One of the differences between behind-the-scenes people and actors is that behind-the-scenes people are considerably more likely to continue having credits for decades after their deaths. Really, it’s mostly writers and composers. And Leigh Harline, while not a name that the average person knows, is a name with credits as varied as Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Avengers: The Age of Ultron. From Falcon Crest to The Iron Giant. And honestly, I strongly suspect that it’s a place where IMDb is incomplete, because despite Disney’s fierce control of their intellectual property, you can’t tell me those songs don’t get used more than that.

There are very few composers where I’m quite sure people can recognize some of their music after two or three notes—indeed, there was a whole game show about this long enough ago that the prize on one episode I saw in rerun was a shiny new Datsun. But putting Harline’s music on there, for several of his songs, would have been cheating. Because I can think of at least one of his songs where you’d likely know the song from two notes. I can’t test that, as I don’t know how to embed those two notes here, but imagine seven characters starting the song going from low to a higher, held note?

The seven characters was the clue. That’s fair. But his first movie was indeed the Disney animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He’d been doing shorts for Disney before then, so it made sense that Walt would hire him for the feature. And then he also composed for Pinocchio—there’s the Age of Ultron—and Bambi. He was also musical director for Alice in Wonderland and The Sword in the Stone. He also composed for many, many shorts—mostly for Disney.

I think only his last short wasn’t for Disney; it was called “Man’s Search for Happiness” and was for the Mormons. But his feature work was considerably more varied; some of his credits are even just for “stock music.” He created the music for the series of Blondie movies. His only Oscar wins were for Disney, for Pinocchio, but in addition to his nominations for Snow White and Pinocchio, he was nominated for Pride of the Yankees, You Were Never Lovelier (both in 1942), Johnny Come Lately, The Sky’s the Limit (both in 1943), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm.

Really, his not-Disney work is remarkably varied. The Boy With the Green Hair. Isle of the Dead, with Boris Karloff. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. Miracle of the Bells. 7 Faces of Dr. Lao; I wonder if, when they sang his music on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Joel knew the connection to what is apparently his favourite movie. Leigh Harline isn’t a name that comes up often, but he’s still one of the most noteworthy composers of the twentieth century.

I don’t actually have a jewel mine to sing cheerily as I extract wealth; what I have is my Patreon and Ko-fi, which pay far less!