I’m Beginning to See the Leitmotif: Max Steiner’s Sketches for «Are These Our Children?»

Abstract

Max Steiner had already composed music for a few dozen films by mid-1931, but the first sketches he decided to preserve were for the RKO crime film «Are These Our Children?» Although the contents are in disarray, with multiple versions of related cues, music that never appears in the film, conflicting titles, and pages that are out of order, Steiner had the score bound and preserved alongside other more significant film scores, suggesting that it held some importance for him. We will demonstrate that these sketches reveal important early developments in Steiner’s use of the leitmotif technique, far beyond what he had attempted in previous films. The two principal themes Steiner created for this film are thoroughly transformed to support a variety of dramatic situations, appearing in stylized transitional montages that mark important steps in the transformation of a likable teen into a cold-blooded killer.