Get out your Silly Putty! We’ll have plenty of vibrant colors for you to enjoy this week on “Picture Perfect,” when the focus will be on comic adventurers – as in heroes from the funnies.
We’ll hear music from “Prince Valiant” (1954), based on Hal Foster’s enduring Sunday strip about the exploits of a Viking prince at the court of King Arthur. The film stars Robert Wagner (in a page-boy haircut), Janet Leigh, James Mason, Sterling Haydn, and Victor McLaglen (as Val’s Viking pal Boltar). It also happens to feature one of Franz Waxman’s most rousing scores, clearly a prototype for the kind of music that later made John Williams a household name.
Then Billy Zane is “The Ghost Who Walks,” in a big screen version of Lee Falk’s “The Phantom” (1996). Like Batman, The Phantom harnesses personal tragedy – in this case, the murder of his father – to a thirst for justice. He is now part of an ancient lineage of Phantoms, who don the purple suit and fight crime from a cave in a remote African country, in part through the power of a magic ring. The memorable (though somewhat monothematic) score is by David Newman, one of the sons of legendary Hollywood composer Alfred Newman.
Warren Beatty helmed an amusing adaptation of Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy” (1990), replete with primary color production design and meticulously applied make-up that transformed some of the most respected actors of the day (including Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and James Caan) into a live-action Rogue’s Gallery. Design and make-up were recognized with Academy Awards, as was Stephen Sondheim, for the original song “Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man),” sung in the film by Madonna. We won’t hear Sondheim’s song, but we will hear some of Danny Elfman’s underscore, which harkens back to Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Finally, we turn from the American newspaper to the comic volumes of Belgian cartoonist Hergé, and his most famous creation, Tintin, a young journalist whose stories seem always to embroil him in globetrotting adventures. Developed for the screen by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, “The Adventures of Tintin” (2011) was shot as 3-D motion capture animation.
After 50 years in the business, during which he wrote music for all manner of films, from across virtually every genre, John Williams finally got a crack at scoring an animated feature. The result was a double Academy Award nomination, as Williams had also written the music that year for Spielberg’s “War Horse.” Not bad for a 79 year-old composer.
Unfortunately, “Tintin” never gained the kind of traction with the public that the filmmakers had hoped for, otherwise the score would certainly be much better known, as it is cut from the same cloth – and is of the same high quality – as those for the “Star Wars,” Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter series.
I’ll see you in the funny pages this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
