Summer vacation may be winding down, but it’s never too late to run away to sea. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we listen to music from movies featuring tall ships.
Though Gregory Peck cuts a dashing figure as “Captain Horatio Hornblower” (1951), the movie itself is a bit episodic, adapted as it was from three of C.S. Forester’s Hornblower novels. Canadian-born master of British light music Robert Farnon wrote the music, lending another dimension to this nautical adventure.
Alan Ladd and James Mason engage in a battle of wills in “Botany Bay” (1953). Ladd plays a doctor wrongly accused of a crime, being transported to a penal colony in New South Wales on a ship under the harsh command of Mason. In perhaps the film’s most memorable sequence, Mason has one of his charges keelhauled. Franz Waxman wrote the score.
If it all sounds a mite familiar, it’s because the story was by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, authors of “Mutiny on the Bounty.” The classic film version dates from 1935, with Clark Gable butting up against Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh. The 1962 version bears a certain notoriety, mostly for Marlon Brando’s eccentric performance, which turns Fletcher Christian into a fop, and the fact that he essentially directed all his own scenes himself. The film was colossal failure, earning back only $13 million of its $19 million budget. Nonetheless, it managed to inspire Bronislau Kaper to compose one of his most monumental scores.
Finally, we’ll hear music from a release on Sepia Records of the soundtrack to “Windjammer” (1958), the only film shot using the Cinemiracle process. The film documents the round-trip, transatlantic journey of a Norwegian vessel from from Oslo to the Caribbean to New York to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and then back home again. Morton Gould wrote the evocative score, which alternates dance rhythms and sea shanties with a recurring melody suggestive of the sweeping romance of the high seas.
Join me as we recommission these tall ships on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
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