British composer
For other people with the same name, see
Lou Levy
.
Louis Levy
(20 November 1894 ? 18 August 1957) was an English film
music director
and conductor, who worked in particular on
Alfred Hitchcock
and
Will Hay
films. He was born in
London
and died in
Slough
,
Berkshire
.
Early life
[
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]
As a child Louis Levy played the violin, beginning with a toy violin that his father bought him at the age of seven. He later became the pupil of
Guido Papini
but due to his parents' limited means, ended his studies with Papini and began a period of self-study. This led to him gaining a scholarship at the
London College of Music
. Papini refused to allow Levy to study under anyone else, so resumed his tuition, this time free of charge.
[1]
Career
[
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]
He started his career in 1910 arranging and performing music for silent films.
[2]
In 1916, he became musical director for the New Gallery Cinema in London. In 1921, he became Music Chief at the
Shepherd’s Bush Pavilion
and is credited with being the first to develop the theme song in movies, and one of the first musicians to tackle difficulties that were holding back the progress of sound recording in films.
[3]
[4]
At the beginning of talkies, he joined the
Gaumont British
studios at Shepherd’s Bush, where he was musical director for Gaumont's earliest sound picture,
High Treason
(1929).
[4]
He became the head of the music department for all
Gainsborough Pictures
productions from 1933 onwards.
[2]
The rich sounds emanating from his large orchestra are all the more impressive when one realises that electrical sound industry was barely ten years old. He worked in particular on Alfred Hitchcock and Will Hay films, directing the music for
The 39 Steps
and
The Lady Vanishes
.
[5]
Through the sheer necessity of having to produce so much music he established his own studios (The Levy Sound Studios at 73 New Bond Street) in the 1930s.
[6]
He later had a long running
BBC
radio series
Music From the Movies
, which started in 1936 and lasted until the 1950s,
[7]
and also toured the provincial theatres with his orchestra.
[4]
The
Music From the Movies March
, reputedly composed by Levy, was the theme tune for the radio show, and opened all of the Gaumont newsreels of the time.
[3]
He is also said to have composed the orchestral piece
Maltese Entr’Acte
.
[8]
In 1948, Levy became general musical director for the
Associated British Picture Corporation
,
[1]
and during the 1950s he was head of music at
Elstree Studios
, where the films he worked on included
Moby Dick
(1956).
[9]
Unlike his counterparts at other studios,
Muir Mathieson
and
Ernest Irving
, who cultivated art composers to contribute film scores, Levy operated a department of specialised staff composers and arrangers, closer to the
Hollywood
system. Among the talented arrangers he employed were Peter Yorke (who adapted the Levy sound for his own successful post-war concert orchestra) and
Bretton Byrd
, who was his chief music editor at Gaumont British.
[3]
Although often given the only musical credit on films for which he supervised the music, Alexander Gleason has argued that Levy did not compose or arrange the scores for any of the 250 talkies with which his name is associated.
[10]
Partial filmography
[
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]
(Sole credit for the music, often as musical director, unless otherwise noted)
- She
(1925)
- Balaclava
(1928)
- The Devil's Maze
(1929)
- High Treason
- Just for a Song
(1930)
- Alf's Button
(1930)
- No Lady
(1931)
- Michael and Mary
(1931)
- The Stronger Sex
(1931)
- Third Time Lucky
(1931)
- Baroud
(with
Jack Beaver
, 1932)
- The Faithful Heart
(1932)
- The Ghoul
(with
Leighton Lucas
,1933)
- The Man from Toronto
(1933)
- Waltz Time
(adapting
Johann Strauss
, 1933)
- Leave It to Smith
(1933)
- A Cuckoo in the Nest
(1933)
- Sleeping Car
(with
Bretton Byrd
, 1933)
- Channel Crossing
(with Jack Beaver, 1933)
- It's a Boy
(1933)
- Soldiers of the King
(1933)
- Forbidden Territory
(1934)
- Wild Boy
(1934)
- My Old Dutch
(with Jack Beaver, 1934)
- Dirty Work
(with Jack Beaver, 1934)
- Princess Charming
(with Leighton Lucas, 1934)
- Heat Wave
(1935)
- My Heart is Calling
(with
Tommie Connor
and
Harry S. Pepper
, 1935)
- Oh, Daddy!
(with Bretton Byrd, 1935)
- Fighting Stock
(1935)
- Hyde Park Corner
(1935)
- Stormy Weather
(with Jack Beaver, 1935)
- Things Are Looking Up
(1935)
- Brown on Resolution
(1935)
- The 39 Steps
(with Jack Beaver, Herbert Bath, Charles Williams, 1935)
- Heat Wave
(1935)
- All In
(1936)
- East Meets West
(composer
John Greenwood
, 1936)
- Everybody Dance
(music & lyrics,
Mack Gordon
,
Harry Revel
, 1936)
- Everything Is Thunder
(with Jack Beaver, 1936)
- His Lordship
(with Hubert Bath, 1936)
- It's Love Again
(1936) (with Bretton Byrd, and music & lyrics by
Sam Coslow
,
Harry Woods
)
- Jack of All Trades
(with Bretton Byrd, 1936)
- Secret Agent
(composer
John Greenwood
, 1936)
- Tudor Rose
(with
Hubert Bath
, 1936)
- The Great Barrier
(with Hubert Bath, Jack Beaver, 1937)
- Head over Heels
(music & lyrics,
Mack Gordon
,
Harry Revel
, 1937)
- Non-Stop New York
(with Hubert Bath, Bretton Byrd, 1937)
- Said O'Reilly to McNab
(with Jack Beaver, 1937)
- Oh, Mr Porter!
(with Jack Beaver, 1937)
- O-Kay for Sound
(1937)
- Young and Innocent
(with Jack Beaver, 1937)
- Crackerjack
(1938)
- Old Iron
(1938)
- The Lady Vanishes
(with
Charles Williams
, 1938)
- The Citadel
(with Charles Williams, 1938)
- Ask a Policeman
(1939)
- Shipyard Sally
(1939)
- The Lambeth Walk
(composer Jack Beaver, 1939)
- An Englishman's Home
(1940)
- Night Train to Munich
(1940)
- They Came by Night
(with Charles Williams, 1940)
- The Young Mr. Pitt
(1942)
- Uncensored
(1942)
- We Dive at Dawn
(1943)
- The Adventures of Tartu
(1943)
- Millions Like Us
(1943)
- The Man in Grey
(composer Cedric Mallabey, 1943)
- Fanny by Gaslight
(composer Cedric Mallabey, 1944)
- They Were Sisters
(1945)
- I'll Be Your Sweetheart
(1945)
- Man on the Run
(composer
Philip Green
, 1948)
- The Glass Mountain
(composer
Nino Rota
, 1949)
- The Hasty Heart
(composer Jack Beaver, 1949)
- The Queen of Spades
(composer
Georges Auric
, 1949)
- Under Capricorn
(with
Richard Addinsell
, 1949)
- The Dancing Years
(composer
Ivor Novello
, 1950)
- Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.
(composer
Robert Farnon
, 1951)
- So Little Time
(1952)
- The Dam Busters
(composers
Eric Coates
, Leighton Lucas, 1954)
- Yield to the Night
(composer
Ray Martin
, 1956)
- 1984
(composer
Malcolm Arnold
, 1956)
- Tarzan and the Lost Safari
(composer
Clifton Parker
, 1956)
- Moby Dick
(composer
Philip Sainton
, 1956)
- Let's Be Happy
(composers
Nicholas Brodszky
,
Wally Stott
, 1957)
- The Young and the Guilty
(composer
Sydney John Kay
, 1957)
- No Time for Tears
(composer
Francis Chagrin
, 1957)
- Woman in a Dressing Gown
(1957)
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Levy, Louis.
Music for the Movies
, autobiographical reminiscences (1948)
[11]
- Huntley, John.
British Film Music
(1947) (with contributions by Louis Levy)
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Obituary,
The Times
, 19 August 1957, p 12
- ^
a
b
Musiker, Naomi; Musiker, Reuben (25 February 2014).
Conductors and Composers of Popular Orchestral Music: A Biographical and Discographical Sourcebook
. Routledge.
ISBN
9781135917777
– via Google Books.
- ^
a
b
c
Donnelly, K. (16 August 2007).
British Film Music and Film Musicals
. Springer.
ISBN
9780230597747
– via Google Books.
- ^
a
b
c
Palmer, Russell.
British Music
(1947), pp. 148-149
- ^
"Louis Levy"
.
BFI
. Archived from
the original
on 20 July 2016.
- ^
Robert Farnon Society:
Memories of Levy's Sound Studios
- ^
"Music from the Movies"
. 4 April 1946. p. 15 – via BBC Genome.
- ^
Scowcroft, Philip.
British Light Music
(2013), p. 140-141)
- ^
Notes to Marco Polo CD MP 5050 (1998)
- ^
Wright, John.
What music was written by Louis Levy?
(2001)
- ^
National Library of Australia catalogue entry
External links
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