Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Alfred Newman

Early Music in Film Scores: Picture Perfect

March is Early Music Month. While the concept may seem somewhat remote from the world of film music, this week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll set the Wayback Machine and enjoy four scores that employ melodies and modes of the Middle Ages.

We’ll hear selections from “Becket” (1964), by Laurence Rosenthal. In the film, based on a play by Jean Anouilh, Richard Burton plays the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Peter O’Toole, King Henry II. The music is reliant on chant, with a quotation from the familiar Gregorian melody “Dies Irae” (“Day of Wrath”), occurring fairly early in the action.

Then we’ll hear music from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939), by Alfred Newman. This time based on a novel – “Notre Dame de Paris,” by Victor Hugo – the film features Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda and Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, with Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, Edmond O’Brien, and Harry Davenport in the supporting cast. The project was one of nine scored by Newman that year, which many historians regard as Hollywood’s finest. Again, the composer evokes the era through sacred choral passages and secular dances.

“The Warlord” (1965) starring Charlton Heston, Richard Boone, and Rosemary Forsyth, is the tale a knight who falls in love with a peasant woman, and in order to keep her, claims his right of “droit du seigneur” – his prerogative to spend the first night with any bride among his serfs. Unfortunately, she falls in love with him, and all hell breaks loose.

It was an unusual project for the composer, Jerome Moross, who is best-known for the kind of breezy Americana sound employed in his best-known music, that for “The Big Country.” Here, he evokes the 11th century with an underscore that, again, finds inspiration in authentic music of the era.

Finally, we’ll turn to “The Lion in Winter” (1965), adapted from a play by James Goldman, an historical drama set at the Christmas court of Henry II – again, as in “Becket,” played by Peter O’Toole. Henry spars with his estranged wife, the temporarily paroled Eleanor of Aquitaine (played by Katherine Hepburn), in a familial power struggle, which also involves their three sons, played by Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, and Nigel Terry. Timothy Dalton appears as Philip II of France.

The film was the winner of three Academy Awards, including one for Best Original Score. The composer was John Barry. Yet again the music is steeped in that of the Middle Ages, yet given a distinctly modern twist.

Plentiful intrigue and funny haircuts are guaranteed. However, there’s nothing Middling about the music. Film composers make history, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

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

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EASTERN)

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

Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTOS: Dual O’Tooles, as Henry II in “Becket” (top) and “The Lion in Winter”

March 22, 2024
Christmas Movie Music From Classic Books

Remember when movies used to be inspired by books, as opposed to Marvel comics?

This week on “Picture Perfect,” enjoy an hour of music from movies adapted from novels and short stories on Christmas themes, or with memorable Christmas moments.

We’ll begin with Alfred Newman’s score for “O. Henry’s Full House,” a 1952 anthology based on five separate O. Henry stories, each presented by a different screenwriter and director. The film is doubly literary in that each of its segments is introduced by none other than John Steinbeck. We’ll hear music from the final portion, based on the classic Christmas tale “The Gift of the Magi.”

Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” sports a memorable Christmas chapter, in which the March family helps out a neighbor-in-need by donating their Christmas breakfast – only to be rewarded later in the day with a feast of their own. “Little Women” has been adapted to film at least six times. We’ll look back to its 1994 incarnation, starring Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon, and featuring an Academy Award-nominated score by Thomas Newman (son of Alfred).

Miklós Rózsa won his third Academy Award for his music for the 1959 version of “Ben-Hur” (now filmed three times). We’ll hear the prologue and Nativity scene. General Lew Wallace’s novel, published in 1880, became the bestselling work of American fiction for the next 50 years. Its streak was broken in 1936 following the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind.”

Finally, we’ll turn to a suite from a 1951 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” (released in the UK as “Scrooge”). I can’t even count how many times that one’s been filmed. This particular version stars the great Alastair Sim. The music was composed by Richard Addinsell – he of the “Warsaw Concerto” fame – and the performance is conducted by Alfred Newman’s OTHER musical son, David.

Take a break from the holiday hurly-burly, and cozy in for a library of Christmas classics, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, 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 EST)

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

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

December 15, 2023
Airport Movie Music on “Picture Perfect” Radio

This week on “Picture Perfect,” get ready to take flight, with music from movies about airports and airplanes.

In the original “Airport” (1970), producer Irwin Allen established the prototype for disaster movies of all stripes by placing an all-star, aging cast in spectacular peril. Burt Lancaster! Dean Martin! George Kennedy! Jean Seberg! Jacqueline Bisset! Helen Hayes! The list goes on and on, longer than the longest runway. The bongo-laden theme is by veteran film composer Alfred Newman,” from the last of his over 200 scores.

Another movie with something of the same feel is “The V.I.P.s” (1963), allegedly inspired by the real-life love-triangle of Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and Peter Finch. The story is set at London Heathrow Airport, where flights are delayed because of a dense fog. The film was written by Terrence Rattigan and the parts cast from another laundry list of stars, including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, and Orson Welles, with Margaret Rutherford in an Academy Award-winning performance. The music is by Miklós Rózsa.

By contrast, Steven Spielberg’s “The Terminal” (2004) is an (intentionally) comic take on the predicament of a hapless Eastern European who finds himself in a kind limbo, trapped in an international arrivals terminal in New York, after his country erupts into civil war, so that his passport and other documentation are no longer valid. His plight mirrors that of real-life Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian who lived for 17 years in a terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Tom Hanks plays the unfortunate traveler, who makes the terminal his home, and Catherine Zeta-Jones the airline attendant with whom he strikes up a relationship. The music is by regular Spielberg collaborator John Williams, and I think you’ll find it quite different from the Williams known for his work on “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones.”

Finally, we’ll turn to the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest” (1959), a film in which Cary Grant encounters love and danger in, on, and from a variety of planes, trains, and automobiles. Planes are particularly significant. During the course of the film, it’s revealed that the title is in reference to a Northwest Airlines flight; Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) must do all she can to avoid getting on a plane with Phillip Vandamm (James Mason); and of course, Roger Thornhill (Grant) flees from a strafing crop duster. Bernard Herrmann’s opening fandango propels us into the adventure.

Rush more to Rushmore. Departure time below, for “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, 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/

September 22, 2023
Tyrone Power Swashbucklers Alfred Newman’s Film Scores

This week on “Picture Perfect,” experience the Power of Alfred Newman – TYRONE Power, that is. It’s all music from Power swashbucklers made at 20th Century Fox, where Newman served as music director for 20 years.

“Captain from Castile” (1947) was one of Power’s most opulent vehicles. Based on the novel by Samuel Shellabarger, the film relates Pedro de Vargas’ escape from persecution at the hands of the Inquisition and his accompaniment of Hernán Cortéz in the conquest of Mexico. Also starring Jean Peters and Cesar Romero (as Cortéz), the film capitalizes on the happenstance of a real-life erupting volcano. The climactic march, known as “Conquest,” went on to become one of Newman’s greatest hits. It’s entered the marching band repertoire and has been recorded many times.

“The Black Swan” (1942) costars Maureen O’Hara and Laird Cregar (as Henry Morgan). Also, if you ever wanted to see George Sanders in a red beard, then this is the movie for you. This time the source material is a novel by Rafael Sabatini, who also created “Captain Blood,” “The Sea Hawk,” and “Scaramouche.”

Of course, it was “The Mark of Zorro” (1940) that solidified Power’s reputation as 20th Century Fox’s resident swashbuckler. In its own way, the remake manages to match the delights of Douglas Fairbanks’ 1920 original, which was one of the silent era’s most thrilling adventures.

Finally, it’s back to Shellabarger for “Prince of Foxes” (1949). This time, the setting is the Italian Renaissance. Orson Welles is Cesare Borgia, with an oddly cast Everett Sloane playing an assassin. Sloane was a veteran of Welles’ Mercury Theatre. You may remember him as Mr. Bernstein from “Citizen Kane,” or perhaps from the famous funhouse finale from “The Lady from Shanghai.”

It’s interesting that all of the films represented this week were inspired by books. (Zorro was introduced in “The Curse of Capistrano” by Johnston McCully.) It was another day, as they say.

I hope you’ll join me for music by Alfred Newman, written for the swashbucklers of Tyrone Power, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

A fun reminiscence of Newman (“the best conductor who ever picked up a baton in Hollywood”) by composer David Raksin:

https://ethoseducationonline.com/david-raksin-remembers-alfred-newman/

PHOTOS: Catch a few Z’s with Al and Ty

January 29, 2022
Flight & Aviation Film Scores Picture Perfect

This week on “Picture Perfect,” rise above your earthly concerns and keep looking up, with an hour of music about flight and aviation.

We’ll begin with selections from “The High and the Mighty” (1954). John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, and Robert Stack star in this high-altitude drama about a harrowing flight from Honolulu to San Francisco. Dimitri Tiomkin supplied the Academy Award-winning music for William Wellman’s thriller, a forerunner to the airborne disaster craze of the 1970s.

James Stewart may have been a little long-in-the-tooth for “The Spirit of St. Louis” (1957). Stewart was 22 years older than his subject, Charles Lindbergh, at the time of his historic flight across the Atlantic. But Billy Wilder’s film was a passion project for the actor, who, as a USAAF pilot during World War II, attained the rank of Brigadier General. Franz Waxman composed the ageless score.

“Airport” (1970), after the best-selling novel of Arthur Hailey, kicked-off the most enduring of all-star disaster franchises. Burt Lancaster heads the cast, and Helen Hayes won her second Oscar as a spirited stowaway. It also marked the first appearance in the series by George Kennedy, who rose through the ranks during all the subsequent “Airport” films. The score was the last by Alfred Newman, rounding off an illustrious career. Newman supplied original music for over 200 films – on TOP of his duties as music director at 20th Century Fox, a position he held for 20 years. In all, Newman earned seven Academy Awards.

Finally, we’ll turn to “The Blue Max” (1966). George Peppard, James Mason, and Ursula Andress star in this movie about a German pilot’s quest for glory, as he strives for the titular reward – a decoration for valor – during the First World War. In order to attain it, he must shoot down 20 aircraft. Obviously, in a film heavy with dogfighting, there is much aerial photography and stunt piloting. The score, a comparatively early one for Jerry Goldsmith, has always been a fan favorite.

Get a bird’s-eye view of flight and aviation, this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies. Classic film music is the wind beneath our wings, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

February 20, 2021

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