Victor Young Conducts his score for "Shane"

When in 1953 "Shane came out, the era of the so-called "Adult" western was becoming something of a norm in the motion picture industry. Tough, Gritty stories with an almost Shakespeare like dramatic tension began to invade what was once thought of as a kiddie genre in film. Yet in this mixture was a film that expressed tenderness and love in the midst of the rough, violent times in the Old West. Nowehere else was this exemplified than in the movie "Shane" starring Alan Ladd as the man with a violent past with the farm family who adopt him as a handyman and the growing admiration of the small boy. The music by Victor Young has the open air quality the intense beauty of the mountains surrounding the farmlands. Young invests this beautiful, song-like quality with the deep breathed phrases surrounding an underlying drama that is breath-taking.