Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Christmas Movies

Christmas Movie Music Stocking Stuffers on KWAX

This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s a yuletide treat: I hope you’ll join me for an hour of musical stocking stuffers.

We’ll begin with selections from “Miracle on 34th Street,” from 1947. Maureen O’Hara, Natalie Wood, and Edmund Gwenn star. Gwenn won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Kris Kringle. Cyril J. Mockridge’s alternately bustling and sentimental score employs “Jingle Bells” as its Santa motif.

Then, drawing from the countless adaptations of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” we’ll turn to a 1938 version, featuring Reginald Owen as Scrooge. Franz Waxman’s music draws on traditional carols and, when Scrooge undergoes his Christmas morning transformation, a sly riff on Georges Bizet’s “Jeux d’enfants.”

For those who enjoy a little carnage with their Christmas, we’ll also hear selections from “Home Alone.” The 1990 film, in which diminutive Macaulay Culkin subjects would-be burglars Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern to a battery of cartoon violence, features a candy-coated score by John Williams.

There are those who consider “Ben-Hur” to be among the greatest film scores of all-time. From Miklós Rózsa’s work on the 1959 Oscar champ, we’ll hear music from the film’s opening Nativity sequence.

Then, Cary Grant plays an angel who answers the prayers of David Niven, attempting to raise funds for a new cathedral, in “The Bishop’s Wife.” Along the way, Grant also happens to fall for Lauretta Young. Monty Woolley, Elsa Lanchester, and James Gleason add to the whimsy. This charming 1947 romantic fantasy sports a memorable score by Hugo Friedhofer.

Finally, any sentiment in “The Holly and the Ivy,” from 1952, is hard-earned. Ralph Richardson plays the clueless patriarch of a troubled family, a village parson more concerned with his parishioners than those living under his own roof. When the family reunites for Christmas, longstanding frictions continue to wear, but they are gradually resolved. Malcolm Arnold’s score gives little hint of the film’s inherent drama. However, he does provide some boisterous arrangements of some familiar carols.

Pour yourself a cup of cocoa and settle in for a cinematic Christmas. Yule be glad you did, 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/

December 20, 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
Christmas Movie Music on Picture Perfect

BACK, BY POPULAR DEMAND!

This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s a yuletide treat: I hope you’ll join me for an hour of musical stocking stuffers.

We’ll begin with selections from “Miracle on 34th Street,” from 1947. Maureen O’Hara, Natalie Wood, and Edmund Gwenn star. Gwenn won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Kris Kringle. Cyril J. Mockridge’s alternately bustling and sentimental score employs “Jingle Bells” as its Santa motif.

Then, drawing from the countless adaptations of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” we’ll turn to a 1938 version, featuring Reginald Owen as Scrooge. Franz Waxman’s music draws on traditional carols and, when Scrooge undergoes his Christmas morning transformation, a sly riff on Georges Bizet’s “Jeux d’enfants.”

For those who enjoy a little carnage with their Christmas, we’ll also hear selections from “Home Alone.” The 1990 film, in which diminutive Macaulay Culkin subjects would-be burglars Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern to a battery of cartoon violence, features a candy-coated score by John Williams.

There are those who consider “Ben-Hur” to be among the greatest film scores of all-time. From Miklós Rózsa’s work on the 1959 Oscar champ, we’ll hear music from the film’s opening Nativity sequence.

Then, Cary Grant plays an angel who answers the prayers of David Niven, attempting to raise funds for a new cathedral, in “The Bishop’s Wife.” Along the way, Grant also happens to fall for Lauretta Young. Monty Woolley, Elsa Lanchester, and James Gleason add to the whimsy. This charming 1947 romantic fantasy sports a memorable score by Hugo Friedhofer.

Finally, any sentiment in “The Holly and the Ivy,” from 1952, is hard-earned. Ralph Richardson plays the clueless patriarch of a troubled family, a village parson more concerned with his parishioners than those living under his own roof. When the family reunites for Christmas, longstanding frictions continue to wear, but they are gradually resolved. Malcolm Arnold’s score gives little hint of the film’s inherent drama. However, he does provide some boisterous arrangements of some familiar carols.

Pour yourself a cup of cocoa and settle in for a cinematic Christmas this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies. Yule be glad you did, this Saturday evening, Christmas Day, at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 25, 2021
Santa Claus vs Devil Ruining Christmas on Sci-Fi

Tomorrow night, it’s our last chance to ruin Christmas with “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.”

Viewers are still slack-jawed and aghast over last year’s discussion of “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” An 11-year-old Pia Zadora in green face paint, a supporting cast of down-on-their-luck Broadway actors, and a fly-by-night production valued at a dollar-ninety-eight (with every penny onscreen). Where do we go from there?

All downhill, of course. WAY downhill, as it happens. Following in the footsteps of the “Rocky” franchise, we’ll up the ante, even as we go to Hell: our focus this week will be on the Mexican underground classic “Santa Claus Versus the Devil” (1959).

What begins almost as an inversion of Goethe’s “Faust,” with Lucifer dispatching his goateed lieutenant, Pitch, to earth, to turn the children of the world against Santa, builds to a “Spy vs. Spy” type showdown of the kind Blake Edwards would have loved. If only Jack Lemmon had played Pitch.

In the interim, Santa laughs it up with Merlin, a hirsute blacksmith, a multinational consortium of half-pint singing helpers, and a team of wind-up reindeer that will turn to dust with the rising sun, all while keeping tabs on the naughty and nice from his gold-and-crystal toyshop in space, high above the North Pole.

This being Mexico, somehow the Baby Jesus is never far away from the surreal, slapstick shenanigans.

It’s a literal war on Christmas, as Roy and I get hot under the collar. We’ll exchange views – maybe even blows – over “Santa Claus Versus the Devil,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Leave your eerie life-sized dolls in the comments section, as we livestream on Facebook, this week at a special time, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, AT 7:30 PM EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

December 22, 2021
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians Movie Night

Peace on Earth! Pia Zadora on Mars!

Not even H.G. Wells, who projected that intellects, vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, dreamed that they would ever come for our Christmas. And like that other Welles, Orson – who started out at the top with “Citizen Kane,” only to wind up doing wine commercials – Zadora never made a better film.

It’s just not Christmas until Santa Claus is on Mars. Join us for our stunned reactions to the cult camp classic “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” (1964), on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, live-streamed on Facebook, this Sunday evening at 7:00 EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

December 20, 2020

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