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Tag: Jerry Goldsmith

Remembering Jerry Goldsmith: A Film Music Legend

Oh, Jerry, I can’t tell you how much I miss you. What a joy it was to go to the movies when you were still alive. Of course, the movies got precipitously worse in your last decade, but you lent a degree of enjoyment even to the transparently crappy ones – even if it was combined with a lingering wistfulness for the glory days of the 1970s.

I will always cherish your music for “The Flim Flam Man,” “Patton,” “Chinatown,” “Papillon,” “The Great Train Robbery,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” and especially “The Wind and the Lion.”

You often wound up playing second banana to John Williams (Williams got “Superman;” you got “Supergirl”), and a great many of the films you scored were unworthy of your talents, but you were always a professional (if at times a bit grouchy). I can recall many a moviegoing experience when your music wound up being the only redeeming quality.

But that’s the price of being fast and good. You were often brought on, on very short notice, especially late in your career, to write replacement scores for bad movies. Still, every once in a while you were tossed a bone, as with “L.A. Confidential.”

Criminally, you were honored with but a single Academy Award, for your work on “The Omen.” It was bad luck that “The Wind and the Lion” was released the same year as “Jaws.”

How many people know you also worked in television, providing music for shows like “Gunsmoke” and “The Twilight Zone,” or that you wrote the theme music for “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “The Waltons?”

I confess I don’t share your enthusiasm for electronics, but I understand you felt it was something you needed to work through. At least you didn’t require an intervention like Maurice Jarre.

What I would give to go see a quasi-intelligent, mainstream American movie again and see the credit, “Music by Jerry Goldsmith.” Those days will never come again, on any level.

Happy birthday, Jerry. I hope they’re still making good movies where you are.

“The Wind and the Lion”

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

“Star Trek: The Motion Picture”

PHOTO: Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004)

February 10, 2015
Madness and Piano Movie Music

This week on “Picture Perfect,” practice makes psychotic, as we listen to music from movies about madness and the piano.

Laird Cregar plays an unhinged pianist-composer, who, whenever he hears a loud, discordant sound, is compelled to commit murder, in the 1945 film “Hangover Square.” Bernard Herrmann wrote the moody, romantic score, which includes a piano concerto, played by Cregar’s character during the film’s conflagration finale.

Peter Lorre is an unstable musicologist who is haunted by the disembodied hand of a murdered pianist with a penchant for Brahms’ arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne, in “The Beast with Five Fingers,” from 1946. Max Steiner wrote the music. The piano is played on the film’s soundtrack by Victor Aller, the brother-in-law of Felix Slatkin, and therefore Leonard Slatkin’s uncle.

Alan Alda plays a frustrated pianist who falls in with a ring of Satanists, in “The Mephisto Waltz” from 1971. This time, Jerry Goldsmith blends Franz Liszt with amplified instruments and electronics to memorably eerie effect. Five years later, Goldsmith would win his only Academy Award for his music to “The Omen.”

Finally, Hans Conried plays a dictatorial pedagogue in “The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T,” released in 1953, which holds the distinction of being the only feature film written by Dr. Seuss. The film features outrageous production design (including a gargantuan keyboard for 500 enslaved boys) and whimsical songs.

The composer was Frederick Hollander, born in London. Hollander came to fame in Germany as Friedrich Hollander. His best-known international success was with “The Blue Angel,” with Marlene Dietrich, who introduced his song, “Falling in Love Again. With the rise of the Nazis, Hollander fled to the United States, where he worked on over 100 films.

Join me for madness and the piano this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6 ET. In case you haven’t heard, the show will now repeat Saturday mornings at 6. (It ought to be a real treat to hear “The Mephisto Waltz” at that hour!) If you’re still not able to listen, you can catch it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

October 23, 2014
Big Cats on Film Wind Lion Leopard Cat People

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.

Join me for an hour of metaphorical big cats this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6 ET, or listen later to the webcats – er, webcast – at http://www.wwfm.org.

October 2, 2014
Hemingway on Film: Music for Stoic Manliness

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we get in touch with our masculine side, with music from movies inspired by the writings of Ernest Hemingway.

Seemingly at odds with Hemingway’s minimalist, “iceberg” style, big screen adaptations of the writer’s work show what the stories don’t tell. In the case of 1946’s “The Killers,” the screenwriters unapologetically just made stuff up, an entire back story explaining the motivations for the hit of boxer “Swede” Andreson. Fortunately those screenwriters happened to include an uncredited John Huston, who virtually codified noir with “The Maltese Falcon.”

“The Killers” provided Burt Lancaster with his break-out role. It also features a knock-out score by Miklós Rózsa, in which he uses the dum-dee-dum-dum theme later made famous by the television series “Dragnet.”

In 1977, George C. Scott reunited with his “Patton” director, Franklin J. Schaffner, for an adaptation of Hemingway’s posthumously published novel, “Islands in the Stream.” Scott gives one of his best performances as a Hemingway-like figure living on a Caribbean island. “Patton” composer Jerry Goldsmith wrote the music. Goldsmith spoke of it often as his favorite score.

Hemingway himself handpicked the leads for the 1943 adaptation of “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman falling in love against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. The music was by the prolific and versatile Victor Young.

And finally, Spencer Tracy is the whole show, as he faces off against a large marlin, in the 1958 version of “The Old Man and the Sea.” Dimitri Tiomkin’s music earned him his fourth Academy Award.

Join me for an hour of laconic grace and stoic manliness on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6. Or listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner killing it in “The Killers”

September 25, 2014
Film Scores Why Aren’t They Great Anymore

The Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira strikes back with music of John Williams:

http://www.classicfm.com/music-news/latest-news/john-williams-youtube-save-brazilian-symphony/

Granted, the story is a year old, but clearly people still respond to this music. So why are most film scores today so anonymous, slipshod or just plain lacking in craftsmanship? I understand that a tight post-production schedule can leave little time for the film composer to do his job, but surely there must be someone of a caliber of a Jerry Goldsmith out there, who could churn out a decent score before breakfast.

There are probably still a lot of people who don’t actively think about the fact that the music they hear in the movies is being played by very talented orchestral musicians. (That is, when it isn’t being sampled on a keyboard.) For them, perhaps, it’s just something that emanates from the screen. Exposure is key. Ironically, in an age when everything is a keystroke away, there seems to be less of that than ever before. It’s a useful endeavor to bring this music to the public and to play it with passion and commitment.

I wonder if the day will ever come when the very best music written for film will be held on a level with incidental music written for plays by earlier masters? It would be nice to hear something more than snappy main title music dished up on pops concerts or, what seems to be the latest trend, music performed live with the actual movies. These practices have their place, but why not program a suite from “E.T.” or “Ben-Hur” or “The Bride of Frankenstein” or “The Adventures of Robin Hood” once in a while? Let the music speak for itself.

And spare me the condescending program notes. Other folks besides Prokofiev and Walton have written great music for the screen.

The Philadelphia Orchestra will be performing musical selections from Pixar films at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts this Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. The press release promises selections from 14 films, so expect a lot of short pieces, with film clips. Still, with music by Michael Giacchino, Thomas and Randy Newman, and Patrick Doyle, why complain? They’re some of the best film composers working today, and Pixar makes some of the best movies. It seems like an ideal intro for the kids.

http://www.philorch.org/concert/philadelphia-orchestra-pixar-concert

July 23, 2014

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