This week on “Picture Perfect,” get yourself free. It’s an hour of music from movies about prison breaks.
Indomitable Steve McQueen does hard time on Devil’s Island in “Papillon” (Jerry Goldsmith); Paul Newman sticks it to The Man in “Cool Hand Luke” (Lalo Schifrin); Tim Robbins makes good use of a Rita Hayworth poster in “The Shawshank Redemption” (Thomas Newman); and an all-star cast, led by a barbed-wire hopping McQueen, flee their Nazi captors in “The Great Escape” (Elmer Bernstein).
Let’s face it, nobody looks good in orange. Grab a shank and a file. We’re bustin’ out of the joint, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
Tag: Movie Music
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Double Your Pleasure on “Picture Perfect”
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’re seeing double.
James Stewart plays Scottie Ferguson, a traumatized police detective who becomes obsessed with the woman he loves – and loses – in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (1958). Kim Novak portrays both the enigmatic beauty and her spitting image, who Ferguson, rather creepily, attempts to mold. Bernard Herrmann wrote the hypnotic score.
Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “La double vie de Véronique”/“The Double Life of Véronique” (1991) depicts parallel characters living in Poland and France who are mysteriously linked, both of them played by Irène Jacob. The performance(s) earned Jacob an award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. The music, which plays a significant role in the actual plot, is by Zbigniew Preisner.
For the second time in her career, Bette Davis gets a chance to play an evil twin in “Dead Ringer” (1964). The first was in the 1946 good twin-bad twin melodrama, “A Stolen Life.” When asked what the difference was between the two performances, Davis quipped, “About 20 years.” “Dead Ringer” was directed by her longtime friend and “Now, Voyager” co-star Paul Henreid. The music is by André Previn, whose score employs a stock-in-trade sinister harpsichord, yet when he comes to write the love theme, he manages to whip up one hell of a tribute to Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Korngold scored a number of Davis’ films in the 1940s, though he is principally remembered for his work on the swashbucklers of Errol Flynn. To capitalize on Flynn’s star-making performance in “Captain Blood,” Warner Brothers produced a big screen adaptation of Mark Twain’s Tudor switcheroo, “The Prince and the Pauper” (1937). Flynn steals the show as Miles Hendon, the devil-may-care guardian of Prince Edward and Tom Canty, Edward’s mirror image, played by real-life twins Bobby and Billy Mauch. If you’re a Korngold fan, or an enthusiast of violin concertos, you may recognize some of the music. Korngold recycled the theme for use in the last movement of his Violin Concerto, championed by Heifetz and others.
Double your pleasure with an hour of doppelgangers, twins, and dual identities, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu -
A Time Travel Toddy for the New Year on “Picture Perfect”
H. George Wells travels to the future, only to discover mankind divided into two factions and a civilization on the brink of collapse! Fortunately, we all know that could never happen…
This week on “Picture Perfect,” put aside your cares for an hour and begin the new year with an escapist program of time travel adventures.
Look forward – and back – to 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.
It’s about time, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu -
From Bernard Herrmann to Pee-wee Herman: Toys Everywhere on “Picture Perfect”
With the grand cacophony of Christmas still fresh in everyone’s ears, I thought it only appropriate this week on “Picture Perfect” to focus on music from movies about toys.
Without giving anything away, in the unlikely event you don’t already know the story’s big pay-off, “Citizen Kane” (1941) is a film flanked by toys. There’s even a snow globe in the film’s opening montage. A certain memory of Kane’s childhood provides a poignant glimpse of the larger-than-life newspaper magnate’s lost innocence. “Kane” is often cited as one of the greatest films ever made. Orson Welles triumphed in his debut as writer-director-star, even if, ultimately, his creation proved to be a bottle rocket that blew up in his face. The film also marked the Hollywood debut of composer Bernard Herrmann.
I’m not sure that “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) could be described as the “Citizen Kane” of the ‘80s, exactly, but this endearingly goofy sojourn into the surreal does revolve around the recovery of a lost toy, as Pee-wee, the eternal boy, determines to make his way to “the basement of the Alamo” in an attempt to reclaim his stolen bike. The feature was director Tim Burton’s first. It was also his first collaboration with Danny Elfman, who is obviously a big fan of Nino Rota.
The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are better known for their contributions to architecture, industrial design, and manufacturing, but they also made short films. “Toccata for Toy Trains” (1957) was inspired by the Eames’ passion for vintage toys. The score was provided by their go-to composer, Elmer Bernstein.
Finally, in acknowledgement of the greatest toy series of our day, we’ll conclude with music from “Toy Story” (1995), the first full-length computer animated feature. The quality of the film propelled it beyond mere novelty status into the realm of instant classic, and the beloved “Toy Story” franchise has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars. Early on, it was decided by the filmmakers that they did not want “Toy Story” to be a musical, but that songs could be used to underline its emotional content. Randy Newman has provided the music for all the “Toy Story” films so far. He was recognized with an Academy Award for his work on “Toy Story 3,” for the song, “We Belong Together.”
Keep popping those aspirin. It’s “Toys Everywhere” this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu -
A Cookie Platter of Christmas Television Specials on “Picture Perfect”
This week on “Picture Perfect,” slip into your jammies for an hour of music from classic Christmas television specials.
“The Snowman” (1982), based on the picture book by Raymond Briggs, is about a boy whose snowman comes to life and whisks him away on a journey to the North Pole. The show became enormously popular in the UK and through occasional showings on U.S. television. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short. Like the book, the film is wordless, using animation and music to tell its story, with the exception of an enchanting interlude, known as “Walking in the Air,” which employs a boy treble. “Walking in the Air” is easily the best-known music by Howard Blake.
The television film “The Homecoming” (1971) stars Patricia Neal and Richard Thomas in a heart-warming story about a rural family Christmas in 1933. Written by Earl Hamner, the film’s success spawned the television series “The Waltons.” Jerry Goldsmith wrote the music. He would return to work on “The Waltons” – though as of “The Homecoming,” he had yet to write the show’s indelible theme.
An adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” (1954) was the subject of a special episode of the anthology series “Shower of Stars.” Fredric March plays Ebenezer Scrooge, and Basil Rathbone is Jacob Marley’s ghost. But it is Ray Middleton, who appears as both Scrooge’s nephew and the Spirit of Christmas Present, who is given arguably the show’s most memorable tune, “A Very Merry Christmas.” The teleplay and lyrics are by Maxwell Anderson, and the music is by Bernard Herrmann!
Finally, Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer, with “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965). We’ll hear the Vince Guaraldi Trio perform selections from this most beloved of Christmas classics.
For once, the snow will have nothing to do with your reception. We’ll think inside the box on “Picture Perfect,” music from classic Christmas television specials, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
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