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 Victory at Sea
The
TV series
"Victory at Sea"
was conceived by
Henry Salomon a
research
assistant to
historian Samuel
Eliot Morison
who was writing
the 15-volume
History of
United States
Naval Operations
in World War II.
Salomon
learned of the
large amounts of
film that the
warring navies
had compiled and
formed the idea
of a documentary
series with one
of his Harvard
classmates,
Robert Sarnoff,
a rising
executive at NBC
television and
the son of David
Sarnoff, the
chairman of RCA
(then the owner
of NBC).
 NBC approved the
project during
1951, with
Salomon as
producer and a
budget of
$500,000 (large
for that era).
His team,
composed largely
of newsreel
veterans,
searched naval
archives around
the world, and
received
complete
cooperation from
the U.S. Navy,
which recognized
the publicity
value. Salomon's
team compiled 60
million feet of
film, which was
edited to about
61,000 feet for
broadcast.
After the
original run,
NBC syndicated
it to local
stations, where
it proved
successful
financially
through the
mid-1960s. NBC
also marketed
the series
overseas; by
1964, it had
been broadcast
in 40 foreign
markets. The TV
series won many
honors including
the Emmy and
the Peabody Award.
NBC created a
feature-length
motion picture
condensation.
Salomon signed
Richard Rodgers,
fresh off
several
successful
Broadway
musicals, to
compose the
musical score.
Rodgers
contributed 12
"themes"- short
piano
compositions a
minute or two in
length; these
may be examined
in the Rodgers
Collection at
the Library of
Congress. Robert
Russell Bennett
did the scoring,
transforming
Rodgers's themes
for a variety of
moods, and
composing much
more original
material than
Rodgers, as may
be observed in
Bennett's
written scores,
microfilmed at
the Library of
Congress
-------------------
* Beneath
the
Southern Cross.
Richard Rodgers
originally
composed this
tune for
“Victory at
Sea.” When
Rodgers and
Oscar
Hammerstein II
collaborated on
“Me and Juliet,”
Rodgers took his
old melody and
set it to new
words by
Hammerstein,
producing the
song "No Other
Love". The song
has a beguine
dance and music
rhythm.
(There is
another “No
Other Love",
composed in 1950
with a melody
borrowed from
Etude
in E major, Op.
10, No. 3 by Frédéric
Chopin).
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