Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Movie Music

Madness & Movie Music The Piano’s Dark Side

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then surely Hanon etudes are a ticket to the madhouse.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” get keyed-up with music from movies about madness and the piano.

Whenever he hears a loud, discordant sound, unhinged pianist-composer Laird Cregar 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 was the composer. The hand is played by concert pianist Victor Aller, brother-in-law of Felix Slatkin and 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 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T,” released in 1953. “5,000 Fingers” holds the distinction of being the only feature ever written by Dr. Seuss. The film sports an outrageous production design (including a gargantuan keyboard for 500 enslaved boys) and whimsical songs.

The composer was Frederick Hollander. Born in London, Hollander attained fame in Germany as Friedrich Hollander. His best-known international success was “The Blue Angel,” starring 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.

We go crazy for the keyboard this week. Practice makes psychotic on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 18, 2024
Princeton Soundtracks Movie Music Talk

Pulling together my thoughts, slides, and sound files for the next Princeton Symphony Orchestra Soundtracks talk, “Picture Perfect: Music and the Movies.” The event will be held in the second floor Newsroom of Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon St., in Princeton, NJ, tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 7:00.

I’ll share reflections on, and my affection for, some of my favorite film scores, within the context of broader observations on the evolution of movie music from the silent era to the present. If you have anything to add about Hans Zimmer, a Q&A will follow!

It’s all free, so drop on by and take a load off. Popcorn not included!

October 7, 2024
Movie Music Talk Princeton Oct 8

The last time I tried to post about this it was taken down and I was threatened with banishment. I understand it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but seriously? In yesterday’s post, I mused over and invited speculation as to why this might have been.

Hopefully Facebook’s new hypervigilant A.I. golem is looking the other way, because I’m about to give it another shot:

If you’re in the area, consider dropping by Princeton Public Library on October 8 at 7 p.m. for my highly-subjective and occasionally even irrefutable observations on the evolution of movie music from the early days of silent film to the 21st century – with plenty of love lavished on some of my favorite, formative scores.

The event is free, so if you don’t like it, you’ll still get your money’s worth. Thanks to the Princeton Symphony Orchestra for cohosting the talk. Hope to see you there, and at one of the PSO’s future concerts!

September 24, 2024
Maurice Jarre’s Epic Scores for David Lean

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of film composer Maurice Jarre. For over 40 years, Jarre provided memorable scores for dozens of motion pictures, but he will always be most closely associated with his Academy Award-winning music for the epics of David Lean. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll take the long view and enjoy selections from two them.

One of the most celebrated filmmakers of all time, Lean had already spent two decades in the director’s chair, overseeing such treasurable films as “Blithe Spirit,” “Brief Encounter,” “Great Expectations,” “Oliver Twist,” “Hobson’s Choice,” and “Summertime,” when he turned his attention to the form for which he would ultimately be best remembered: the cinematic epic.

His first such attempt, “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957) went on to win seven Academy Awards, including those for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Alec Guinness), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was not Jarre, but rather Malcolm Arnold that wrote the music. Lean had worked with Arnold before on “Hobson’s Choice.”

Ironically, it is “Colonel Bogey’s March,” the tune whistled by the English prisoners of war as they enter the Japanese camp, that most people associate with the film. This is actually a pre-existing piece by Kenneth Alford (a pseudonym for British bandmaster Frederick J. Ricketts). Composed in 1914, over the years, the march became outfitted with all manner of bawdy lyrics, which is why the number is whistled, not sung, in the film.

Lean had hoped that he and Arnold would be able to collaborate once more on “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962). Unfortunately, Arnold, who somehow managed to write so much glorious music over the course of his career, for both film and concert hall, suffered a hellish personal life. At the time of “Lawrence,” he was deep in the throes of psychological and emotional turmoil. Under the circumstances, Lean had no choice but to enlist Jarre. Jarre certainly rose to the occasion, and thereafter became the director’s composer of choice.

Lean followed up his success with “Lawrence” – decorated with seven Oscars – with yet another story rendered on an epic scale, “Doctor Zhivago” (1965). By this time, it was practically a forgone conclusion that the Academy would shower Lean with statuettes. Sure enough, “Doctor Zhivago” was honored with five more Academy Awards. Seemingly, the director had become too big to fail.

It’s hardly surprising that when he stumbled with his next project, “Ryan’s Daughter” (1970) – a film that boasted a similar running time, without perhaps a story of a scope to support it – the critics were there with their knives out. The backlash was such that it would be a good ten years before Lean would find the strength to direct again. The subject of the new film was to have been “Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian,” a retelling of the famous “Mutiny on the Bounty” story. Sadly, the project was plagued with misfortune, so that finally he was unable to hold on to the funding. The film would ultimately be made – by other hands – as “The Bounty.”

Happily, Lean bounced back with “A Passage to India” (1984). His adaptation of the novel of E.M. Forster was widely acclaimed, with 11 Academy Award nominations. It garnered two wins – one for Dame Peggy Ashcroft, for Best Supporting Actress, and the other for its composer, again Jarre. It would be Jarre’s third and final Oscar. All three resulted from his work with Lean.

Shortly before his death, the director embarked on yet another epic, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s “Nostromo.” Frustratingly, this was left incomplete at the time of his passing in 1991.

We’re lucky to have what we’ve got. Close your eyes and get the big picture on “Lean and Epic” – music by Maurice Jarre from the films of David Lean, with an interpolation by Malcolm Arnold – on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

September 13, 2024
Labor Day Movie Music Working Stiff Cinema

Heigh-ho! This week on “Picture Perfect,” we celebrate Labor Day with music from movies about the working stiff.

“The Molly Maguires” (1970), set in and around the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania, illustrates the unfair labor practices imposed on immigrant workers there, which triggered violent strikes and acts of sabotage. Sean Connery is the ringleader and Richard Harris the Pinkerton detective brought in to infiltrate the gang.

The film was directed by Martin Ritt, a number of whose projects deal with labor, corruption, and intimidation, and his own experiences living through the era of the Hollywood blacklist – among these, “Edge of the City,” “The Front,” and “Norma Rae.”

The music is by Henry Mancini, a far cry from his work on “The Pink Panther,” “Peter Gunn,” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” with a decidedly Celtic lilt.

Charlie Chaplin was a brilliant comedian, of course, but his perfectionism often resulted in uncomfortably close supervision over every aspect of his films. The young David Raksin found this out the hard way, when he accepted the job of assisting Chaplin in the writing of the score to “Modern Times” (1936).

Chaplin, a violinist and cellist himself, would whistle tunes and then stand over Raksin’s shoulder as he figured out how to make them fit the action. Alfred Newman, a much more seasoned hand, resented the micromanagement and stormed out of the film’s recording sessions. Raksin was actually fired once, after only a week and a half, but he was quickly rehired. Despite the creative friction, Chaplin and Raksin became friends, and Raksin recollected his work on “Modern Times” as some of the happiest days of his life.

The film begins with an iconic factory scene, Chaplin working an assembly line at an increasingly hectic pace, literally being put through the gears of the machinery. He suffers a breakdown, goes berserk, and throws the entire mechanized dystopia into chaos.

Speaking of dystopias, few can match the OSHA-flouting nightmare of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927). One of the landmarks of silent cinema, “Metropolis,” unfortunately, is eerily prescient of a world divided between the haves and the have-nots. Once seen, the subterranean hell of the workers’ hive is not soon to be forgotten.

Lang’s vision continues to resonate in more ways than one, with its iconography shamelessly recycled by dewy-eyed fans and film students down the generations. Similarly, Gottfried Huppertz’s influential, Straussian score led the way for the opulent symphonic canvases of Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and John Williams.

Finally, we’ll accept a helping hand – as well as claw, tail, beak, and tongue – from the benevolent woodland creatures of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). Frank Churchill and Larry Morey’s songs are justifiably immortal.

The “picks” are all “mine” for Labor Day. Whistle while you weekend, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

August 30, 2024

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