Ladies, lords, and gentlepersons all…
Hearken ye to “Picture Perfect” this week for sweet airs from movies set in the Age of Chivalry.
Peradventure ye will encounter sounds and delights from “The Warlord” (Jerome Moross), “El Cid” (Miklós Rózsa), “Lionheart” (Jerry Goldsmith), and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).
Verily, chivalry is not dead, this Friday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
I don’t know about you, but I’m still reeling from the death of Robert Osborne, primary host of Turner Classic Movies: TCM since the network’s inception in 1994. Osborne died earlier this week at the age of 84. As someone who has had his television set welded to one channel for the better part of two decades, I feel as if I’ve lost a personal friend.
I hope you’ll join me on Thursday morning on WPRB, as I pay tribute to Osborne with a program of music by composers associated with the kinds of films we both loved. The morning will be made up of scores written for the silver screen and concert works by Miklós Rózsa, Franz Waxman, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, among others.
Included will be selections from some of the films Osborne acknowledged as personal favorites – films like “Laura,” “A Place in the Sun,” and “Hobson’s Choice.” There will be ample symphonies, concertos, and chamber music, as well.
We’ll roll the credits for Bob tomorrow, from 6 to 11 a.m. EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The music will all be in black and white, on Classic Ross Amico.
They don’t make ‘em like they used to. That statement could just as easily apply to the Academy Awards ceremonies as to the films they celebrate.
Certainly, they don’t write film scores like they used to, which is what makes the unabashedly retro romanticism of “La La Land” so refreshing. Best wishes to Princeton High School alumnus, director Damian Chazelle, and his Harvard roommate, composer Justin Hurwitz.
If you are immune to “La La Land” fever, you might consider tuning in tonight to “The Lost Chord” for an alternative to the Oscars, as I’ll present concert music by three composers generally associated with film.
Maurice Jarre was the recipient of three Academy Awards, for his work on the David Lean epics “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Doctor Zhivago,” and “A Passage to India.” Big orchestral gestures don’t tell the whole story, however, and late in his career, Jarre turned increasingly to electronic music and electronic-acoustic blends.
It was not an entirely new wrinkle in his development. He had met Maurice Martenot in the 1940s, and immediately recognized the potential of his invention, the ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument sounding somewhat like the theremin but offering more precision due to the addition of a keyboard. Jarre was in his mid-20s when he composed “Three Dances for Ondes Martenot and Percussion.”
Composer Thomas Newman has never won a competitive Oscar, despite his having been nominated 14 times. (He’s up for his music for “Passengers” tonight, but against “La La Land,” he doesn’t have a prayer.) He’s still one nomination short of the record-holder, poor Alex North, composer of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Spartacus,” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” who was finally recognized with an honorary Oscar in 1986. Tonight, we’ll feature North’s rarely-heard “Holiday Set,” from an old Spa Records 33 ½ LP.
Finally, Miklós Rózsa was the recipient of three Academy Awards, most notably for his music for the 1959 version of “Ben-Hur.” Rozsa’s colorful and energetic “Three Hungarian Sketches,” composed in 1938, draws on musical inflections of his homeland.
If you just can’t bear the Oscars, I hope you’ll join me for another installment of “Typecast” (we’ve visited this topic before), film composers in the concert hall, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
Now that he’s 100, he may no longer be able to knock your block off, but many of films still can.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we will honor Kirk Douglas, who was born on December 9, 1916. We’ll hear music from four of his most memorable movies.
We’ll begin with “Spartacus” (1960). Douglas plays the 1st century leader of a slave revolt. His co-stars include Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, and Tony Curtis. The music was by Alex North (born in Chester, PA, outside of Philadelphia). The love theme, one of North’s best-known melodies, lends a sense of human connection amidst the martial fanfares and gladiatorial violence.
Douglas is often credited with having broken the back of the “Hollywood blacklist” by openly acknowledging Dalton Trumbo as the screenwriter on “Spartacus.” Trumbo had been forced underground as a ghostwriter for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The film became the biggest money-maker in the history of Universal Studios, up to that time.
Vincente Minnelli’s cynical exposé of behind-the-scenes Hollywood, “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952), stars Douglas as a ruthless mogul, who uses and abuses everyone around him. It’s one of his great “bad boy” characterizations. The film, which also featured Lana Turner, Walter Pigeon, Dick Powell, and Gloria Graham, won a whole slew of Oscars. Graham was recognized as Best Supporting Actress.
The music is by Philadelphia-born David Raksin, who is best-remembered for his theme to the all-time noir classic “Laura.” It doesn’t seem possible, but here he really surpasses himself. If you love the sound of Golden Age Hollywood, complete with haunting saxophone, then this one’s for you!
Minnelli directed Douglas in another one of his standout roles, a much more sympathetic portrayal of the tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh, in “Lust for Life” (1956). Douglas turns in one of the great performances of his career. Furthermore, his physical resemblance to the painter is uncanny.
Anthony Quinn won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as Van Gogh’s sometimes friend, the artist Paul Gaugin. The powerful score was by one of the all-time great film composers, Miklós Rózsa, who here marries his Hungarian-inflected signature sound to an evocative sort of French impressionism.
Finally, when Kirk isn’t fighting giant squid, he’s singing “A Whale of Tale,” as Ned Land, in Walt Disney’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (1954). The otherwise moody score is a real showcase for Paul J. Smith, who had earlier provided incidental music for Disney’s animated features “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Bambi,” and “Pinocchio.”
As actor, director, producer, and author Douglas is a whale of a talent. He himself has included these four titles among the top ten of his films.
Join me for a musical salute to Kirk Douglas, for his 100th birthday, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
PHOTOS: Douglas in “Spartacus,” “The Bad and the Beautiful,” “Lust for Life,” and “20,000 Leagues”
This week on “Picture Perfect,” as the shadows lengthen, we revisit the world of film noir, a genre notoriously slippery to define, but easy to know when you see it – with its long shadows and moral ambiguities; cock-eyed camera angles and snappy repartee; isolation and innuendo. It’s a genre where a pair of gams is an invitation to the gallows; where a man’s best friend – and sometimes his worst enemy – is his Colt .38; where only cigarettes and bourbon can ease the pain.
The labyrinthine mystery at the heart of “The Big Sleep” (1946) is so disorienting, even the book’s author, Raymond Chandler, couldn’t tell whodunit. Who cares? Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall get some more steamy dialogue to satisfy fans of “To Have and Have Not,” and there’s plenty of Bogey pounding the pavement and tossing off tart one-liners in pursuit of the truth. But my favorite scene involves Dorothy Malone, who runs the hottest bookstore in town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO9Q-81w6KQ
Whenever there are gallows to be built or gangsters to be beaten, Warner Brothers could be counted on to assign Max Steiner.
“Chinatown” (1974) is one of the best of the neo-noirs of the 1970s. This time, Jack Nicholson plays private dick J.J. Gittes, who takes on a seemingly routine case that begins to spiral out of control. When producer Robert Evans rejected Philip Lambro’s original score, Jerry Goldsmith stepped in as a last-minute replacement. The composer was hired with the understanding that he had only ten days to write and record new music. For his effort, Goldsmith received an Academy Award nomination.
The Coen Brothers clearly love noir, from their first feature, “Blood Simple,” to their Academy Award winners, “Fargo” and “No Country for Old Men,” to their absurdly entertaining reimagining of “The Big Sleep,” “The Big Lebowski.” “Miller’s Crossing” (1990) was one of the more underappreciated of these. The film follows the well-worn device of an anti-hero playing two sides off of one another, until he is the last one standing – shades of Dashiell Hammett’s “Red Harvest,” with a healthy dose of “The Glass Key” thrown in, for good measure. The Irish-inflected score is by Coen regular Carter Burwell.
Before he became stereotyped as a composer for epic films like “Ben-Hur,” “King of Kings” and “El Cid,” Miklos Rozsa was the king of noir, providing scores for genre classics such as “Double Indemnity” and “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.” We’ll hear a suite assembled from three such projects: “Brute Force” (1947), a hard-hitting prison drama, starring Burt Lancaster as a desperate inmate and a contemptible Hume Cronyn as a sadistic guard; “The Killers” (1946), also starring Lancaster as a marked boxer; and “The Naked City” (1948), with Barry Fitzgerald leading a police investigation into the murder of a young model. The suite is titled “Background to Violence.”
Put on your rumpled linen suit, draw the Venetian blinds, and play the sap for nobody this week. It’s film noir in the gritty city, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
The theatrical trailer for “Brute Force”:
PHOTO: Bogart discusses literature with Dorothy Malone
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