Max Steiner: Gone With The Wind

Often voted the best film of all time, this is a true American classic and the legendary Max Steiner's sweeping theme tune in Gone With The Wind is instantly recognisable.

The Film: Much like the search for the boy to play Harry Potter in 2001, when the offices of David O. Selznick began the search for Gone With The Wind’s leading lady 1938, the United States became temporarily in the grip of Scarlett fever, an epidemic that ended only with the casting of Vivien Leigh as the manipulative southern belle who carries on a turbulent love affair with roguish Rhett Butler during the American Civil War.

Composer: Max Steiner is one of the founders of film music as we know it today and his name is now attached to the annual 'Max Steiner Award' for film music which recognises his pioneering role in the early development of the craft. Max Steiner was drafted in to provide the music to Gone With The Wind and his sweeping, enervating score has really stood the test of time, still able to send shivers down spines and give geese their pimples.