When I consider the finest feature films made without a musical score, I always think first of Call Northside 777 (’48), Henry Hathaway‘s Chicago-based, docu-styled procedural about a tough reporter (James Stewart) gradually managing to prove that an alleged cop killer (Richard Conte) is innocent.
But of course, Call Northside 777 has a musical score, composed and conducted by Alfred Newman. But only at the very beginning (opening credits…crashing, bombastic) and at the tail end (final 10 seconds, if that). Otherwise this 111-minute film (the first 9 minutes are annoying to sit through) is completely without musical enhancement, and all the better for it. Get rid of Newman’s intrusion and those first nine minutes and it’s perfect.
Among the better known music-free features: Sidney Lumet‘s Dog Day Afternoon, Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds (not even opening- or closing-credit music), Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country For Old Men, Ingmar Bergman‘s The Silence, Hitchcock’s Rope. Lumet’s Network has no “score” but aside from the characters and dialogue the first element you always think of is that brassy Howard Beale Show fanfare.
Others?