Elmer Bernstein - biography

“One of the things that happens in the business is that success is a very strange thing in that if you are involved in something very successful the next person wants you to repeat it.”

“I did 10 years of comedies and 10 years of Westerns.  I really like to stay away from car chases.  I prefer the more intimate film.  You have a much more direct association with the emotions.”

“I’m generally pessimistic about the dumbing down of America - especially with summer movies.”

“Today you have something like A Film by Joe Harry.  That is patently asinine and ridiculous.”

“When you stop to think about it, so many films today where we don’t have that kind of contact are films about alienation.  About alienated feelings.  We are much more alienated from our colleagues nowadays.”

“It was a great way to work.  In those days, you had to be there.  It was your world.  It was your club.  Your friends were there, your associates were there, your security was there.”

“I would do the occasional score.  I thought it was the most thrilling thing.  It was instant.  You made the music and they played it right away to millions of people.  I found it thrilling.”

“There’s no way I can compete with someone who can write rap or rock and roll.  Nor do I wish to.  But I’ve always kept up to date with music changes.  I worked very hard not to type myself.”

“You wouldn’t think it would but my parents were really balanced about that.  When it came time for me to be out of the house and out on my own they were very supportive.”

“I made my way on to a grey list, a black list even.  That’s something I’m very proud of, actually.”

“Victor Young had been hired to write the score for the dances of The Ten Commandments but he became very ill.  You were then hired to write the score.  But at the same time you’d written The Man with the Golden Arm score.”

“I thought in terms of the enthusiasm of doing it.  I didn’t think about whether I was ready.”

Elmer Bernstein composed the score for the following films:
Battles of Chief Pontiac (1952)
Boots Malone (1952)
Sudden Fear (1952)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Fear Strikes Out (1957)
Men in War (1957)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
The Tin Star (1957)
Desire Under the Elms (1958)
God’s Little Acre (1958)
Kings Go Forth (1958)
Saddle the Wind (1958)
Some Came Running (1958)
The Buccaneer (1958)
The Story on Page One (1959)
From the Terrace (1960)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
The Rat Race (1960)
By Love Possessed (1961)
Summer and Smoke (1961)
The Comancheros (1961)
The Young Doctors (1961)
A Girl Named Tamiko (1962)
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
San Francisco Fire (1962)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
Hud (1963)
Kings of the Sun (1963)
Love with the Proper Stranger (1963)
Rampage (1963)
The Caretakers (1963)
The Great Escape (1963)
The Carpetbaggers (1964)
The World of Henry Orient (1964)
Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965)
The Hallelujah Trail (1965)
The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)
7 Women (1966)
Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)
Hawaii (1966)
Return of the Seven (1966)
The Silencers (1966)
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (1968)
The Scalphunters (1968)
Midas Run (1969)
The Gypsy Moths (1969)
True Grit (1969)
The Bridge at Remagen (1969)
The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)
Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)
Big Jake (1971)
Blind Terror (1971)
Doctors’ Wives (1971)
The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972)
Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973)
Gold (1974)
McQ (1974)
Report to the Commissioner (1975)
From Noon Till Three (1976)
The Incredible Sarah (1976)
The Shootist (1976)
Animal House (1978)
Bloodbrothers (1978)
Zulu Dawn (1979)
Meatballs (1979)
The Great Santini (1979)
Saturn 3 (1980)
Airplane! (1980)
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
The Chosen (1981)
Going Ape! (1981)
Stripes (1981)
Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
Five Days One Summer (1982)
Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
Trading Places (1983)
Class (1983)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Prince Jack (1985)
Spies Like Us (1985)
The Black Cauldron (1985)
Legal Eagles (1986)
¡Three Amigos! (1986)
Amazing Grace and Chuck (1987)
Leonard Part 6 (1987)
The Good Mother (1988)
Da (1988)
Funny Farm (1988)
Slipstream (1989)
My Left Foot (1989)
The Field (1990)
The Grifters (1990)
Oscar (1991)
A Rage in Harlem (1991)
The Babe (1992)
Mad Dog and Glory (1993)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
The Good Son (1993)
Frankie Starlight (1995)
Search and Destroy (1995)
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
Roommates (1995)
Canadian Bacon (1995)
Bulletproof (1996)
The Rainmaker (1997)
Buddy (1997)
Hoodlum (1997)
Puppies for Sale (1998)
Twilight (1998)
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Wild Wild West (1999)
The Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
Chinese Coffee (2000)
Keeping the Faith (2000)
Taking the Wheel (2002)
Far from Heaven (2002)