RrrrrrrrrrrrAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This Saturday, on “Picture Perfect,” the focus will be on metaphorical big cats.
Simone Simon’s barely repressed desires are made manifest in Val Lewton’s “Cat People” (1942). Lewton was a master of suggestion, with a majority of the horrors in his films imagined, rather than seen. Part of the reasoning behind the approach was practical, the result of shoestring budgets imposed by RKO. Whatever the case, the insinuating weirdness undeniably induces psychological chills. In fact, it was only as a concession to the studio that a literal big cat is included at all. The music is by RKO workhorse Roy Webb.
Sean Connery plays a Berber chieftain who faces off against Teddy Roosevelt in “The Wind and the Lion” (1975). In a letter to Roosevelt (played in the film by Brian Keith), Connery’s character writes, “I, like the lion, must stay in my place, while you, like the wind, will never know yours.” Jerry Goldsmith provides one of his best scores for the Moroccan adventure. In fact, he was fairly confident that he finally had a lock on the Oscar. He experienced a harsh reality check when he went to see “Jaws.” (Goldsmith would receive his only Academy Award the following year for his music to “The Omen.”)
Luchino Visconti’s epic telling of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel, “The Leopard” (1963), is a melancholy exploration of the fading Sicilian aristocracy. A bewhiskered Burt Lancaster plays Prince Fabrizio, who feels himself slipping into obsolescence. Nino Rota gives the film a full-blooded, operatic soundtrack, full of lyricism and pathos.
Finally, Lyn Murray provides the breezy accompaniment for Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief” (1955), with Cary Grant a reformed burglar, known as The Cat, who attempts to clear himself of some “copycat” crimes, while romancing Grace Kelly on the French Riviera.
Any excuse to get “The Wind and the Lion” and “The Leopard” in the same show…
I hope you’ll join me for an hour of metaphorical big cats, on “Picture Perfect” – NOW AT A NEW TIME – THIS SATURDAY EVENING AT 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
(If you miss it, enjoy it later as a webcat – er, webcast – at wwfm.org!)
