Murray Cutter
Personal Info
Known for
Sound
Gender
Male
Birthday
1902-03-15
Day of Death
1983-04-19 (81 years old)
Place of Birth
Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France
Murray Cutter
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Murray Cutter (15 March 1902, Nice, France – 19 April 1983, Burbank, California) was a versatile Hollywood orchestrator, working mainly for film composer Max Steiner, with over 150 credits spanning the mid-thirties to early 1960s. Nevertheless, he remains relatively unknown except for the much-loved original arrangement of Judy Garland's Over the Rainbow, which continues to be sampled by modern filmmakers. Similar to fellow arranger Alexander Courage, Cutter's name has tended to be overshadowed by the popularity of the composers with whom he was most associated.
Cutter was unusual among orchestrators who tended to specialize, in that he was adept in all genres: musicals (New Moon, Kismet, The Desert Song); romantic drama (Waterloo Bridge, A Summer Place); adventure (Northwest Passage, The Caine Mutiny); family/comedy (National Velvet, Sugarfoot); suspense (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Key Largo); epics ("Helen of Troy"); and westerns (The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Johnny Belinda and The Searchers).
An early assignment were the vocal arrangements for the 1937 film version of Rosalie, which ten years before had been orchestrated for Broadway by Steiner. At MGM Cutter worked for Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy on The Wizard of Oz. Under the loose musical direction of Herbert Stothart he contributed the "metallic sound" for the Tin Woodman's If I Only Had a Heart. Cutter told Oz historian Aljean Harmetz for "Over the Rainbow" he made it sound as pretty as he could with lots of strings and a touch of woodwind.
After the war he collaborated most closely with Steiner during his golden period with Warner Brothers. Their work on A Summer Place netted them a US #1 hit for the insistent theme song. Joining ASCAP in 1946, Cutter occasionally wrote original music for the screen but rarely received a credit.
His last credit, along with Steiner, was for Disney's forgettable Those Calloways in 1965. No known Broadway credits are recorded for him.
Known For
Crew
(1965)
Two on a Guillotine
Orchestrator
(1964)
Youngblood Hawke
Orchestrator
(1962)
Rome Adventure
Orchestrator
(1961)
Parrish
Orchestrator
(1961)
A Majority of One
Orchestrator
(1961)
Susan Slade
Orchestrator
(1959)
The FBI Story
Orchestrator
(1959)
John Paul Jones
Orchestrator
(1959)
The Hanging Tree
Orchestrator
(1957)
Escapade in Japan
Orchestrator
(1955)
The Violent Men
Orchestrator
(1954)
The Caine Mutiny
Orchestrator
(1952)
Mara Maru
Orchestrator
(1952)
Room for One More
Orchestrator
(1952)
The Iron Mistress
Orchestrator
(1951)
Jim Thorpe – All-American
Orchestrator
(1951)
Raton Pass
Orchestrator
(1951)
Sugarfoot
Orchestrator
(1951)
Distant Drums
Orchestrator
(1951)
Lightning Strikes Twice
Orchestrator
(1950)
Caged
Orchestrator
(1950)
Rocky Mountain
Orchestrator
(1950)
The Flame and the Arrow
Orchestrator
(1949)
White Heat
Orchestrator
(1948)
Key Largo
Orchestrator
(1948)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Orchestrator
(1948)
Adventures of Don Juan
Orchestrator
(1948)
Winter Meeting
Orchestrator
(1948)
Silver River
Orchestrator
(1947)
Love and Learn
Music Arranger
(1947)
Deep Valley
Music Arranger
(1947)
The Unfaithful
Music Arranger
(1947)
Pursued
Orchestrator
(1946)
Three Strangers
Orchestrator
(1946)
Shadow of a Woman
Orchestrator
(1945)
Danger Signal
Orchestrator
(1944)
The White Cliffs of Dover
Orchestrator
(1941)
Come Live with Me
Orchestrator
(1941)
Ziegfeld Girl
Orchestrator
(1940)
Comrade X
Orchestrator
(1939)
Babes in Arms
Orchestrator
(1939)
The Wizard of Oz
Music Arranger
(1938)
Billy Rose's Casa Mañana Revue
Orchestrator
(1938)
The Captain's Pup
Orchestrator
(1938)
Mannequin
Orchestrator
(1937)
The Women Men Marry
Orchestrator
(1937)
Double Wedding
Orchestrator
(1937)
Conquest
Orchestrator
(1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938
Music Arranger