Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Jerry Goldsmith

Big Cats & Movie Music Picture Perfect

Any excuse to get “The Wind and the Lion” and “The Leopard” in the same show…

This week on “Picture Perfect,” the focus will be on metaphorical big cats.

Simone Simon’s barely repressed desires are made manifest in Val Lewton’s “Cat People” (1942). Lewton was a master of suggestion, with a majority of the horrors in his films imagined, rather than seen. Part of the approach was practical, the result of shoestring budgets imposed by RKO. Whatever the case, the insinuating weirdness undeniably produced psychological chills. In fact, it was only as a concession to the studio that a literal big cat was included at all. The music was by RKO workhorse Roy Webb.

Sean Connery plays a Berber chieftain who faces off against Teddy Roosevelt in “The Wind and the Lion” (1975). In a letter to Roosevelt (played in the film by Brian Keith), Connery’s character writes, “I, like the lion, must stay in my place, while you, like the wind, will never know yours.” Jerry Goldsmith provided one of his best scores for the Moroccan adventure. In fact, he was fairly confident he finally had a lock on the Oscar. He experienced a harsh reality check when he went to see “Jaws.” (Goldsmith would win his only Academy Award the following year for his music to “The Omen.”)

Luchino Visconti’s epic telling of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s “The Leopard” (1963) is a melancholy exploration of the fading Sicilian aristocracy. A bewhiskered Burt Lancaster plays Prince Fabrizio, who feels himself slipping into obsolescence. Nino Rota gives the film a full-blooded, operatic soundtrack, full of lyricism and pathos.

Finally, Lyn Murray provides the breezy accompaniment for Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief” (1955), with Cary Grant a reformed burglar, known as The Cat, who attempts to clear himself of some “copycat” crimes while romancing Grace Kelly on the French Riviera. It was Murray who introduced Hitchcock to Bernard Herrmann, when the director was looking for a composer for “The Trouble with Harry.” He described the meeting as love at first sight. Herrmann and Hitch would work together on seven more films.

The cat’s out of the bag this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

September 30, 2016
WWII Film Scores for Memorial Day

While you’re sitting in traffic heading into your three-day weekend, take a moment to consider that you’ve got it easy compared to what Allied soldiers went through in Europe, the Pacific and North Africa to keep the world free from tyranny.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have music from two films of the World War II era that exemplify Hollywood’s morale-boosting approach. “Sahara” (1943) pits Humphrey Bogart as a tank commander who defends a watering hole against a superior force of parched Nazis. “Objective: Burma!” (1945) drops Errol Flynn behind enemy lines to take out a Japanese radar station.

Neither film shuns the reality that war is hell (with some particularly suggestive gruesomeness in the latter), yet the filmmakers rose above the kind of nihilistic edge that underscores so many movies made today. When all was said and done, war movies in the 1940s sold America on hope and sacrifice and the promise of final victory.

The conflict cast a long shadow, and in the 1950s and ‘60s Hollywood continued to churn out WWII films at an impressive rate, selling tickets to the generation that had “been there.” “The Guns of Navarone” (1961) features Gregory Peck (exempt from service during the actual war because Martha Graham injured his back), David Niven (Lieutenant Colonel in the British Commandos at Normandy) and Anthony Quinn (born in Mexico and not naturalized until 1947) as a special unit of Allied military specialists on a mission to blow up some big Nazi guns trained over the Aegean Sea.

Efforts to get “Patton” (1970) off the ground had been in motion since 1953! The filmmakers wanted access to Patton’s diaries, but displayed horrible timing in approaching the late general’s family the day after the death of his widow. Not surprisingly, the family was completely turned off and withheld its cooperation. In the end Franklin J. Schaffner directed from a script by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North. Patton’s colleague, Omar Bradley, served as an advisor on the film. (He’s played on screen by Karl Malden.)

“Patton” likely would have been a knockout on any level (Rod Steiger turned down the lead, much to his later regret), but it is really George C. Scott that pushes it over the top. And how much more over the top can it get than that opening monologue, assembled from Patton’s speech to the Third Army, delivered in front of an enormous American flag? Only a larger-than-life actor such as Scott could have done it justice and not been dwarfed by both the subject and the iconography. Scott won a much-deserved Academy Award for his performance – which he famously refused to accept.

I hope you can join me for equally outsized music by Miklós Rózsa (“Sahara”), Franz Waxman (“Objective: Burma!”), Dimitri Tiomkin (“The Guns of Navarone”) and Jerry Goldsmith (“Patton”), as we look forward to Memorial Day with classic films set during World War II, this Friday evening at 6 EDT, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

May 27, 2016
Remembering Jerry Goldsmith Film Music Legend

Poor Jerry Goldsmith. He wrote some of the great film scores of his time, including those for “The Sand Pebbles” (1966), “The Blue Max” (1966), “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967), “Planet of the Apes” (1968), “Patton” (1970), “Papillon” (1973), “Chinatown” (1974), “The Wind and the Lion” (1975), “MacArthur” (1977), “The Boys from Brazil” (1978), “The Great Train Robbery” (1979), “Alien” (1979, butchered in the sound editing), and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979).

For television, he wrote for “Dr. Kildare,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “The Waltons.”

By the 1980s, the films began to get weaker. It seemed like Goldsmith was always getting tossed the projects John Williams passed on, or cheap knockoffs of Williams’ successes. By his final decade, he was stuck writing for such garbage as “The Mummy” (1999), “The Haunting” (1999), and “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” (2003). A notable exception was “L.A. Confidential” (1997), but rarely were his later projects up to his talent.

Goldsmith had a reputation for being able to compose at white heat, so he was frequently called upon to write replacement scores for films like “The River Wild” (1994), “Air Force One” (1997) and “The 13th Warrior” (1999). He composed and recorded the score to “Chinatown,” one of the best of the 1970s, in only ten days.

Incredibly, he was honored with only a single Academy Award, for his influential score to “The Omen” (1976). Goldsmith died in 2004, at the age of 75. If he were to come back today, he would mop the joint with all the Hans Zimmer clones of the world.

Happy birthday, Jerry Goldsmith. I sure does miss you.

#JerryGoldsmith

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.:

Planet of the Apes:

Patton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdEy4GneZfw

Chinatown:

The Wind and the Lion:

The Omen (perfect for Lent):

Star Trek: The Motion Picture:

February 10, 2016
Arthurian Movie Music Legends on Screen

“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of all England.”

— Sir Thomas Malory, “Le Morte d’Arthur” (because simply pulling a sword from a stone isn’t enough)

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we have music from movies inspired by the legends of King Arthur.

The legends provide so much grist for “Prince Valiant” (1954), based on Hal Foster’s enduring comic strip, set in the days of Arthur, though Val himself is a Viking prince of the kingdom of Scandia. Janet Leigh plays Princess Aleta, James Mason the villainous Sir Brack, Victor McLaglen Val’s Viking pal Boltar, and Sterling Hayden a preposterous Gawain. For the title role, Robert Wagner dons the signature page-boy haircut. The score, by Franz Waxman, is every bit as vivid as the film’s Technicolor, and a clear prototype for the thrilling, leitmotif-driven music of John Williams.

“The Mists of Avalon” (2001), adapted from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s novel, took the ingenious approach of retelling the Arthurian stories from the perspective of the often-marginalized female characters. The revisionist perspective breathed fresh life into the familiar tales, so that the book was greeted with critical and popular acclaim upon its release in 1983. A television miniseries, starring Julianna Margulies, Angelica Huston and Joan Allen, was produced for TNT, with music by Lee Holdridge.

“First Knight” (1995) featured the unlikely cast of Sean Connery as Arthur, Richard Gere as Lancelot, and Julia Ormond as Guinevere. The film is unique, to my knowledge, in being based on the writings of medieval French poet Chretien de Troyes, as opposed to the more frequent source, Sir Thomas Malory.

The score was by Jerry Goldsmith. It was actually a bit of a rush job for Goldsmith, who stepped up at the very last minute to replace Maurice Jarre. Jarre had been approached to write music for what was originally a three-hour cut of the film. However, he only had four weeks to do so. Goldsmith, very well-known for his ability to write at white heat, was able to complete the score, and record the music in the allotted time.

For my money, the version most faithful to the spirit – if not always the letter – of “Le Morte d’Arthur” is “Excalibur” (1981). The film sports a peerless British and Irish cast, with an uncanny number of the supporting players going on to achieve world fame.

Unfortunately the soundtrack is largely made up of pre-existing music by Wagner and Carl Orff (put to brilliant use, by the way) – with only a few atmospheric numbers composed by Trevor Jones. These, to my knowledge, have never been issued commercially. However, the same story was given the M-G-M treatment, as “Knights of the Round Table” (1953), with Robert Taylor as Lancelot, Ava Gardner as Guinevere, and Mel Ferrer as Arthur.

While the film is nowhere in the same league as “Excalibur” – it’s far too glossy and pat – it does sport some satisfying 1950s spectacle, and a fine score by Miklós Rózsa.

I hope you’ll join me, in the name of God, St. Michael and St. George, for music inspired by the legends of Arthur, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6; or enjoy it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

January 8, 2016
Real Horror Behind the Screen Movie Soundtracks

I’ve been so busy the past two days that I haven’t even been able to type up a description of this week’s “Picture Perfect,” which is slated to air in just a few minutes. Nothing too in-depth, then. Suffice it to say, I’ll be featuring music from movies inspired by real-life horror and science fiction icons.

We’ll be listening to selections from “Hitchcock” (2012), a behind-the-scenes look at the making of “Psycho,” with music by Danny Elfman; “Matinee” (1993), with John Goodman as a William Castle-type filmmaker, promoting his latest B-masterpiece against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with music by Jerry Goldsmith; “Gods and Monsters” (1998), set during the final days of James Whale, the director of “Frankenstein” and “The Invisible Man,” with music by Carter Burwell; and “Ed Wood” (1994), Tim Burton’s love-letter to the director notorious for having helmed some of the worst films ever made, including “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” with bongo- and theremin-laden music by Howard Shore.

I hope you’ll join me for an hour of behind-the-scenes horrors this week, on “Picture Perfect,” tonight at 6 ET, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

October 23, 2015

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