Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Bernard Herrmann

Dystopian Movie Soundtracks on the Radio

If you think the world is in rough shape now, fasten your seatbelt; it’s going to be a bumpy 1,461 days.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” gaze into the crystal ball for an hour of dystopian visions – glimpses of a bleak future rendered hopeful, in large part, through music.

“Fahrenheit 451” (1966), based on the Ray Bradbury novel, presents a society in which books are outlawed by the state and burned as a means to control the masses. The title refers to the temperature at which paper will ignite. Oskar Werner and Julie Christie star in this Francois Truffaut-directed film. Composer Bernard Herrmann finds the heart at fire’s center.

A robot is left behind to clean up a long-abandoned Planet Earth, in “WALL-E” (2008), one of Pixar’s finely-crafted entertainments. This one has a serious subtext, about rampant consumerism and its impact on an earth made uninhabitable by the sheer volume of garbage.

But there’s also a love story, as WALL-E pursues another robot into outer space, with fate-changing consequences. The inventive score is by Thomas Newman.

As dystopias go, Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” (2001) is a little more unpleasant than most. “A.I.” grew out of an incomplete project of Stanley Kubrick. Based on Brian Aldiss’s short story, “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” the film stars Haley Joel Osment as a child-like android programmed to love, only to be rejected by his adopted family. Abrasive blood sport, unpleasant visions of a debauched city, and human extinction ensue. A great time is had by all!

Also, the film doesn’t know when to end. Oh, how I hate this movie.

That said, John Williams gives it his usual best. The voice of soprano Barbara Bonney graces the admittedly gorgeous soundtrack.

One of the landmarks of silent cinema, Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) is an eerily prescient vision of a world divided between the “haves” and “have-nots.” Once seen, the subterranean hell of the workers “hive” is not soon to be forgotten. So much of the film continues to resonate, even as its iconography is shamelessly recycled.

Gottfried Huppertz’s original score already adheres to the Straussian model of Golden Age film scores, with leitmotifs representing the characters and ideas. It’s a concept that became associated with Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and which has had an enormous influence on film composers down through the decades, all the way to John Williams and beyond.

Learn more about the challenges of writing such a complex score – which was performed live, with orchestra, at showings of the movie, even as the film was still being edited right up until its premiere – when listening to tonight’s show.

In the meantime, hang on to your humanity! Join me for these cautionary tales about totalitarian government, corporate control, and technology gone awry, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 17, 2025
Madness & Movie Music The Piano’s Dark Side

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then surely Hanon etudes are a ticket to the madhouse.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” get keyed-up with music from movies about madness and the piano.

Whenever he hears a loud, discordant sound, unhinged pianist-composer Laird Cregar is compelled to commit murder, in the 1945 film “Hangover Square.” Bernard Herrmann wrote the moody, romantic score, which includes a piano concerto, played by Cregar’s character during the film’s conflagration finale.

Peter Lorre is an unstable musicologist who is haunted by the disembodied hand of a murdered pianist with a penchant for Brahms’ arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne, in “The Beast with Five Fingers,” from 1946. Max Steiner was the composer. The hand is played by concert pianist Victor Aller, brother-in-law of Felix Slatkin and Leonard Slatkin’s uncle.

Alan Alda plays a frustrated pianist who falls in with a ring of Satanists, in “The Mephisto Waltz” from 1971. This time, Jerry Goldsmith blends Franz Liszt with amplified instruments and electronics to memorably eerie effect. Five years later, Goldsmith would win his only Academy Award for his music to “The Omen.”

Finally, Hans Conried plays a dictatorial pedagogue in “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T,” released in 1953. “5,000 Fingers” holds the distinction of being the only feature ever written by Dr. Seuss. The film sports an outrageous production design (including a gargantuan keyboard for 500 enslaved boys) and whimsical songs.

The composer was Frederick Hollander. Born in London, Hollander attained fame in Germany as Friedrich Hollander. His best-known international success was “The Blue Angel,” starring Marlene Dietrich, who introduced his song, “Falling in Love Again.” With the rise of the Nazis, Hollander fled to the United States, where he worked on over 100 films.

We go crazy for the keyboard this week. Practice makes psychotic on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 18, 2024
De Palma’s Picture Perfect Soundtracks

Brian De Palma is an extraordinarily adept filmmaker, who has been criticized for his adherence to “genre trash.” He has always been attracted to suspense and crime thrillers, usually of an especially violent nature, many of them tinged with horror.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” with Hallowe’en right around the corner, we’ll hear music from four of De Palma’s films.

It’s hardly surprising that such an admirer of Alfred Hitchcock would also hire Hitch’s signature composer. Bernard Herrmann scored two films for De Palma – “Sisters,” in 1973, and “Obsession,” in 1976.

“Obsession” is a spin on Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” A botched rescue attempt results in the death of a businessman’s kidnapped wife. Years later, he encounters someone who could be her doppelganger. The film stars Genevieve Bujold, John Lithgow, and a very tan Cliff Robertson.

“The Fury,” from 1978, is a supernatural thriller based on a novel by John Farris. Two teenagers, endowed with powers of telekinesis and extra-sensory perception, are targeted by researchers who plan to harness them for their own nefarious ends. For a time, Kirk Douglas has fun as a former CIA agent, and John Cassavetes is a particularly slimy villain. Cassavetes’ comeuppance makes for one of the most memorable movie endings of its era – and we’ll leave it at that!

Critic Pauline Kael praised the music, which is by none other than John Williams – hot off his third Academy Award, for “Star Wars” – characterizing it as “as elegant and delicately varied a score as any horror film has ever had.”

Of course, “The Fury” was not the first De Palma film to deal with telekinesis. His adaptation of Stephen King’s “Carrie,” from 1976, became one the decade’s landmark horror films. It broadened King’s popularity and propelled De Palma into the A-list of Hollywood directors. It also essentially launched the careers of Amy Irving, John Travolta, and Nancy Allen, among others. Sissy Spacek was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the title role, as was Piper Laurie as Carrie’s overbearing, fundamentalist mother.

The music was by Pino Donaggio. The director had wanted to continue his collaboration with Herrmann, but the composer died before the film could be completed. Donaggio, though classically trained, made his fortune writing popular songs. His biggest hit was “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” which was recorded by Dusty Springfield and treated to a well-known cover by Elvis Presley. Donnagio went on to become a regular De Palma collaborator, providing the music for seven of his films.

Finally, we’ll turn our back on horror, to listen to music from a successful period crime thriller, loosely based on the real-life exploits of Eliot Ness and his fellow prohibition agents – “The Untouchables,” from 1987. Kevin Costner plays the by-the-book federal agent who is given a valuable lesson in street smarts by an Irish beat cop played by an Academy Award winning Sean Connery. (“He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way, and that’s how you get Capone.”) Capone is played, incidentally, by a baseball bat wielding Robert De Niro.

The score is by Ennio Morricone. Morricone, of course, was propelled to fame through his work on Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. He applies some of that same mythmaking skill to this big screen adaptation, which had previously been published as a memoir and developed into a popular television series starring Robert Stack. The high point of the film must be the director’s nail-biting homage to Sergei Eisenstein, a slow motion shoot-out around a baby carriage as it teeters down the stairs of Chicago Union Station.

Start your weekend with a step in the right direction, with music from the films of Brian De Palma, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 4, 2024
City Mouse Country Mouse Movie Music

There are, of course, a great many movies about “city mice” and “country mice” – those from the city displaced to a rural setting, and those from the country dazzled by the city. These often take the form of fish-out-of-water comedies. But a trip the country can also be restorative, or even have redemptive qualities. Though in the end, more often than not, the central characters return to their place of origin.

“Witness” (1985) employs elements of both “city mouse” and “country mouse.” The plot is set in motion with the witness of a murder by an Amish boy at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. The investigation reveals a vein of corruption in the Philadelphia Police Department, forcing a wounded detective, John Book (played by Harrison Ford), to lay low among the Amish. There are certainly comic elements, but also fascinating dramatic possibilities, in throwing together these figures from two very different cultures.

The music was by Maurice Jarre. Jarre is best known for his scores rendered on large orchestral canvases, for films like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Dr. Zhivago.” But by the 1980s, he was experimenting with electronic music in films like “The Year of Living Dangerously,” “The Mosquito Coast,” and “Dead Poets Society.” The approach worked particularly well in “Witness.”

Another police thriller, “On Dangerous Ground” (1952), throws together a detective with definite anger management issues (played Robert Ryan) with the backwoods father of a murder victim (played by Ward Bond) for a wild mountain manhunt. Ryan finds redemption through his interactions with the suspect’s blind sister, played by Ida Lupino. Bernard Herrmann wrote the music. If you find yourself trying to identify the solo string instrument, it’s actually a viola d’amore, an instrument rarely heard outside of the Baroque.

“George Washington Slept Here” (1942), based on the play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, is a “fixer-up” comedy, kind of a precursor to “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and “The Money Pit,” with perhaps a touch of “Green Acres” thrown into the mix. Jack Benny and Ann Sheridan play a Manhattan couple fed up with city living. They transport their family to a dilapidated Bucks County farmhouse, with predictably disastrous results.

The somewhat cartoonish music is by English-born composer Adolph Deutsch, one of the less remembered names of Hollywood’s Golden Age, although he scored such high-profile films as “The Maltese Falcon” and “Some Like It Hot.” His is an old-fashioned approach – at any moment you might expect to hear a “sad trombone” – but it’s wholly appropriate in a film that features abundant pratfalls.

Finally, the Billy Crystal comedy “City Slickers” (1991) is built on the premise of three middle-aged Manhattanites who find renewal and purpose at a kind of cowboy fantasy camp. Jack Palance gives an Oscar-winning performance as the intimidating trail boss. The music is by Marc Shaiman. Shaiman has also written for Broadway. He may be best known for his scores for the musicals “Hairspray” and “The Book of Mormon.”

Whether you’re on the lam or on the lamb, the fresh air will do you good, as “city mice” go to the country this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

August 9, 2024
Herrmann Patriotism on Sweetness and Light

When the plan is to get a jump on Independence Day, but it’s also Bernard Herrmann’s birthday – and you don’t have a film music show on Saturday – what’s one to do? Why, include Herrmann’s score for “Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot” on “Sweetness and Light,” of course!

“Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot” (1957) is the longest continuously-exhibited film of all time, shown at the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center for over five decades. (Screenings were interrupted during the pandemic, but have resumed, now with four shows daily.) Peppered with recognizable patriotic tunes from the Revolutionary era, the charming score includes quotations from “Yankee Doodle” and the William Billings hymn “Chester.”

The music will be the centerpiece on this morning’s program, as we anticipate the Fourth of July and light some candles on a red, white and blue birthday cake for Herrmann, who also wrote the music for “Citizen Kane,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “Psycho,” “The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,” and “Taxi Driver.”

In addition, we’ll have some selections on patriotic airs by Dudley Buck and Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a festive work for band, “Celebrating the Fourth,” by Princeton-area composer Samuel A. Livingston, “Fireworks” by Jerry Goldsmith, and an incendiary performance of a march by John Philip Sousa, in transcription for solo piano.

I’ve always had an INDEPENDENT streak (having been born on the FOURTH myself), so I’ve taken the LIBERTY to PURSUE HAPPINESS, even if it is still June. Feel FREE to join me for an hour of flag-waving and sparklers on “Sweetness and Light,” music calculated to charm and to cheer, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTOS: Herrmann fuels his genius, with stills from “Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot,” starring Jack Lord!

June 29, 2024

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