April fools! No, not the holiday (such that it is); I’m talking about the performers.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have musical selections from big screen comedies. For whatever reason, it’s seldom that we get a chance to sample from comedy scores. The emphasis is usually on drama or action. The more I think about it, it seems very few scores for comedies tend to achieve classic status – proportionately speaking, of course.
Henry Mancini never seemed to have a problem with that, thanks in no small part to his long association with director Blake Edwards. We’ll hear music from my three favorite installments in “The Pink Panther” series – the original (1963), “A Shot in the Dark” (1964), and “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” (1976). That’s right, the one where Chief Inspector Dreyfus goes stark raving mad and determines to destroy the world with a doomsday ray, as the franchise hilariously jumps the shark.
Imagine how difficult it must be to write music for comedy, without it coming across as sounding like cartoon music. Which isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. With Pee-Wee Herman back on Netflix, we’ll hear some of Danny Elfman’s music for “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (1985). The film marked the feature debut of director Tim Burton. It was Burton’s first teaming with composer Danny Elfman, who would become a regular collaborator. Elfman is obviously a big fan of Nino Rota.
If you ever wanted to see Alastair Sim in drag, then I’ve got the film for you. Sim, you’ll recall, played Ebenezer Scrooge in the classic 1951 film version of “A Christmas Carol.” A few years later, he appeared in “The Belles of St. Trinian’s” (1954) in two roles – as the headmistress of a girl’s school and her criminal brother. None other than Malcolm Arnold provided the music hall-style score.
“It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” (1963) is a relic from the “more is more” school of comedy, with Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Jimmy Durante, and a tired Spencer Tracy. Ernest Gold’s approach to the music is defined by a manic waltz.
Before John Williams became a household name, with music for blockbusters like “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” he was known as Johnny Williams, when writing for television shows like “Lost and Space” and “Gilligan’s Island,” and for a string of mostly forgettable movie comedies.
“A Guide for the Married Man” (1967) starred Walter Matthau and Robert Morse. Interestingly, the film was directed by Gene Kelly, and a number of cast members from “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” have cameos. (It seems you couldn’t make a film of this kind without Terry-Thomas.) Looking back on the score is fascinating, in that there are already hints of the Williams we know in the thick of very period-specific music.
Elmer Bernstein, who wrote music for such classics as “The Ten Commandments,” “The Magnificent Seven” and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” received a second wind in the late ‘70s, when he was offered the chance to score “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” produced by Ivan Reitman and directed by John Landis. This led to opportunities to work on “The Blues Brothers” and “Ghostbusters,” among others. We’ll wrap things up with some of Bernstein’s music for the Reitman service comedy, “Stripes,” which teamed Bill Murray and Harold Ramis. The key to Bernstein’s big success as a comedy composer during the era is that, musically, he mostly played it straight.
I hope you’ll join me tonight at 6 EDT, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6, as we unscrew the tops on the salt shakers and swap out the hard-boiled eggs, on “Picture Perfect: Music for the Movies.” Or that you’ll listen to it later, from a safe distance, as a webcast, at wwfm.org.
Does your dog bite?
