This week on “Picture Perfect,” for Black Friday, we flee “civilization” for the relative safety of the wilderness.
We’ll hear music from “Born Free” by John Barry, “Hatari!” by Henry Mancini, National Geographic’s “Grizzly!” by Jerome Moross, and “The Jungle Book,” by Miklós Rózsa.
I’d rather face Shere Khan than mall traffic. Join me for “The Call of the Wild,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” as we put our faith in the groundhog and brace ourselves for six more weeks of winter, we defer to the natural wisdom of the wild kingdom.
We’ll hear selections from John Barry’s music for “Born Free” (1966), based on Joy Adamson’s memoir about the raising of Elsa, an orphaned lion cub who grows to adulthood and is eventually released into the Kenyan wilderness. The music proved a double Academy Award winner for Barry, who was recognized for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.
Jerome Moross, best known for his music to “The Big Country,” had such a strong personality that his immediately recognizable sound extended even to his work on the National Geographic special, “Grizzly!” (1967), a documentary about a pair of ecologists studying North American bears. “Grizzly!” sports an energetic Americana score that is cut very much from the same cloth.
The Korda Brothers’ adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” (1942) stars the charismatic Indian actor Sabu, as Mowgli, raised by wolves, who yearns to reconnect with his human roots. (For the record, Kipling pronounced “Mowgli” so that the first syllable rhymes with “cow.”) Miklós Rózsa wrote the enchanting score.
And we can’t get through the hour without hearing Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk,” from “Hatari!” (1962). So many exclamation points in these wilderness titles! The film was directed by Howard Hawks and starred John Wayne. In case you’re wondering, “Hatari!” is Swahili for “Danger!”
No danger in treating yourself to this cinematic carnival of the animals. We’re going wild this week on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” with the box office success of the most recent incarnation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book,” I thought it might be fun to revisit music from the 1942 Korda Brothers’ version. The film starred the charismatic Sabu as Mowgli (for the record, Kipling pronounced “Mowgli” so that the first syllable rhymes with “cow”), and Miklós Rózsa wrote the enchanting score.
We’ll also hear selections from John Barry’s music for “Born Free” (1966), based on Joy Adamson’s memoir about the raising of Elsa, an orphaned lion cub who grows to adulthood and is eventually released into the Kenyan wilderness. The music proved a double Academy Award winner for Barry, who was recognized for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.
Jerome Moross, best known for his music to “The Big Country,” had such a strong personality that his immediately recognizable sound extended even to his work on the National Geographic special, “Grizzly!” (1967), a documentary about a pair of ecologists studying North American bears. “Grizzly!” sports an energetic Americana score that is cut very much from the same cloth.
And I can’t get through the hour without playing Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk,” from “Hatari!” (So many exclamation points in these wilderness titles.) The film was directed by Howard Hawks and starred John Wayne. In case you’re wondering, “Hatari!” is Swahili for “Danger!”
No danger in treating yourself to this cinematic carnival of the animals. We’re going wild this week on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6 EDT, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.
Happy New Year, everyone!
2016 is poised to be a most curious, wonderful and disorienting one, with enormous professional and personal changes ahead. I hope yours is a good one.
If you’re a late riser after the intensity of last night’s revels, or if you find you just can’t take another “bowl” game, you might find an hour’s respite in music from time travel movies, on this week’s “Picture Perfect.”
We’ll hear selections from “The Time Machine” (1960) by Russell Garcia, “Time After Time” (1979) by Miklós Rózsa, “Somewhere in Time” (1980) by John Barry, and “Back to the Future” (1985) by Alan Silvestri.
That’s a time travel toddy for New Year’s, tonight at 6 ET, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6. Or you can enjoy it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we bestow a great big red heart, heavy with lovingly refined sugar, in the form of music from beloved screen romances.
On the program will be selections from “Casablanca,” by Max Steiner, “Doctor Zhivago” by Maurice Jarre, and “Wuthering Heights,” by Alfred Newman.
John Barry, who wrote many lovely scores for lovers (aside from the music to a good many of the James Bond movies), will be represented by “Somewhere in Time,” a Christopher Reeve-Jane Seymour time travel romance that is lambasted in some circles and remembered with affection in others. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the whole thing, in its infinite 1980s showings on HBO, but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, since it was written by prolific “Twilight Zone” scribe Richard Matheson (who also wrote “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” “I am Legend,” and “Hell House”). Remember when William Shatner discovered a gremlin on the wing of his plane? Matheson wrote that. ‘Nuff said.
I hope you’ll join me for a little Friday the 13th romance, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.
PHOTO: Richard Matheson knows romance
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