# Why did old movies have that 'dinner music' background all the time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 4, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529 "2011-03-04T22:26:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Wikipedia_Cites)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/1 "2011-03-04T22:26:15Z")
Got the bluray for “Brighton Rock” and the music in the opening is extremely jolly sounding and unsuitable for the mood. For that matter, the old pre-widescreen b&w movies seem to have constant ‘dinner music’ (to me, generic sounding mediocre symphonic music) like background music during a significant part of the movie. Why? It makes them seem unrealistic and cheesy, at least to my untutored ears. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/2 "2011-03-04T23:03:36Z")
The point isn’t to be realistic. The point is to entertain. Background music sets the mood of the scene; nearly every movie uses a musical score (and not just music that you would expect to hear). It probably dates from the silent days, where music was played while the movie was play (though in the very early silent days, music was played between movies, to keep people entertained while the reels were being changed). ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/3 "2011-03-05T00:24:00Z")
For just a few years in the early 1930s, quite a few movies had what amounted to pop dance tunes of the day as music beds. The bigger studios owned music houses and would use big band orchestrations of the songs they published. As a devotee of the music of that era, I often find it enjoyable to listen for any tunes I don’t know (there aren’t that many!) ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/4 "2011-03-05T04:21:28Z")
That brings up an interesting question. What’s the first movie/the first influential movie/the first commercially successful/popular movie (they all may or may not be the same film) to really use music in a way that made people (other filmmakers/critics/general public) think: Music is Important! ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/5 "2011-03-05T04:24:47Z")
_The Jazz Singer_. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/6 "2011-03-05T06:48:58Z")
That’s not exactly what I was talking about since the sound was more important and talked-about than the music itself. I think. You could be right. I was thinking the answer would be one of the big 30’s musicals with hit songs like [“We’re In The Money”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOjTNuuEVw)\* or something like that. Did the song become a hit because of the movie, or was the song a hit and then used in the movie? According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold_Diggers%27_Song_%28We%27re_in_the_Money%29), it “became a standard” so I guess it was written for the movie. - what a bizarre hit song, with half the song sung in pig-latin! “ear-way in-hay the onny-may!” Sounds Hawaiian. Man, forget dancing backwards and in heels, singing this way so fast and with such exuberance seems much harder. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/7 "2011-03-05T09:40:47Z")
Got the Blu-Ray for _Sixteen Candles_ and the music is extremely jolly sounding and unsuitable to the mood. For that matter, the old 'Eightes movies seem to have constant ‘pop music’ (to me, generic sounding mediocre synth music) like background music during a significant part of the movie. Why? It makes them seem unrealistic and cheesy, at least to my untutored ears. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/8 "2011-03-05T19:25:11Z")
A lot of real old movies like Dracula and the Flash Gordon serials used classical music during the opening credits. Though Dracula (Bela Lugosi version) was otherwise practically a silent movie. Sometimes when you hear a movie in the next room you can almost pinpoint the year it was made. 60’s movies often have that peppy bom-bom-bom Swingle Singers sound, and 70’s action movies have that “a Quinn Martin Production” blasting-horns, if you can hear it under the shooting and blasting. ---
**Author:** ![No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Wikipedia_Cites)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-old-movies-have-that-dinner-music-background-all-the-time/573529/9 "2011-03-07T17:21:59Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Got the Blu-Ray for _Sixteen Candles_ and the music is extremely jolly sounding and unsuitable to the mood. > > For that matter, the old 'Eightes movies seem to have constant ‘pop music’ (to me, generic sounding mediocre synth music) like background music during a significant part of the movie. > > Why? It makes them seem unrealistic and cheesy, at least to my untutored ears. > > Stranger For a second I got deja vu. Three distinctions: But they didn’t play the 80’s music during actual dialogue. And the 80’s pop tunes have lyrics in them that darken the mood compared to light symphonic orchestration. The B/W movies I’ve seen have the music playing like it’s dinner music (and of course you can speak over dinner music right?)