Andi Cwieka

5/2/18

CMLT398D

Anatomy of a Woman: How Duke Ellington’s Anatomy of a Murder Score Tells the Story of

the Film’s Female Characters

It was 6 a.m. on Duke Ellington’s birthday. Film director Otto Preminger was sitting in a

hotel dining room awaiting the famed jazz musician, who was en route to get to work on

composing a score for Preminger’s upcoming film. Ellington, in a later interview, described

himself as “extremely excited” and very interested to see what music could do in relation to

acting, especially in a “supporting role.”1 At age 60, Ellington was about to embark on yet

another innovative musical journey – his first movie score, for Preminger’s boundary-breaking

hit Anatomy of a Murder. This score, recorded in only a few days, won Ellington three Grammys

in 1959. The soundtrack also changed the movie music business by being the first non-diegetic

(when the source of the sound isn’t visible or implied) score composed by African-Americans for

a mainstream Hollywood feature.2 Ellington, along with jazz musician Billy Strayhorn,

composed colorful melodies and clever harmonies to create a score that didn’t just provide a

background tune, but set the scene of an emotional murder trial and painted portraits of complex

characters. Specifically, Ellington’s themes for Laura Manion, Maida Rutledge and Mary Pilant

provide depth and enhance the emotional expression of these characters.

1
Duke Ellington, “The Grand Finale - Rehearsal/Lines/Interview/Music/Strings/Murder,” recorded 1959, reissued
2
Mervyn Cooke. A History of Film Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 220.
 In the 1950s, Duke Ellington had managed to keep his orchestra together and continue

innovating in jazz music, even while most other big bands disintegrated. Ellington was originally

approached by Otto Preminger’s brother, Ingo, about the score, and once Ellington read the

script, he readily agreed.3 Not only did Ellington agree, but he also made the unconventional

choice to come to the film set in the upper peninsula of Michigan, since he believed “doing the

score for a picture really calls for being along with the action and absorbing all of the atmosphere

and everything that’s taking place in the picture.”4 There, he was able to see the actors on

location and create themes that “fleshed out the local color”5 and truly expressed their characters.

Preminger knew that as a true jazz musician (and one who had never composed a score before),

Ellington could produce a “freshness which an experienced film composer might no longer

possess.”6 Preminger had gone with a jazz score for his 1955 film The Man with the Golden Arm,

which he said he felt helped create an authentic representation of modern urban life, a

representation that included “hysteria and despair.”7 Jazz has long been used to represent

depravity and sadness – in The Man with the Golden Arm, the subjects struggle with drug

addiction; in Anatomy of a Murder, the trial participants grapple with an alleged rape. Ellington

has also described jazz as representative of a modern America,8 which can be seen in Anatomy –

the word “panties” is used for the first time in cinema, and Lee Remick portrays a freewheeling,

modern woman who goes out on her own and embraces her sexuality. Ellington matched these

modern, adult themes with mature sound and technique in the score.

3
Ellington, “The Grand Finale,” Anatomy of a Murder.
4
Ellington, “The Grand Finale,” Anatomy of a Murder.
5
Morris Holbrook. Music, Movies, Meanings, and Markets: Cinemanjazzmatazz (New York: Routledge, 2011), np.
6
Jim Lochner, “Jazz Score: Intermission,” Film Score Monthly (August 2008).
7
Lochner, “Jazz Score: Intermission.”
8
Lochner, “Jazz Score: Intermission.”
 As seasoned jazz performers and composers, Ellington and Strayhorn brought a variety of

signature jazz techniques and new ideas to the Anatomy of a Murder score. Critic Wynton

Marsalis described their score as containing “advanced harmonic conceptions.”9 Advanced,

original harmony, a signature of Ellington’s10 and also known as “The Ellington Effect,”11 is

present in the colorful and blended orchestral music throughout the score. For Ellington,

Strayhorn said, “his real instrument is his band. Each member of the band is to him a distinctive

tone color and set of emotions.”12 These orchestral harmonies combine with Ellington’s and

Strayhorn’s unique composition style, which they utilize to tell a story with the music. The music

connects the movie’s storylines through the score’s unity, compositional themes and thematic

transformations, which serve not just to show off a mature, sophisticated Ellington13 but also add

coherence and depth to the plot. There are many closely allied themes on this album, including

Manion’s theme, “Flirtibird,” which can also be heard on Maida’s introductory song “Way Early

Subtone” and Polly’s theme, “Polly.” Ellington and Strayhorn set the same melody in different

ways by changing the rhythm, the register or the featured instruments.14 These thematic

transitions, aided by Ellington’s skill in crafting harmony, help create unique sound backdrops

for characters as well as tie key characters together.

Ellington’s third strength that he brought to Anatomy and its characters was his skill in

creating musical portraits. Even from his start as a musician, Ellington “wrote a lot of music that

9
Wynton Marsalis. Anatomy of a Murder, performed by Duke Ellington and his orchestra, with notes by Marsalis
and Phil Schaap, recorded 1959, reissued 1999, compact disc.
10
Scott DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 67.
11
Darcy James Argue. “Arranging Ellington: The Ellington Effect,” Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute last
modified October 25, 2013. http://musicalexchange.carnegiehall.org/profiles/blogs/arranging-ellington-the-
ellington-effect
12
Argue, “Arranging Ellington.”
13
Richard Domek, “The Late Duke: Ellington's and Strayhorn's Music for Anatomy of a Murder Considered,” Jazz
Perspectives 6, nos. 1-2 (2012): 75-121. doi: 10.1080/17494060.2012.721291
14
Richard Domek (music theory professor at the University of Kentucky) in discussion with the author, May 1,
2018.
were portraits of specific people,” such as his 1970 album New Orleans Suite, and his 1928 piece

“Black Beauty” about an effervescent female dancer.15 He was able to use music as a tool to zero

in on anyone from well-known performers (like his “Portrait of Louis Armstrong”) to everyday

people he encountered. Ellington was interested in creating music that portrayed, celebrated and

revealed people, which is evident in his themes for all of the characters of Preminger’s film.

The first and perhpas one of the most iconic themes for the female characters of Anatomy

of a Murder is “Flirtibird,” for Laura Manion. The audience first hears this piece when the

distressed wife calls esteemed lawyer Paul Biegler, begging for his help.16 She is wearing a

trench coat buttoned all the way up, large black sunglasses and free flowing curls – the

stereotypical picture of a mysterious femme fatale. This femme fatale image is reinforced, as is

the “Flirtibird” tune, when Laura first meets Biegler in person, in front of the county jail. There,

she is decked out in stylish, modern, form-fitting clothes, heels and her black sunglasses. Her

theme is just as suggestive as her initial appearance – the song starts off with a swinging

entrance, followed by the smooth and slinky alto saxophone, which is featured on the track.

While the song also shows off a bold big band sound, it is really structured around the wailing

saxophone, an instrument typically used to portray sex and a femme fatale character.17 Manion

starts off seeming a confident, sexy and cunning woman, but later on she reveals her more

vulnerable and frightened side in the trailer park with Biegler. Her “Flirtibird” theme hints at this

moment, how Manion isn’t the stereotypical femme fatale character – Ellington uses a solo from

his saxophonist Johnny Hodges as “both a sarcastic comment on the status quo and the ultimate

example of the original concept” of a flirting, flighty woman, while later on in the trailer park the

15
Domek, in discussion with the author.
16
Anatomy of a Murder, directed by Otto Preminger (1959; Michigan, Criterion Collection, 2012), DVD.
17
Gary Giddins, Anatomy of a Murder (bonus interview), directed by Otto Preminger (1959; Michigan, Criterion
Collection, 2012), DVD.
track “Midnight Indigo” and “Almost Cried” “heighten the loneliness [Lee] Remick’s character

feels while her husband is in jail.”18 Ellington himself said he knew he had to do Manion’s theme

first, as soon as he saw actress Lee Remick leaning against the car in that first meeting scene,

“with her eyes...she absolutely appeared to be flirting all the time, which could easily be

mistaken by someone,”19 and it was, by Barney Quill. Ellington said that “Flirtibird” “sort of

presented itself, it sort of flew into me and knocked me down, so it kind of wrote itself,” and

added that when Remick heard it, she agreed right away that it was Laura. Hodges’ saxophone is

particularly sultry due to his skilled glissando. Ellington knew from decades of playing with

Hodges that sliding and slinking from note to note was his signature (which can be heard in his

other hits like “Didn’t Know About You” and “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be”), and he

utilized that as well as the sexy-saxophone stereotype that had been around since the 1930s to

emphasize Laura’s loose nature.20 The theme shows off how “she’s really easy in a certain sense,

as far as her motions, her personality, possibly her virtue, you never really know – that’s all got

to do with the way [Ellington] portrays Laura musically.”21 Another influence in theme is the

blues – Ellington uses a lot of notes from the blues scale, another nod to the music of “unsavory

characters”22 from 1920s films, and a scale that continues to stand out against the traditional,

major scale sounds of classical, folk and pop music. Ellington’s full embrace of the jazzy blues

sound paints a clear picture of the femme fatale character Laura is first made out to be, while still

hinting at her unexpected layers and then using his later tracks reveal her deeper emotions.

18
Thomas Cunniffe. “Anatomy of a Murder (Criterion Collection),” Jazz History Online, last modified 2018.
http://www.jazzhistoryonline.com/Anatomy_of_a_Murder.html
19
Ellington, “The Grand Finale,” Anatomy of a Murder.
20
Domek, in discussion with the author.
21
Domek, in discussion with the author.
22
Domek, in discussion with the author.
 The second theme of Laura Manion’s is “Almost Cried,” a thematic transformation of

“Flirtibird” that showcases a completely different side of the distressed wife. The viewer hears

“Almost Cried” just as Laura is revealing her deeper feelings about her husband and her

loneliness to Paul Biegler in the trailer park. It is important to examine this iteration of

“Flirtibird,” as it reveals a very different side of Laura, who the viewer has only seen as the

flirty, flighty female who before seemed to have no care in the world. “Almost Cried” is much

slower, more subdued and more harmonic, while featuring a lower version of the “Flirtibird”

melody on a trumpet instead of a saxophone. The wailing brass is still present, but much less

swingy and sexy and much more lonely. The track was at one point on Ellington’s manuscript

titled “Flirtibird Down,”23 essentially portraying a downtrodden, clipped-wings version of the

bold and bright bird that is Laura Manion. This thematic transformation shows how Laura has

transformed now that she is facing the reality of the trial and the possibility of her life completely

alone.

The second powerful female character in Anatomy of a Murder is Maida Rutledge,

Biegler’s hard working and sassy secretary who is represented by another iteration of

“Flirtibird,” titled “Way Early Subtone.” From the start, this version is much more mature than

Laura’s theme, starting off with a more relaxed piano, while still retaining that swinging sound

and slinking saxophone. Later, the theme becomes even more subdued, with a quiet harmonic

section and subtle snapping. Even later in the song, a low solo clarinet solo appears, still with

that glissando effect but more wise-sounding than the bold and sexy saxophone. Just like

Rutledge, an older woman who isn’t nearly as flighty or flirty as Laura, “Way Early Subtone”

isn’t “as flashy, or as rhythmically active” as “Flirtibird,” and is also more “regularized in terms

23
Domek, “The Late Duke.”
of its rhythm.”24 While Rutledge is older and more subdued, she still has a bit of a spunk in her

character – she tells Biegler that she thinks Laura is “soft, easy, the kind men like to take

advantage of, and do.” Biegler is surprised, but Rutledge just says with a smirk that “she’s been

around.” Later on in the film she gets all of the gossip from the nail salon about the mysterious

Mary Pilant, and then proceeds to cover for the older lawyer Parnell as he sneaks off to Canada.

While she is reliable and supportive of the law firm (even after Biegler doesn’t pay her), she also

isn’t afraid to say what she thinks (which includes demanding her salary). Rutledge’s theme uses

the “Flirtibird” tune as a way of representing the young, flirty spunk and surprise that she has

like Laura, but reworks it in a much more wise way to represent Rutledge’s maturity and

dependability.

The third female character that Ellington portrays through music is Mary Pilant, the

mysterious inn manager, with the song “Low Key Lightly.” The song is played when Biegler,

Parnell and Rutledge first meet Pilant. Just as the Biegler doesn’t realize he’s meeting Pilant at

first, “Low Key Lightly” is introduced quietly, gently folded into the scene. While the viewer

only hears the quieter piano moments of the tune, the whole song features a pure but sad piano

solo and violin solo, portraying the sadness Pilant wears on her sleeve with the recent loss of her

father. This song is “more elegant, not as jazzy...it’s more together, like someone has their act

together”25 – unlike the loose, sometimes dishonest characters of the film, from Biegler to the

Manions, Pilant remains honest and true. Overall the song is much more straightforward and

confined, just like Pilant is as a character. She remains loyal to her father, Barney Quill, then

loyal to telling the truth once she discovers the underwear, then at the end loyal to her father’s

legacy by taking over the inn. The tune is actually a thematic transformation of the song “Polly,”

24
Domek, in discussion with the author.
25
Domek, in discussion with the author..
for Paul Biegler, which doesn’t even appear on the original 1959 soundtrack. Biegler’s theme is

more slow, gentle and almost hesitant, just as Biegler is – he keeps to himself, he is cynical, but

he is also unpredictable. In “Polly,” a variety of instruments solo, from the violin to the piano to

the saxophone (something Biegler plays a few times in the movie), and they vary widely in their

rhythm and range, just as Biegler presents a variety of emotions throughout the film. The

reiteration of “Polly” in “Low Key Lightly” is significant because it hints at just how important

Mary Pilant will be for Biegler later in the movie. While the two songs sound vastly different at

first, just as Biegler and Pilant are almost opposite in personality (Biegler is critical, intelligent

and emotional while Pilant is open and honest), Pilant’s straightforward and elegant tune

provides not only an explanation for her character but also a first look into Biegler, who is almost

always his honest self with Pilant – she seems to draw it out of him. When he meets with her, he

is direct, asking her about Quill and her knowledge, and showing his gentler, empathetic side

later on as he explains that “people aren’t just good or bad – people are many things,” as he is

insinuating that her father is responsible for rape. Just as Laura, Rutledge and Biegler have all

kinds of musical parts, solos and harmonies in their themes, Pilant’s song is focused, just as she

is throughout the plot.

Even though Ellington defined his score for Anatomy of a Murder as “supporting,” his

music actually is anything but. Ellington’s score as a whole was a significant moment in the

world of film music, a symbol of the darker emotions and themes in Preminger’s movie and

representative of the modern characters and message Preminger created. Although many of the

tracks weren’t played out completely in the film, they still add unspoken layers to the characters,

and add context and clues for the viewers. Ellington, who for years before Preminger’s film was

able to portray people in music, used his harmonic prowess and talented jazz orchestra in
addition to new techniques such as thematic transformation to especially enhance Laura Maion’s,

Maida Rutledge’s and Mary Pilant’s emotional expression and explain their place among the

larger plot and web of characters.

 Bibliography

Argue, Darcy James. “Arranging Ellington: The Ellington Effect,” Carnegie Hall Weill Music
Institute last modified October 25, 2013.
http://musicalexchange.carnegiehall.org/profiles/blogs/arranging-ellington-the-ellington-
effect

Cooke, Mervyn. A History of Film Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Cunniffe, Thomas. “Anatomy of a Murder (Criterion Collection),” Jazz History Online, last
modified 2018. http://www.jazzhistoryonline.com/Anatomy_of_a_Murder.html

DeVeaux, Scott. The Birth of Bebop. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Domek, Richard. “The Late Duke: Ellington's and Strayhorn's Music for Anatomy of a Murder
Considered,” Jazz Perspectives 6, nos. 1-2 (2012): 75-121. doi:
10.1080/17494060.2012.721291

Ellington, Duke. “The Grand Finale - Rehearsal/Lines/Interview/Music/Strings/Murder.”

Recorded 1959, reissued 1999, track 25 on Anatomy of a Murder. Sony. Compact disc.

Giddins, Gary, Anatomy of a Murder (bonus interview). 1959; Michigan, Criterion Collection,
2012. DVD.

Holbrook, Morris. Music, Movies, Meanings, and Markets: Cinemanjazzmatazz. New York:
Routledge, 2011.

Lochner, Jim. “Jazz Score: Intermission,” Film Score Monthly, last modified August 2008.
https://jameslochner.wordpress.com/articles/jazz-score-intermission/

Marsalis, Wynton. Anatomy of a Murder (additional notes). Recorded 1959, reissued 1999. Sony.
Compact disc.

Preminger, Otto, dir. Anatomy of a Murder. 1959; Michigan, Criterion Collection, 2012. DVD.