Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Alfred Newman

Christmas Movie Music From Classic Books

Remember when movies used to be inspired by books, as opposed to toys and video games?

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have 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 stories of O. Henry, each adapted by a different screenwriter and directed by a separate director. The film is doubly literary in that each of its segments is introduced by none other than John Steinbeck. We’ll be listening to music from the final portion, based on the classic Christmas story, “The Gift of the Magi.”

Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” features a memorable Christmas chapter, in which the Marches help 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 five times (reportedly with another on the way). Thomas Newman – son of Alfred – wrote the Academy Award-nominated score for the 1994 version, the one with Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon.

Miklós Rózsa won his third Academy Award for “Ben-Hur” (filmed three times), in 1959. We’ll be listening to music from 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 by Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind.”

Finally, we’ll have a suite from the 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 David Newman, Alfred Newman’s OTHER musical son.

Settle in for a library of Christmas classics, this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 22, 2017
Early Music in Film Scores

March is Early Music Month. While the concept may seem quite remote from the world of film music, this week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll endeavor to tie in with 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 new bride among his serfs. 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 score, that for “The Big Country.” Here, he evokes the 11th century with an underscore that, again, takes its inspiration from 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, Timothy Dalton and Nigel Terry.

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 edge.

I hope you’ll join me for these cinematic forays into Early Music, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6 EDT, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

#EarlyMusicMonth
Early Music America

While you’re waiting, here’s the cast of SCTV in “The Man Who Would Be King of the Popes” – which employs music from “The Lion in Winter!”

PHOTOS: Peter O’Toole as dueling Henrys, in “Becket” (left) and “The Lion in Winter”

March 18, 2016
Alfred Newman Tyrone Power Film Scores on Radio

Enjoy music from Tyrone Power swashbucklers scored by Alfred Newman this week, on “Picture Perfect.” The show begins at 6 ET, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6. You can also catch it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

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

http://www.americancomposers.org/raksin_newman.htm

Newman certainly conducts the stuffing out of “Captain from Castile.” Tune in also for “The Black Swan,” “Prince of Foxes,” and “The Mark of Zorro.”

PHOTO: Catch some z’s with Ty and Al this week on “Picture Perfect”

July 24, 2015
Alfred Newman’s Tyrone Power Swashbucklers

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

“Captain from Castile” (1947) was one of Power’s most opulent vehicles. Samuel Shellabarger wrote the novel. Power plays Pedro de Vargas, who escapes persecution at the hands of the Inquisition and joins 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) costarred 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 the 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 this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

July 23, 2015
Bette Davis Film Music Rebroadcast This Weekend

PLEASE NOTE: If you are a lover of classic film music and also an early riser, tomorrow morning’s rebroadcast of “Picture Perfect” (6 ET) comes deep from within the archive. Because of the nature of tonight’s special two-hour Oscar Party, full of references to the 8:00 broadcast of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s “A Silver Screen Salute,” I’ve decided to bypass the daunting editing process and instead selected a tribute to Bette Davis from 2011.

The program will include music from “Now, Voyager” (Max Steiner), “Mr. Skeffington” (Franz Waxman), “All About Eve” (Alfred Newman) and “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).

Davis was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won twice, early, for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938), though she turned in solid performances for pretty much her entire career. There is little about her style which doesn’t scream “ACTING!” So it seems only an appropriate choice for this Academy Awards weekend.

Listen to it here: http://www.wwfm.org.

In fact, if you read this between 8 and 10 tonight, tune in to catch the Princeton Symphony Orchestra concert. It’s a lot of fun.

BTW – Tonight’s “Picture Perfect” Oscar Party will be archived on the WWFM website as a webcast. However, the PSO “Silver Screen Salute” will not.

February 21, 2015

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