Commander John Koenig, Velma, Jack Sparrow, and Soylent Green’s Sol Roth discuss “Young Frankenstein,” on last night’s “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.” Thanks to Mike and Marybeth from SciFi Distilled for joining us as special guest hosts, and to everyone who turned out for the virtual costume party!
Tomorrow night: Halloween may be over, but there’s an even scarier week ahead. Get ready, as Roy and I talk about… “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951).
Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner live-streams on Facebook every Friday and Sunday at 7 pm EST. Don’t forget to change your clocks!
This week on “Picture Perfect,” for Halloween, keep your spirits up – quite literally – with selections from cinematic ghost stories.
Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey play a London music critic and his sister, respectively, who purchase a desolate house along the Cornish coast, in “The Uninvited” (1944). There, they encounter chilling spectral manifestations and a kind of possession, in which the daughter of the former inhabitants struggles against self-destructive impulses.
Milland provides so much levity at times that it seems almost as if he’s in another picture, but the moody atmosphere, eerie special effects, and expert pacing deliver. Also, the film features Cornelia Otis Skinner as the malevolent director of a sanatorium, whose character provides an interesting subtext.
It remains one of the best haunted house films ever made. Victor Young’s score yielded the popular standard, “Stella by Starlight.”
Michael Keaton is given license to run amok in fright makeup, in Tim Burton’s haunted house comedy “Beetlejuice” (1988), a film that also stars Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis. Danny Elfman’s score betrays the usual Nino Rota influence, in this case tempered by a little Stravinskyian fiddle music and some clarinet licks straight out of Raymond Scott. (Think “Powerhouse.”)
“Poltergeist” (1982) is, at times, more of a rollercoaster ride than a haunted house film, in the classic sense. Still, despite an over-reliance on special effects, it manages to achieve one or two moments of classic Spielbergian awe. It was Steven Spielberg’s first project as a producer, and released only a week before his masterpiece, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.” Jerry Goldsmith wrote the music, and I think we can all agree, there’s nothing creepier than laughing children.
Though “Poltergeist” turned out to be one of the highest-grossing films of 1982, its profits were dwarfed by those of a ghostly comedy from two years later. “Ghostbusters” (1984) was like a license to print money. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis play a trio of parapsychologists who don jumpsuits and use high-tech vacuum cleaners to rid New York City of supernatural threats. The team’s off-beat chemistry does much to contribute to the film’s genial goofiness.
Everyone remembers the pop song (“Who you gonna call?”), but few remember Elmer Bernstein’s orchestral underscore. At this stage of his career, Bernstein – who wrote music for such classics as “The Ten Commandments,” “The Magnificent Seven,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” – had become associated with comedy, thanks to the success of films like “Animal House,” “Airplane,” and “Stripes.” The score to “Ghostbusters” is notable for its use of the ondes Martenot, an electronic keyboard instrument that sounds an awful lot like the theremin, and also the Yamaha D-X7 synthesizer.
The bridge is out… you’ll have to spend the night. Steel your nerves for music from cinematic ghost stories, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org!
Trick or treat! And THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to WWFM’s fall membership campaign. It’s because of listeners like you that The Classical Network is able to bring you homegrown specialty shows like “Picture Perfect.” If you haven’t had a chance to contribute and have been meaning to do so, you can still make your donation online at wwfm.org. Thanks again, and happy Halloween!
It’s heeeere… the final day of our fall fundraiser. Make your donation to WWFM now, because tomorrow it will be a ghost town!
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’re all about hauntings and specters for Halloween. Join me, if you dare, for otherworldly music from “The Uninvited” (Victor Young), “Beetlejuice” (Danny Elfman), “Poltergeist” (Jerry Goldsmith), and “Ghostbusters” (Elmer Bernstein). We’ll keep our spirits high, this Saturday evening at 7:00 EDT.
In the meantime, who you gonna call? Us, I hope, at 1-888-232-1212, or contribute online at wwfm.org.
Thank you for your support of WWFM – The Classical Network! Without you, we wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance.
Since I am such a musical anglophile, and since Halloween happens my favorite holiday, I suppose it’s hardly surprising that my thoughts would gravitate to the influence of the occult on English music.
Most notorious, perhaps, would be the case of Philip Heseltine, who composed under the name of Peter Warlock. Heseltine was born on this date in 1894. He lived a scandalous life – carousing, trolling his enemies, riding naked on a motorcycle, and using one of D.H. Lawrence’s manuscripts as toilet paper – while pursuing his fascination with “the science known as Black Magic.” His life ended when he was only 36 years-old, his body found in his flat – the cause of death: gas poisoning. He left behind 100 songs, a number of choral works, and a handful of orchestral pieces. Whether or not his end was accidental has never been unanimously accepted.
The first time Heseltine assumed the pen name Warlock was for a 1916 article on the chamber music of Eugene Goossens. Goossens, who would later be honored with a knighthood, spent the better part of a decade in Australia, conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and directing the NSW State Conservatorium of Music.
It wasn’t all work and no play, however. During his leisure hours, Goossens entered into a passionate affair with Rosaleen Norton, soon to be known as the Witch of Kings Cross. Norton was an artist and occultist, whose paintings of demons and phalluses were decidedly out-of-step with the spirit of the time.
In 1955, a scandal involving a mentally ill woman who claimed she had participated in a Satanic Black Mass at Norton’s flat had a domino effect. Sure, Norton had her own coven, but she denied ever being a Satanist. She did however stand by her charms and hexes. Her paintings were removed from public exhibitions and photographs were confiscated from her home. Arrests on obscenity and blasphemy charges came fast and furious. The tabloids had a field day.
Unfortunately, Goossens became collateral damage. Incriminating letters, which he had asked Norton to destroy after reading, were found stashed beneath her sofa. Though he was in England when the storm broke, wholly ignorant of the antipodean moral panic, the authorities lay in wait upon his return. Among his luggage were found 800 “pornographic” photos, film, masks, and incense. As a high-profile musical figure, for all intents and purposes, the conductor’s Goossens was cooked.
Then there was the matter of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The order, which sported Aleister Crowley among its members, was a secret society devoted to occult, metaphysical, and paranormal activities. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the composer John Ireland’s relationship with Welsh writer of the supernatural Arthur Machen, who also belonged to the society. Ireland wrote several works profoundly influenced by Machen’s philosophies and dedicated his piece for piano and orchestra, “Legend,” to him.
Even Sir Edward Elgar, composer of “Land of Hope and Glory,” had his brush with the occult, by way of supernatural writer Algernon Blackwood, also a member of the Hermetic Order. Elgar provided incidental music for “The Starlight Express,” based on Blackwood’s “A Prisoner in Fairyland.” The two men struck up a friendship, and though there is no evidence to link Elgar to actual involvement with the Golden Dawn, there are those who allege there to be Rosicrucian symbols in the “Enigma Variations,” completed years earlier, in 1899.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Gustav Meyrink, Sax Rohmer, Bram Stoker, and William Butler Yeats were also members of the secret order. I imagine them all, like something out of Dennis Wheatley, gathering in their robes to offer up sacrifices to the Goat of Mendes!
To wrap up our celebration of Halloween month, Roy Bjellquist and I will be joined by our special guests, Michael Rizzo and Marybeth Ritkouski of SciFi Distilled, for an exhaustive, perhaps exhausting, discussion of the Gene Wilder-Mel Brooks classic, “Young Frankenstein” (1974). As always, your thoughts and insights are welcome! We’ll be watching for your comments.
Also, we hope you’ll stick around for our post-conversation virtual costume party.
We’ll hurl the gauntlet of science into the frightful face of death itself!
But first… walk this way.
Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner live-streams on Facebook, this Friday night at 7:00 EDT!
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