Hey, I’m the music guy, right?
In preparing to talk about “The War of the Worlds” on “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner” the other day, I was in the process of boning up on Leith Stevens, the film’s composer, when I stumbled across this clip. It’s a piano concerto written for “Night Song” (1948), a movie starring Dana Andrews that somehow had slipped beneath my radar. The music is performed in the film by Arthur Rubinstein, Eugene Ormandy, and the New York Philharmonic.
What’s that you say? The music is not about to win a Pulitzer? Well Rubinstein and Ormandy aren’t going win any Oscars either! (Actually, they’re not half bad.) Stevens eschews the Rachmaninoff-style movie concerto kitsch then very much in vogue. (I’m looking at you, “Warsaw Concerto.”) The trade-off, unfortunately, is a concerto that quickly faded into oblivion. More’s the pity. All in all, a fascinating document.
Ah, the good old days, when you could enjoy a cigarette in a stairwell, while dreaming about touching Merle Oberon’s face, on the beach, during a concert…
From Bosley Crowther’s review in the New York Times: “…The music, the prize concerto—well, that is really the thing which puts ‘Night Song’ in the spotlight as baldfaced and absolute sham. For this scrappy and meaningless jangle by Leith Stevens is good for nothing more than an excuse for filming the fiddles, the drums and the batteries of horns. And if Mr. Rubinstein and Mr. Ormandy can swallow it, along with their pride, they must have pretty strong stomachs.”
Ouch! Everyone’s a critic.
Crowther was later drummed out of the Times for doubling down on his hatred of “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1968.