Music in the Great Race

[slaytonf]

There are some very recognizable tunes in The Great Race. At the start of the race, for instance, and in the famous pie fight. Henry Mancini is credited with the music. But I wonder, is all of it his?

[musicalnovelty]

Yes, there is some music in the movie that's not written by Henry Mancini, but he arranged those selections for the movie.

The tunes used for the start of the race (and used again several times later in the movie) are a medley of:

Hail To the Chief

Columbia the Gem of the Ocean (D. Shaw & T. Becket)

Dixie (D.D. Emmett)

America the Beautiful (K. Bates & S. Ward)

The Caissons Go Rolling Along

I've Been Working on the Railroad

(Mancini's "The Great Race March" is played in between each of these).

 

Other music in the movie that was not written by Mancini:

The Desert Song (Sigmund Romberg, Otto Harbach & Oscar Hammerstein 2nd)

Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor (J.S. Bach)

It Looks Like a Big Night Tonight (Harry Williams & Egbert Van Alstyne)

Blue Danube Waltz (J. Srauss)

Tales from the Vienna Woods (J. Strauss)

Jenny Lind Polka (Wallerstein)

America (sung briefly by Natalie Wood)

The Prophet (Meyerbeer)

The Marseillaise (R. De Lisle)

 

All of the pie fight music is original by Mancini, and it's called "Pie in the Face Polka" (I actually have two 45 RPM records of it by Henry Mancini and by The Boston Pops Orch. Also a 45 of Johnny Mathis singing "The Sweetheart Tree" song from the movie).

[slaytonf]

Thanks for the response (now what made me think you might be the one to reply?). I will watch the beginning of the race to catch all the different tunes you listed.