Every year for Halloween, there’s a short list of films I very much look forward to revisiting. I’m not kidding! On Halloween day, I’m all about the movies. Some of these are irrefutable classics; others unadulterated trash. This week on “Picture Perfect,” I’ve selected music from four of them, all of which receive my hearty endorsement.
In “The Thing from Another World” (1951), James Arness plays an unstoppable humanoid carrot from space, who infiltrates an arctic scientific outpost. What probably should have been a B-movie distinguishes itself by building genuine suspense and verisimilitude through its claustrophobic setting, realistic post-World War II military equipment, and revolutionary use of overlapping dialogue. Howard Hawks had his hand in every aspect of production. This is one surprisingly contemporary film! It also features one off Dimitri Tiomkin’s most striking scores.
Of quite a different character is Frank Capra’s “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1941). Adapted from of a stage play by Joseph Kesselring, the studio was contractually bound to postpone the film’s release until the play concluded its Broadway run. A smash hit, it ran until 1944!
The film sports quiet a cast: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Jack Carson, and Capra favorites James Gleason and Edward Everett Horton.
Two seemingly innocuous spinster aunts poison lonely old men and have them buried in their basement, by a family member who believes he’s Teddy Roosevelt and that he’s digging the Panama Canal. Massey and Lorre play a murderer-on-the-lam and his plastic surgeon, respectively, who hold up in the house, unaware that Massey’s body count pales next to that of his unwitting hosts.
Upon its release, the New York Times described “Arsenic and Old Lace” as “good, macabre fun.”
The score by Max Steiner is as manic as Grant’s performance – perhaps a mite overdone, with its breakneck allusions to familiar melodies – but it bears the same distinctive gloss as other Steiner classics such as “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.”
My Halloween “dark horse” of the hour is also my favorite Christopher Lee film, “The Devil Rides Out” (1968).
Lee gets to play the hero for a change, aristocrat and occultist Nicholas, Duc de Richlieu, who alone possesses the arcane knowledge to do battle against a Satanic cult, overseen by Mocata, played by Charles Gray, with an appearance by “the Goat of Mendes – the devil himself!” Trust me, it’s a good one!
Hammer Films’ house composer James Bernard wrote the music.
Finally, we’ll hear selections from arguably the best of the classic Frankenstein movies, “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935), one of the greatest sequels ever made. “Bride” manages to deepen and expand elements of the original, with a terrific cast (Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Ernest Thesiger, and of course Elsa Lanchester), plenty of atmosphere, a wry sense of humor, abundant pathos, and one of the finest film scores of the era.
The music is by Franz Waxman, his first Hollywood effort. Waxman had previously made his name in the German film industry.
I’ve always loved those old Universal Pictures monster movies, ever since I was a kid.
Bring your own candy corn. I’ll provide the music, with an hour of Halloween favorites, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication at KWAX Classical Oregon!
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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 – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT (***now with a repeat Sunday at 9:00 PM EDT/6:00 PM PDT***)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at kwax.com!