This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have an hour of music from movies with Irish settings and Irish themes.
Tyrone Power plays an American journalist who travels to Ireland, where he gets in touch with his roots – and a full-size leprechaun, played by Cecil Kellaway – in “The Luck of the Irish” (1948).
No “Darby O’Gill”-style special effects here. Kellaway is just some guy in a leprechaun hat. When Power comments, “Say, aren’t you rather large for a leprechaun?,” Kellaway responds, “That’s a page of me family history I’d rather we not go into.” It was hoped that Barry Fitzgerald would have taken the role – and how perfect would that have been? – but he couldn’t be secured. In the event, Kellaway was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
The music was by the English-born Cyril J. Mockridge, who was Alfred Newman’s assistant at 20th Century Fox. Mockridge is probably best known for his score to “Miracle on 34th Street.” “The Luck of the Irish” is full of Celtic-style folk melodies and some shimmering leprechaun music, but why it quotes “Greensleeves” is anybody’s guess. Probably at the request of a producer. (Green = Irish, right?)
John Williams wrote a gorgeous, melancholy score for “Angela’s Ashes” (1999), adapted from Frank McCourt’s bestselling memoir. It’s refreshing to hear Williams give free rein to his lyrical side, beyond the context of lightsabers, magic wands and rampaging dinosaurs. The recording we’ll hear is from the difficult-to-acquire international release. The version issued stateside was marred by dialogue from the film. (Why do they do that?)
You can’t have an hour of Irish film music without including something with The Chieftains. “Circle of Friends” (1995) is based on the novel by Maeve Binchy, about three childhood friends who reunite in college, and their adventures with the young men they find there. The film starred Minnie Driver, Chris O’Donnell, Alan Cumming and Colin Firth. Michael Kamen wrote the score, but it’s The Chieftains, obviously, that lend it an air of authenticity.
Finally, we’ll have music from “The Quiet Man” (1952), surely Victor Young’s most charming project. Based on a short story by Maurice Walsh, “The Quiet Man” tells the tale of an American boxer with Irish roots who returns to the village of his birth.
John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, Victor McLaglen, Mildred Natwick, Ward Bond, and a whole slew of Irish character actors flesh out what must be John Ford’s most delightful film. It earned him his fourth Academy Award for Best Director, and the film itself was nominated for Best Picture.
The score is imbued with Irish folk song and popular melodies, perfectly complementing the tone of sustained whimsy, in what is essentially a love story unfolding in the face of cultural differences.
I hope you’ll join me in the wearin’ of the green, this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6 (as good a time as any for a pint of porter); or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.
