Classic Ross Amico

  • “The Omen” Didn’t Scare Me

    “The Omen” Didn’t Scare Me

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    Ross Amico
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    Granted, the film’s gruesome set-pieces are all pretty unforgettable. But I’m sorry, “The Omen” (1976) just didn’t scare me. Then again, my dad took me to the drive-in to see “The Omega Man” when I was five. So I was probably fairly well inured to stuff-and-nonsense like the son of Satan being born to a jackal. Atticus Finch and family terrorized by the Devil’s Rottweilers? A little silly, don’t you think? But Charlton Heston, the last man on earth, battling legions of plague-induced zombies? That sh** can happen!

    Few would deny that the 1970s was a very strange decade. It was an era when audiences could accept supernatural Rottweilers doing the bidding of Satan, and a successful franchise spun out of “The Doberman Gang.”

    One thing I think we can all agree on is that little kids are creepy. Also, David Warner looks sinister even when he’s supposed to be one of the good guys. (I was amused to learn that Warner held on to the film’s iconic severed head for years – until it was taken by his wife when they divorced.)

    FUN FACT! Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar-winning music can be used to underscore almost any situation.

    Lawn crew pulls up at development [Cue “Ave Satani”]

    Sniff carton to discover milk has turned [Cue “Ave Satani”]

    Squirrel hangs upside down from tube feeder [Cue “Ave Satani”]

    Try it!

    Then check out our conversation about “The Omen” on last night’s Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.

    Next week, we’ll be joined by Bill Scurato, managing director of Country Gate Players. Bill is presenting a Saturday night film series this month (with a 100th anniversary screening of F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” tonight at 8:00) at Country Gate Playhouse in Belvidere, NJ.

    On the 29th & 30th the players will present a “live experience” assimilating Ed Wood’s masterpiece of incompetence, “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” We’ll learn more about it, when we discuss one of the films shown at Country Gate this month, George A. Romero’s seminal zombie classic, “Night of the Living Dead” (1968).

    So leave your brains in the comments section. Human flesh is on the menu, when we livestream on Facebook, next Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!

    https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

    PHOTO: Rubber bands had to be put around the muzzles of the “Satanic” Rottweilers in order to make them look like they were snarling

  • Miss Marple Before Angela Lansbury

    Miss Marple Before Angela Lansbury

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    Ross Amico
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    Before Angela Lansbury, there was Margaret Rutherford.

    Rutherford played Miss Marple in a series of Agatha Christie adaptations scored by Ron Goodwin. Goodwin’s music for “Murder, She Said” (1961) will be among the selections on this week’s “Picture Perfect,” an hour of wry mysteries and thrillers featuring the sound of the harpsichord.

    In the first of the Marple films, Rutherford’s amateur sleuth goes undercover as a domestic servant. Goodwin’s Miss Marple theme became a popular hit, which you may still recognize.

    Bette Davis enjoyed something of a comeback following her turn in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” opposite Joan Crawford. The film singlehandedly defined a subgenre which has been variously described as “psycho-biddy,” “hag horror,” “hagsploitation,” and “grande dame guignol.” Camp and black comedy are essential elements. “Dead Ringer” (1964) was yet another “bad twin” film, with Davis’ delicious performance underscored by André Previn.

    Sir Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine play a deadly game of cat and mouse, as a mystery writer plans to exact revenge on his wife’s lover, in a big screen adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s play, “Sleuth” (1972). John Addison, who had previously harpsichorded his way to an Academy Award with his score for “Tom Jones,” wrote the impish music.

    Finally, Barbara Harris plays a fake psychic and Bruce Dern her cab-driving, private investigator boyfriend, who become embroiled with serial kidnappers, in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, “Family Plot” (1976). The composer was none other than John Williams, poised between his breakout success, “Jaws,” and “Star Wars,” which was to make him a household name. (Both “Jaws” and “Star Wars” were Academy Award winners for Best Original Score.)

    Hitchcock was full of suggestions as to the music and how it should be conducted. The composer recollects that on one occasion, when trying to convey the tone he was looking for, Hitch remarked, “Mr. Williams, murder can be fun.”

    We’ll keep our tongues firmly in cheek as the corpses pile up. It’s an hour of arch harpsichords this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Holst Vaughan Williams Music BFFs

    Holst Vaughan Williams Music BFFs

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    Ross Amico
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    BFFs of British music: Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams in September 1921

  • Princeton Symphony Britten Elgar Weekend

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    Ross Amico
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    English music in Princeton this weekend: Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, with Elina Vähälä, and one of my desert island favorites, Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.” (No Vaughan Williams, sadly.)

    The @[100043116381457:2048:Princeton Symphony Orchestra] performs on two concerts at Richardson Auditorium, Saturday evening at 8:00 and Sunday afternoon at 4:00. Tickets and information here: https://princetonsymphony.org/

  • Vaughan Williams Late Bloom Colorful Genius

    Vaughan Williams Late Bloom Colorful Genius

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    Ross Amico
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    Here’s Ralph Vaughan Williams, looking as miserable as you would imagine, being serenaded by the tuba. The composer wrote the first ever concerto for the instrument in 1954. A late and unusual work, the piece was dedicated to Philip Catelinet, principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra. “Glorious John” Barbirolli conducted the premiere. These are the forces heard on the work’s first recording. Listen here, for a tubby start to your Friday.

    BONUS! Vaughan Williams’ “Romance for Harmonica,” composed in 1952.

    Vaughan Williams seemed often to be in search of unusual timbres in his later years. Rather ironic, since by then he was severely deaf, the result of prolonged exposure to heavy artillery during World War I. But he was a true composer, a master of his craft, who didn’t have to hear what he wrote in order to know the sound. Moreover, as a pupil of Maurice Ravel, he never lost his sense of color.

    Take for example the exotic percussion in the outer movements of his Symphony No. 8, composed in 1953-54. (The second movement is scored for brass and the third for strings alone.) It’s heard here in a superb performance from perhaps an unlikely source, given the pervasive claims that the music of this quintessentially English composer does not “travel.” Nobody told Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

    Or the insinuating saxophones and mysterious harps in the valedictory Symphony No. 9, written in 1956-57. Vaughan Williams died on the eve of the first recording session, with Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Boult’s brief eulogy appears at the beginning of this world premiere recording.

    It’s extraordinary that a composer in his 80s would remain so vital and so full of invention. (RVW was 80 back when 80 was REALLY 80!) His symphonies, in particular, are among the greatest of the 20th century. And he never repeated himself. All nine have such a distinctive character, and there’s not a weak link in the bunch. Would that more of our music directors would get to know them.

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