BOOK REVIEW BY CHRIS MICH: DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC? – THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HENRY MANCINI BY HENRY MANCINI WITH GENE LEES (1989)

 A MINOR SPOILER REVIEW:

Photo by Chris Mich. 

When it comes to the 2024 #classicfilmreading challenge, Digging Star Wars saved the best for last. My centennial celebratory year of film composer Henry Mancini now includes this final 2024 summer read: The Autobiography of Henry Mancini – Did They Mention the Music? (1989).  If you don’t know who the Oscar-winning, Grammy-laden Henry Mancini is, check out this brief Mancini bio I wrote last year.

Writer Gene Lees assisted Henry Mancini with his autobiography. Lees’ guidance to Hank: just talk into a tape recorder. This allowed Mancini to let the melody of memories flow and permitted Lees to shape his life story and career. Lees masterfully bookends Mancini's meanderings with a return trip to the town where Mancini grew up in West Aliquippa, PA. It’s a nice touch that doesn’t delay or lead the reader astray from learning about the ins and outs of the composer’s journey and the knowledge gained. 

Photo by Chris Mich. My two oldest, Peter and Luke, joined me on my pilgrimage to West Aliquippa years ago. We saw the street Henry Mancini grew up on and walked across the bridge named after him.

It’s also clear that Lees wants to tell a fair and clean story of the good and bad times of Hank’s life. Most importantly, Lees goes to great lengths to emphasize Mancini being more than a muzak artist but an incredible innovator in both film scoring and jazz, even when Mancini had his share of haters now and then. Here’s an excerpt from Lees’ preface:

…He seemed wary. Or perhaps he was merely baffled by his sudden fame. If he was suspicious, no doubt it was because he had been under assault from elements of the East Coast jazz critical establishment because of “Peter Gunn.” 

His detractors were so busy deploring what Mancini had done with jazz they overlooked what he was doing for it. Up until that time, film scoring was almost entirely derived from European symphonic composition. Mancini changed that. More than any other person, he Americanized film scoring, and in time even European film composers followed in his path. p. x

Once we get past Lees’ insightful and encouraging preface, we hear from the Maestro himself as he guides us along Aliquippa’s cobblestone streets straight to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and beyond. From grade school greasy salami sandwiches to Hershey bars for breakfast, lunch and dinner at Julliard, Mancini always brings food into the scene to help establish the mood and point of the memory. It’s no wonder the most recent album to come from the Mancini family (featuring great lofi covers of Henry Mancini’s classics!)  is entitled Dinner at Mancini’s (2024).

Photo by Chris Mich. “Born Free” is included in this shot on purpose….On page 195 of his autobiography, Mancini shares a story about a restaurant owner who thought Mancini wrote “absolutely everything” music-wise. Mancini writes: “We had a great meal, and then the owner brought out a huge cake with a replica of the Oscar statuette on top. Written on the cake in colored icing was ‘Born Free.’ I didn’t write the Born Free score; John Barry did.” 

Mancini (and Lees) explain how Hank’s father got him into music, found mentors for his son, and pushed him along the way (there’s a downside to this father/son story, too, but I’ll save that for you to read in the book). 

The book’s main title “Did They Mention the Music?” comes from a line that composers would say to Universal Studio producers and managers when they returned from a test screening. Mancini cut his teeth on scoring many films at Universal in the early to mid-1950s. Some good. Some bad. But Mancini loved them and learned from them. Many of these films made our Top 100 Henry Mancini Films list.

Mancini tells entertaining vignettes throughout the book: how a haircut launched his career, how Glenn Miller saved his life, and how his music interrupted his supper one night…

A footnote to this matter of intrusions on your privacy when you’re trying to have dinner. 

Some time after The Pink Panther came out on record, a man came up to me in a restaurant, insisted on shaking my hand, and proceeded to tell me how much he loved my music. He really went on at length in that vein as my dinner grew cool on the plate. Then he said, “You know side two, track three on that album?”

“Yeah, I know it,” I said. The track is “Cortana,” which is quite sensual and romantic.

“Well,” he said, “you know, my wife and I …” – and he gave me a salacious wink to make sure I knew what he was talking about – “we really like that track,” he said, “and we … well, you know what I mean.”

…I said, “She can’t be very happy. That track is only one minute and fifty-two seconds long.” p. 177

Mancini practices that same sharp wit on himself. With no false humility, he honestly talks about his success and his worries. After explaining how everybody from marching bands to the synth group Art of Noise have covered his first big hit “Peter Gunn,” he commented that “…never has so much been made of so little.” Even his one-time protégé and long-time friend Quincy Jones said Mancini was embarrassed how such a simple tune as Peter Gunn could have been so widely received and celebrated over and over again.

This modesty and brutal honesty with himself was how Mancini kept himself in check.

I never trusted this thing called success; I have always been skeptical about it. Something had been happening since the excitement started over “Peter Gunn,” and the two awards with {Breakfast at] Tiffany’s, I felt I had landed on a plateau and that I should allow myself to start enjoying at least a little security. p. 107

And then… 

For all the good fortune I have had, I nonetheless still have to sit myself down and give myself a lecture from time to time. 

The situation in film music has changed with the arrival on the scene of a number of excellent younger composers. The clock goes around. I find myself thinking, “Some of these new fellows are really good. I can feel the heat.” I’ll go on that tack for a while and get depressed. … And then, to counteract the depression, I do a litany of what I’ve achieved. It’s a constant discussion within my own head, an ongoing internal conflict. p. 216-7

Mancini doesn’t shy from talking about any film he worked on – whether it was a hit or a flop, whether he liked the film or not. As you can imagine, many of these films made our Top 100 Henry Mancini Films list including The Party (1968) [on page 158], the ABC-TV Movie of the Week Peter Gunn (1989) [on page 178-9], and Six Bridges to Cross (1955) [on p. 67].

He even mused over the royalties that keep rolling in for one simple cue for the Abbott and Costello classic Lost in Alaska (1952) - #97 in our Top 100. Every time that movie aired on TV, Mancini got a check in the mail. Mancini summed up this eternal return by simply saying to his autobiography collaborator Gene Lees, “Film is forever.”

This book is required reading for any Mancini fan or soundtrack collector. It’s also just a fun read that sparkles with classic Hollywood celebrities. Did They Mention the Music? also shines with flavorful, funny, and romantic stories of a man who wrote beautiful music for the silver screen…and for us to enjoy forever.

A final thanks to Out of the Past blogger Raquel Stecher for continuing the challenge. To learn more about this yearly summer fun endeavor, visit Raquel’s blog for more details. 

This may be our final entry for this year’s classic film reading challenge, but it (hopefully) won’t be our last nod to Henry Mancini on Digging Star Wars this year. We have one more trick up our sleeve. Keep checking back to see what it is.