Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Exotic Scores: Movie Music from the East

As a long-time local radio host only recently set adrift, I am thankful for the life raft of syndication. Which means armchair travelers can still join me, via internet streaming, on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon.

Orientalism is a term used to describe evocations of the East by Western writers, artists, and designers. This week on “Picture Perfect,” while I acknowledge the complexities and pitfalls inherent to “exoticism,” I hope you’ll enjoy musical selections from four films set in faraway lands.

Two of these are loosely based on tales from “The Arabian Nights,” depicting the East as a kind of fairy world. The Alexander Korda production of “The Thief of Bagdad” (1940) features Sabu as the thief, Conrad Veidt as a slippery vizir, and a scene-stealing Rex Ingram as the djinn. The score is one of the earliest and most charming of Miklós Rózsa.

“The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad” (1958) is really a showcase for the special effects of Ray Harryhausen. In particular, it contains a kind of rehearsal, in the skeleton duel, for the classic sequence in “Jason and the Argonauts” (in which Harryhausen ups the ante to seven skeletons!). The alternately sinuous and percussive music, by Bernard Herrmann, fits the images like a Persian slipper.

Director David Lean was inspired by the historical exploits and complex character of T.E. Lawrence, in the undertaking of “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962). The film won seven Academy Awards and made international superstars of Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. Maurice Jarre won the first of his three Oscars for his music. Jarre himself conducted on the film’s soundtrack, even though, for contractual reasons, Sir Adrian Boult received the screen credit.

Finally, Sean Connery is Mulay Ahmed Muhamed Raisuli the Magnificent, sharif of the Riffian Berbers, in John Milius’ “The Wind and the Lion” (1975). The score represents composer Jerry Goldsmith at his finest. In fact, so happy was he with the effort that he was convinced that he finally had a lock on the Oscar. Then he went to see “Jaws.” Goldsmith would receive his only Academy Award, finally, the next year for his music to “The Omen.”

I hope you’ll join me for these examples of Orientalism at the movies – a theme that’s really an excuse for me to play some of my favorite scores – this Friday evening on KWAX!

See below for streaming information.

Keep in mind, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTO: Rex Ingram as the Djinn in “The Thief of Bagdad”

June 23, 2023
Summer Reading List Rainy Day Reads

It’s been so nice and cool the past couple of days, it’s been kind of hard for me to put myself in a summer frame of mind. (Not complaining!) With a lot of rain in the forecast for the coming week, it’s a good time to get started on your summer reading. Anything special piling up on your nightstand?

I’m nearly finished with the “Kalevala,” the Finnish national epic (the first time all the way through for this Sibelius lover).

Then, just in time for the Fourth of July, I’ll be moving on to George Plimpton’s “Fireworks: A History and Celebration.” Supposedly Plimpton, in addition to being an entertaining writer, was a kind of pyrotechnical evil genius.

I may also finally get around to reading S. Weir Mitchell’s “Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker.” Or I suppose I could save it for the “America 250” celebrations in 2025. Set during the American Revolution, the book became one of the bestselling novels of 1898. My edition still has the Howard Pyle illustrations.

I’ll also want to bone up on my Vaughan Williams, in advance of this summer’s Bard Music Festival in August, including Eric Saylor’s recent book on the composer. For lack of a better title, I suppose, it’s called (wait for it) “Vaughan Williams.”

Somewhere along the away, I’ll also want to indulge in some good old-fashioned “boy’s adventure” stories, so perhaps it’s time to enlist with P.C. Wren’s Foreign Legion opus, “Beau Geste,” which has been adapted to film many times, but I’ve yet to read the book.

Too many others to contemplate. I’ve got stacks and shelves of books I will probably never read. Some of my most satisfying summer memories have been in tackling a great book. Lord, I wish I were a faster reader and didn’t waste so much time on the internet!

How about you? Is there a book you’d like to read on a rainy summer’s day, as opposed to slow-roasting, slathered in suntan lotion, on the beach?

June 23, 2023
Indiana Jones Delay Star Trek Rescue Show

The Dial of Destiny dictates that tonight’s show is postponed due to technical difficulties. So we will try it again next week – OPPOSITE THE OPENING OF THE ACTUAL MOVIE. But who’s interested in seeing a new Indiana Jones movie executive produced by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg on opening night anyway? Right? RIGHT?

I don’t know; we’re making it up as we go.

In any case, despair not. The weekend is not a total wash, as Roy will be joined by special guests Michael and Denise Okuda, so closely associated with “Star Trek” film and television productions, on Sunday night at 7:30 EDT. JOIN HIM THEN.

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

You may be disappointed with us now, but you’ll be Jonesin’ for us by next Friday evening at 7:30 EDT, on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner!

June 23, 2023
Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Art Podcast

It’s not the years; it’s the mileage.

Okay, maybe it’s the years a little bit too.

Regardless of my personal expectations in regard to the impending fifth Indiana Jones installment, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” I will always love “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and for many reasons. As an “old movie nut” with a fondness for hats, globetrotting intrigue, swashbuckling adventure, thrilling stunts and big orchestral scores, Indy was right in my wheelhouse.

And more than most people my age, I am familiar with many of the series‘ classic forebears, films such as “Gunga Din,” “The General Died at Dawn,” and “The Mask of Fu Manchu;” archaeological and safari adventures like “King Solomon’s Mines,” “Valley of the Kings,” and “Secret of the Incas;” and the countless Nazi peril movies of the World War II era. So there will be plenty for me to talk about, even if I’m only talking to myself.

Of course, we all loved “Star Wars” – another film with a rich cinematic history – so it was great to see Harrison Ford again, in what would become his defining role, supported by the great John Williams no less.

They don’t make ‘em like they used to. Roy and I will talk Indiana Jones and argue the series’ ups and downs, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. The comments will be full of mummies, asps, and Anubis statues, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc. We’ll be making it up as we go – so join us as raiders of a lost art, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

June 22, 2023
Columbo, Kamen, and Ghostwritten Scores

I know there are some “Columbo” fans out there. I watched an episode, now and again, if I happened to be in the room when it was on, and since my stepfather enjoyed the show, it meant I had plenty of opportunities. For me, as I assume it was for many, Falk was the whole show. No doubt someone will challenge me on that, and I’m fine with it. I’ve just never really been into the whole murder-of-the-week-with-celebrity-guests kind of thing.

That said, how have I never heard about “Murder with Too Many Notes?” This particular episode involves an Oscar-winning film composer (played by Billy Connolly) who stands to lose everything when his protégé threatens to reveal that most of his scores were, in fact, ghostwritten.

It’s been pointed out that Connolly bears an uncanny resemblance to Michael Kamen, composer of “Die Hard,” “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” among others. But Kamen at least was open about employing assistants, who acted primarily as orchestrators. The practice is not unusual, nor is it particularly unethical, when the musicians are credited at the end of the film.

What it is unethical, to my thinking, is when a composer does little or even no work on a score as it’s heard in a movie, and the hard-working, underpaid composers who actually bring the music to fruition remain anonymous, with only the “big shot” appearing in the credits. And they get no points for originality.

Sure, Kamen did a lot of work in the popular sphere, working for instance on Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” but he also had classical training, having studied English horn at Juilliard and composition with Vincent Persichetti and Jacob Druckman. He was not just some computer-noodler with garage-band experience and no idea how to string his ideas together in a convincing manner when dealing with larger forms. (He wrote ballets before he came to Hollywood.)

Kamen never won an Academy Award, but he was nominated for two, and won three Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, and an Emmy. He actually seemed like a pretty good guy, setting up the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation to bring instruments and music education to kids in underserved communities. Furthermore, the foundation stepped up to create an emergency fund in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

So any similarity to Kamen, I hope, was purely coincidental. Because this “Columbo” villain-of-the-week seems a lot more like a few other composers I can think of, including the one most responsible for the current lowest-common-denominator approach to film-scoring. You know, the one with the team of soundalikes that’s squashed the soul of cinema with its electronic cliches of ominous drones and hyperintense ostinati. I’m not hearing any John Williamses or Jerry Goldsmiths or Elmer Bernsteins emerging from the galley.

Kamen died of a heart attack at 55 on November 18, 2003. He was still alive when “Murder with Too Many Notes” aired on March 12, 2001.

It turns out the behind-the-scenes story of this particular episode is much more fascinating than anything that made it on-screen, as a much-compromised realization of screenwriter Jeffrey Cava’s original vision. Film music was Cava’s passion. And it pains me to think that Patrick McGoohan was largely responsible for a life-imitates-art appropriation of his work.

Columbo and The Prisoner? That’s right. I know it’s not the only time McGoohan was involved with the series. But it was his last, as the show was nearing the end of its run.

Thanks to Lukas Kendall for directing his readers to this a number of weeks ago on his blog. Kendall is the founder and longtime editor of Film Score Monthly.

The whole sordid tale on columbophile.com:

Columbo episode review: Murder With Too Many Notes

Peter Falk describes his working relationship with McGoohan:

http://web.archive.org/web/19981206185852/http://www.clark.net/pub/bjpruett/pmweb/columbo.htm

More of Kendall’s musings here:

https://www.lukaskendall.com/blog

June 20, 2023

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