This week on “Picture Perfect,” for Halloween, keep your spirits up – quite literally – with selections from cinematic ghost stories.
Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey play a London music critic and his sister, respectively, who purchase a desolate house along the Cornish coast, in “The Uninvited” (1944). There, they encounter chilling spectral manifestations and a kind of possession, in which the daughter of the former inhabitants struggles against self-destructive impulses.
Milland provides so much levity at times that it seems almost as if he’s in another picture, but the moody atmosphere, eerie special effects, and expert pacing deliver. Also, the film features Cornelia Otis Skinner as the malevolent director of a sanatorium, whose character provides an interesting subtext.
It remains one of the best haunted house films ever made. Victor Young’s score yielded the popular standard, “Stella by Starlight.”
Michael Keaton is given license to run amok in fright makeup, in Tim Burton’s haunted house comedy “Beetlejuice” (1988), a film that also stars Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis. Danny Elfman’s score betrays the usual Nino Rota influence, in this case tempered by a little Stravinskyian fiddle music and some clarinet licks straight out of Raymond Scott. (Think “Powerhouse.”)
“Poltergeist” (1982) is, at times, more of a rollercoaster ride than a haunted house film, in the classic sense. Still, despite an over-reliance on special effects, it manages to achieve one or two moments of classic Spielbergian awe. It was Steven Spielberg’s first project as a producer, and released only a week before his masterpiece, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.” Jerry Goldsmith wrote the music, and I think we can all agree, there’s nothing creepier than laughing children.
Though “Poltergeist” turned out to be one of the highest-grossing films of 1982, its profits were dwarfed by those of a ghostly comedy from two years later. “Ghostbusters” (1984) was like a license to print money. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis play a trio of parapsychologists who don jumpsuits and use high-tech vacuum cleaners to rid New York City of supernatural threats. The team’s off-beat chemistry does much to contribute to the film’s genial goofiness.
Everyone remembers the pop song (“Who you gonna call?”), but few remember Elmer Bernstein’s orchestral underscore. At this stage of his career, Bernstein – who wrote music for such classics as “The Ten Commandments,” “The Magnificent Seven,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” – had become associated with comedy, thanks to the success of films like “Animal House,” “Airplane,” and “Stripes.” The score to “Ghostbusters” is notable for its use of the ondes Martenot, an electronic keyboard instrument that sounds an awful lot like the theremin, and also the Yamaha D-X7 synthesizer.
The bridge is out… you’ll have to spend the night. Steel your nerves for music from cinematic ghost stories, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org!
Trick or treat! And THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to WWFM’s fall membership campaign. It’s because of listeners like you that The Classical Network is able to bring you homegrown specialty shows like “Picture Perfect.” If you haven’t had a chance to contribute and have been meaning to do so, you can still make your donation online at wwfm.org. Thanks again, and happy Halloween!
