Sheet music by Joseph Kosma

Joseph Kosma was a Hungarian-French composer. Kosma and his wife emigrated to Paris in 1933. Eventually, he met Jacques Prévert, who introduced him to Jean Renoir. During World War II and the Occupation of France, Kosma was placed under house arrest in the Alpes-Maritimes region, and was banned from composition. However, Prévert managed to arrange for Kosma to contribute music for films, with other composers fronting for him. Under this arrangement he wrote the "pantomime" of the music for Les Enfants du Paradis (1945), made under the occupation, but released after the liberation. Among his other credits are the scores to La Grande Illusion (1937), La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast, 1938), La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game, 1939), Voyage Surprise (1946), and Le Testament du docteur Cordelier (The Doctor’s Horrible Experiment, 1959), the last of which was made for television. He was also known for writing the standard classical-jazz piece "Les feuilles mortes" ("Autumn Leaves"), with French lyrics by Jacques Prévert, and later English lyrics by Johnny Mercer, which was derived from music in Marcel Carné’s film Les Portes de la Nuit (1946). The song was featured in the eponymous 1956 film starring Joan Crawford.