"The 11-year collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann is often called the greatest director-composer partnership in cinema history. Their eight films together include such classic thrillers as Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. In Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema, Steven C. Smith draws on four decades of research, including previously unpublished documents and new interviews, to deliver a riveting account of what made the teaming of "Benny and Hitch" so successful and influential - and why it came to a bitter end. Their story is contextualized by a parallel narrative: the tumultuous changes in Hollywood from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s, as the collapsing studio system gave way to independent, counterculture filmmaking. Smith also illuminates the key figures in Hitchcock and Herrmann's inner circle. They include the director's gifted wife and most valued critic, Alma Reville; Herrmann's beautiful, put-upon spouse, Lucy Anderson; and talent agent-turned-studio mogul Lew Wasserman. Wasserman's negotiations made Hitchcock's greatest filmmaking period possible. But over time, Lew's commercial instincts as head of Universal Studios clashed with Herrmann's pure artistic vision. The music of Hitchcock-Herrmann has become the soundtrack of our own anxious times. Smith demonstrates this by exploring its use in modern movie blockbusters; music videos and songs by such artists as Lady Gaga and The Beatles; parodies; and advertising. Hitchcock and Herrmann is both a deeply researched historical study and a fast-moving, cinematic narrative - one that puts readers on the film sets and scoring stages of Hitchcock masterworks. It is an intimate look at two legendary creators who, despite seemingly opposite personalities, found in each other artistic completion"--