David Raksin, the Oscar-nominated composer of LAURA, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL and dozens of other film and television scores, was writer and host of his own KUSC program in Los Angeles, The Subject is Film Music, in the 1970s. It included tribute shows to Korngold, Steiner, Newman… who were then gone, but had live hour interviews with those Raksin could round up including Rozsa, Fielding, Friedhofer, Kaper, Mancini, Bernstein etc. Raksin would introduce the show and the guest and then they would usually go over a chronology of the composer’s work, stopping occasionally to play a music cue illustrating the work in question. The music usually came from the limited LP soundtrack examples for each or, in some cases, Charles Gerhardt’s RCA series. The Hugo Friedhofer interview was produced by radio station KUSC around 1979 or 1980.
Composer David Raksin, writer and host of his own KUSC program, "The Subject is Film Music", in the 1970s.
Recording courtesy of Jonathan Angel
The Best Years of Our Lives Hugo Friedhofer (at the piano) and Emil Newman (the musical director)