Hitchcock and Herrmann

The classic thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock, including Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho, achieved much of their power from the music of legendary Academy Award winner Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver). In this book, author Steven C. Smith delivers an intimate account of how the reserved, but deeply anxious, Hitchcock found his ideal creative partner in the cantankerous, but deeply romantic, Herrmann. Their collaboration ended in a bitter break; but today, the music from their movies is more popular than ever, heard in Quentin Tarantino blockbusters and Lady Gaga music videos. Smith takes us inside the friendship between "Benny and Hitch," and explains why Herrmann's pulse-quickening music has become the soundtrack of our own anxious times.