Sometimes his appearance is pensive or pedestrian, just as often he is adored in clothing that corresponds to the teleplay at hand. Then we are delightfully regaled with the inimitable master of ceremonies’ trademark “Good Evening” before he launches on his distinctly British sounding deadpan tirade of the coming mise en scene or the pervading theme of the half-hour episode about to commence. As Gounod’s music launches the screen showcases the enlarged letters of the show’s title, which segues into the iconic caricature of the director -which he drew himself- appearing in silhouette, which is followed by Hitchcock himself walking to the center of the screen to eclipse the image in side profile. Hitchcock is said to have chosen this theme after recalling its employment in Murnau’s 1927 masterpiece Sunrise, though its use in Harold Lloyd’s first talkie Welcome Dancer must have been equally ubiquitous. Indeed Gounod’s quirky composition, Marche funebre d’une marionette (The Funeral March of a Marionette) was a godsend of sorts for film and television giant Alfred Hitchcock who employed this simultaneously cheerful and spooky piece for what is arguably the most famous opening of any show in the history of the small screen. For television fans Gounod’s fame is for the iconic theme music of a venerated show that ran for seven years during the height of the baby boomer era. He won the Prix de Rome in 1839 for his cantata Fernand, and enjoyed sustained popularity during his lifetime. Gounod studied at the Paris Conservatoire, and later married Zimmermann’s daughter after he finally abandoned desires to enroll in the seminary. His mother was a pianist and his father was an artist. The latter in fact has been a staple at the Metropolitan Opera over the past several decades. Charles Gounod (1818-1893) was a renowned French composer perhaps best known for his version of Ave Maria, based on a work by Bach, though his two big operas, Mignon and Romeo et Juliette have continued to hold the stage.
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