Elmer Bernstein - The Man With the Golden Arm

Elmer Bernstein (April 4, 1922 – August 18, 2004) was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions.

His most popular works include the scores to The Magnificent Seven, The Ten Commandments, The Great Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Ghostbusters. Along with many in Hollywood, Bernstein faced censure during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. He was "gray-listed" (not banned, but kept off major projects) due to sympathy with left-wing causes, and had to work on low-budget science fiction films such as Robot Monster and Cat-Women of the Moon.

Bernstein won an Oscar for his score to "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (1967) and was nominated for fourteen Oscars in total. He also won two Golden Globes and was nominated for two Grammy Awards.

The Man with the Golden Arm is a 1955 American drama film, based on the novel of the same name by Nelson Algren, which tells the story of a heroin addict who gets clean while in prison, but struggles to stay that way in the outside world. It stars Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker and Kim Novak. The film was controversial for its time; the Motion Picture Association of America refused to certify the film because it showed drug addiction.

The movie opens with one of the most famous, influential and controversial title sequences in movie history, the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm, designed and conceived by Saul Bass as a means of creating much more than a mere title sequence, but something that actually enhances the viewer's experience by contributing to a mood built within the opening moments of a film. Bass went on to create memorable title sequences for other renowned films, notably for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho.

Similarly, the film's jazz soundtrack (played by Shorty Rogers and His Giants with Shelly Manne) was a landmark in film history; it followed on somewhat from the score provided by Alex North for A Streetcar Named Desire

The famous theme music was written by Elmer Bernstein. Jet Harris released the theme as single in 1963, and Sweet covered the theme song on the UK version of their album Desolation Boulevard.

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