Quotes

Your views are as narrow as your tie.

In California, they like to pigeonhole you. From the time I began working for Hitchcock [Alfred Hitchcock], they decided I was a big suspense man. On other occasions, I've had fantasies of bittersweet romantic stories. I think I'd enjoy writing a good comedy score, but I've never had the luck to be offered such films. Mancini [Henry Mancini] gets the cheerful ones.

I wrote the main title to Psycho (1960) before Saul Bass even did the animation . . . After the main title, nothing much happens for 20 minutes or so. Appearances, of course, are deceiving, for in fact the drama starts immediately with the titles . . . I am firmly convinced, and so is Hitchcock [Alfred Hitchcock], that after the main titles you know something terrible must happen. The main title sequence tells you so, and that is its function: to set the drama. You don't need cymbal crashes or records that never sell.

[Good film music] . . . can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, gaiety or misery . . . \propel narrative swiftly forward, or slow it down.

[Alfred Hitchcock] only finishes a picture 60 percent. I have to finish it for him.