vertigo and was composed earlier by Jay Livingston & Ray Evans who had done Que Sera Sera. This last song was written in an effort to explain the word to the audience, as it was a concern during post production that movie-goers just wouldn't understand what vertigo is (the trailer also opened with a dictionary and a lecture on the meaning of "vertigo"). Apparently, the concern was not in vain since singer Billy Eckstine, when asked what it meant before the recording, replied that he figured it was an island in the West Indies. Here is the song:

Now for Psycho. I can imagine you in front of your computer screen going: "They DIDN'T!" Well... Yes they did. Since no one in their right mind could think of a pop song connected with Psycho, studio publicist decided to use the last song from Anthony Perkins's previous album "This Is My Lucky Day", mix in strings reminiscent of the ones in the murder scene and they released the song as "Norman's Song". Can you imagine Norman Bates singing a love ballad while stabbing everyone in sight?

A Nat King Cole song was also composed for Marnie, although this time, the Herrmann theme from the film was used as a basis.

By then, Universal producers, and Hitchcock himself probably, wanted these songs to actually be used in the features. His needing a pop score led to his breakup with long time collaborator Bernard Herrmann. John Addison, his replacement on Torn Curtain (learn more about them in this previous blog entry) composed the song Green Years, which can still be heard on the CD soundtrack album in the final scene where it was supposed to be heard. That too, was eventually cut, thus ending Hitchcock's search for pop songs.

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That's all for today, folks!