I won’t put too fine a point on it, because I feel it would be disrespectful to those who made the ultimate sacrifice to use Memorial Day to sharpen my bayonet. But here’s an example of programming you WON’T hear on WWFM this weekend.
You will hear it, however, on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon, where “Picture Perfect” will continue, as I prepare to produce and distribute fresh programs.
This week, we’ll revisit some of John Williams’ music for films set during World War II.
Only six months after Pearl Harbor, America struck back, devastating the Japanese fleet in a battle regarded as one of the war’s turning points. “Midway” (1976) was a belated big-screen dramatization of the event, featuring an all-star cast of war movie standbys, including Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Mitchum, and Cliff Robertson.
Unfortunately, the assembly of old-timers, combined with abundant stock footage from “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and actual period newsreels, may have saddled the film with an all-too-palpable sense of been-there-done-that. Williams does his best to freshen things up with a rousing, patriotic score and a crackerjack victory march. Fun fact: “Midway” was one of only four films ever to be presented in theater-rumbling Sensurround.
Frank Sinatra starred in – and directed – “None But the Brave” (1965), the only time the Chairman of the Board sat in the director’s chair. This time, Japanese and American units are forced to coexist, and even cooperate, after they are stranded on a Pacific island. The film is also noteworthy for being the first Japanese-American co-production and bears a somewhat forward-looking anti-war message. The music is a fascinating glimpse of Williams’ work from ten years before his mega-success with “Jaws,” and “Star Wars” yet to come.
“1941” (1979) is just plain weird. Steven Spielberg’s too-big-to-fail gamble stumbles pretty badly, following his back-to-back blockbusters, “Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The premise – a Japanese u-boat sighting off the coast of California triggering an overabundance of slapstick panic – posits, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad war.
“1941” employs a staggering amount of talent, from its behind-the-scenes effects artists, to screenwriters Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, to its dream cast pushing as hard as it possibly can. It also features a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Toshiro Mifune and Slim Pickens in the same scene. But for the most part, perhaps unsurprisingly, it fails to deliver the laughs. What it does deliver is the most rousing of John Williams’ neglected scores.
Spielberg actually approached John Wayne about appearing in the film. Wayne was too ill to participate, but offered the following advice: “You know, that was an important war, and you’re making fun of a war that cost thousands of lives at Pearl Harbor. Don’t joke about World War II.” Whether or not audiences agreed, they didn’t exactly queue up as they had for Spielberg’s previous successes.
We’ll strike a more reverent tone with Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). Spielberg’s war-is-hell narrative yet manages to honor the sacrifice of the fighting men of World War II. The opening – a sustained “you-are-there” battle sequence on Omaha Beach – is unforgettable. Remarkably, it is presented wholly without music, Williams preferring to allow the tension of the mise-en-scène to speak for itself. Spielberg picked up his second Academy Award for Best Director. The film, however, inexplicably, lost to “Shakespeare in Love.” We’ll hear “Hymn to the Fallen,” of the hour’s selections, easily the most appropriate to Memorial Day.
Sadly, we’re not talking about “Star Wars” here, but a real war that killed tens of millions and destroyed the lives of countless others.
John Williams looks at World War II from four different angles this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening, syndicated on KWAX. Stream it at the link below.
Keep in mind, the station is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour time difference – actually rather convenient for those of us located in the vicinity of WWFM. Here are the conversions of the respective air-times:
PICTURE PERFECT – Fridays on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)
THE LOST CHORD – Saturdays on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)
PHOTO: War has a way of putting one’s problems in perspective
