“The caverns of the human mind are full of strange shadows”: Disability Representation, Henry Bellamann, and Korngold’s Musical Subtexts in the Score for Kings Row

Abstract

This chapter explores Erich Korngold's score in the 1942 black and white Hollywood film, King's Row. This Warner Bros. production was based on a bestselling 1940 novel by Henry Bellamann, a writer whose career began not as a literary creator but as a music teacher. Much remains to be examined regarding Korngold's score in this film's legendary history. Still more remains to be uncovered regarding the way this music mediates the unsettling and sometimes horrific (and horrifically ableist) narrative. Kings Row's main character, Parris Mitchell, observes near the end of the film that “the caverns of the human mind are full of strange shadows,” and in the film those strange shadows have the power of being accompanied by Korngold's remarkably sumptuous, complex, and effective music.