Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Movie Music

Giant Movie Monsters Music from Godzilla to Kong

Super size me!

We’re thinking big this week, on “Picture Perfect,” with outsized thrills from movies featuring gargantuan creatures.

We’ll begin with “Godzilla” (2014), the most recent incarnation of the pop-cultural icon, originally a metaphor for the destructive power of nuclear weapons, but now seemingly more of a jack-of-all-trades restorer of natural balance. Either way, it’s generally man’s overweening pride that brings on the destruction. The composer for this latest version was Alexandre Desplat.

Then we’ll take a storm-swept hot air balloon to “Mysterious Island” (1961). Jules Verne’s novel becomes the framework for a series of battles between a band of castaways and giant creatures at an uncharted locale in the South Pacific. The great Ray Harryhausen provided the special effects – including giant bees, birds and crabs – and Bernard Herrmann underscored the outlandish situations to perfection.

Henry Mancini gained world-fame for his breezy melodies for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and the “Pink Panther” films, but he got his start writing for B-movies of the 1950s. In “Tarantula” (1955), scientists conduct experiments on animals in order to develop a super food nutrient, as a preemptive strike against future overpopulation and world hunger. However, as the countryside becomes littered with cattle carcasses and pools of arachnid venom, clearly something has gone awry. Mancini collaborated on the score with 1950s science fiction maestro Herman Stein. Don’t go into it expecting “Moon River.”

Finally, we’ll hear selections from literally the 800-pound gorilla of giant monster movies, “King Kong” (1933). Oscar Levant memorably described “Kong” as “a symphony accompanied by a movie.” The music was certainly a great part of the film’s initial – and enduring – success.

Max Steiner’s concept and execution of the music for “Kong” was really the first of their kind. Thanks to “Kong” and other early efforts by Franz Waxman and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a prototype of the Hollywood sound was formed, and the spectacular images onscreen, especially those characteristic of the fantasy and adventure genres, were expected to be accompanied by equally lavish and outlandish orchestras.

No doubt, Hollywood would have figured it out eventually, yet it’s very gratifying to say, if it weren’t for “Kong,” there would be no “Ben-Hur,” there would be no “Star Wars,” there would be no “The Lord of the Rings.” At any rate, “Kong” got there first.

I hope you’ll join me for these outsized musical adventures this week, on “Picture Perfect,” tonight at 6 ET, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

October 16, 2015
Tyrannical Sea Captains Movie Music

This week on “Picture Perfect,” take the lash and prepare to be keelhauled. We’ll have music from movies featuring tyrannical sea captains.

Tyranny and sadism are common ingredients in nautical adventure films, where hard-bitten sea captains find it better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.

At least that’s the mantra of Wolf Larsen, who does his best to uphold the philosophy of Milton’s Satan, in Jack London’s “The Sea Wolf.” Larsen is a tough Norwegian sea captain who presides over his ship, the Ghost, through strength and brutality.

Edward G. Robinson plays Larsen in the 1941 film version. John Garfield is the working class seaman who opposes him. And Ida Lupino is the castaway with a past, with whom he falls in love in spite of himself. The score is by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who provided the music for some of the memorable seafaring adventures of Errol Flynn.

Captain Ahab is a familiar enough figure that he requires little introduction. Everyone knows about his ivory leg and his obsessive quest for the White Whale. Gregory Peck played Ahab in a 1956 film adaptation (with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury) of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” which was directed by John Huston. The score was by English composer Philip Sainton.

Humphrey Bogart was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Lieutenant Commander Phillip Francis Queeg, in the big screen adaptation of Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny,” in 1954. Queeg, in charge of a U.S. Navy destroyer-minesweeper, is pushed over the edge by his obsession for strawberries pilfered from the officers’ mess. Max Steiner’s upbeat, patriotic theme provides a nice counterpoint to the interpersonal turmoil aboard the Caine.

Finally, the most iconic of tyrannical sea captains, Captain Bligh, will be represented with “Mutiny on the Bounty.” Historical novelists Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall make hay from the 1789 insurrection aboard the HMS Bounty.

The classic film version from 1935 starred Charles Laughton as Bligh and Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian. The 1962 remake featured Trevor Howard as Bligh, with Marlon Brando envisioning Christian as a kind of high seas dandy.

It’s said that Brando essentially directed all his own scenes himself. The film was colossal failure, earning back only $13 million of its $19 million budget. Nonetheless, it managed to inspire Bronislau Kaper to compose one of his most monumental scores.

Take a bucket of salt water with your stripes, you dog! It’s tyrannical sea captains on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

August 6, 2015
Lost Worlds Movie Music Adventures

This week on “Picture Perfect,” I invite you to get lost. It’s all music from movies about lost worlds and forgotten civilizations.

While the concept of the “Lost World” dates at least as far back as Plato’s Atlantis, it wasn’t until the Victorian Era that the idea really blossomed in the public consciousness. At the time, of course, lost civilizations were genuinely being discovered – which might help explain, in part, the incredible of success of “King Solomon’s Mines.” The author, H. Rider Haggard, wrote the book on a bet that he could churn out an adventure story half as good as Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island,” which had been published two years earlier.

“King Solomon’s Mines” became the literary sensation of 1885. Its protagonist, Allen Quatermain, is a direct ancestor of Indiana Jones. The book inspired reams of sequels and at least five film adaptations.

The two best known starred Stewart Granger, in 1950, and Paul Robeson, in 1937. Robeson, who played Umbopa, a king in disguise, received top billing. The score was by Mischa Spoliansky.

Haggard achieved another “Lost World” hit with “She,” first issued in book form in 1887 – another adventure about Europeans in Africa, who meet a seemingly immortal white queen known as the all-powerful “She,” or “She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.”

“She” has been adapted to film six times. The 1965 version starred Ursula Andress, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. The music was by Hammer Studios house composer, James Bernard. It’s nice to hear Bernard, who mostly wrote horror scores for the likes of Dracula and Frankenstein, provide something a little more nuanced for a change.

Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King,” published in 1888, was clearly influenced by the writings of Haggard. In this case, two British adventurers in India strike out for a remote corner of Afghanistan to set themselves up as kings. The story was made into one of the great adventure films of the 1970s, directed by John Huston, and starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine. That Christopher Plummer appears as Kipling himself is only icing on the cake. Maurice Jarre wrote the rousing score.

Finally, James Hilton’s “Lost Horizon,” published in 1933, imagines Shangri-La, a Utopian society nestled in a sheltered valley somewhere in the mountains of Tibet. A British diplomat is one of a handful of passengers who survives a plane crash to be taken into the lamasery.

“Lost Horizon” was made into a film twice. The less said about the 1973 version, a musical with songs by Burt Bacharach, the better. Frank Capra directed the classic 1937 version, which starred Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, and outstanding character actors of the day, people like Edward Everett Horton, Thomas Mitchell, Sam Jaffe and H.B. Warner.

The score, Dimitri Tiomkin’s first major contribution, was also one of his most ambitious. Seldom was it so obvious that he had studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory under Alexander Glazunov.

I hope you’ll lose yourself in music for lost civilizations this week, 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 wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Connery (right) with the man who would be Caine

July 30, 2015
Wizard Movie Music Picture Perfect

This week on “Picture Perfect,” you’ll be spellbound (I hope), as I present an hour of musical selections from movies about wizards and sorcerers.

Gandalf and Saruman duke it out in Peter Jackson’s frenetic, yet somehow ponderous adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” films so bloated and poorly paced that anyone who had not read the books probably wondered what all the fuss was about. Its abundant defects didn’t keep the screen trilogy from making over a billion dollars and garnering 30 Academy Award nominations. Three of those were bestowed upon composer Howard Shore. We’ll be sampling from his music to “The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001).

Made for a fraction of the budget, much less self-serious, and arguably way more fun is “The Sword and the Sorcerer” (1982), which holds no pretense to be anything beyond what it is: a schlocky B-movie sword and sandal swashbuckler. However, the composer, David Whitaker, aspired for something greater. Against tremendous time pressures, he turned in a marvelous score, which sounds like Erich Wolfgang Korngold on a shoestring. If this film had been made by George Lucas, Whitaker would be world famous.

After creating one of his greatest scores for Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus,” Alex North had his music for Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” rejected – and not in a nice way. (North didn’t find out about it until the lights went down at the film’s premiere.) Fortunately, the composer was able to salvage the best material for “Dragonslayer” (1981). The plot, about a bumbling sorcerer’s apprentice who faces a seemingly impossible challenge, is serviceable at best, but the dragon may yet be the most amazing committed to film. Also, the score is terrific.

Finally, John Williams kicks off another billion dollar franchise with “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001), which in England was released (as was the book) as “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” Who ever heard of a sorcerer’s stone? I guess the publishers were afraid Americans would be put off by any association with philosophy.

I hope you’ll join me for wizards and sorcerers this week, on “Picture Perfect,” this evening at 6 ET, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Saruman vexes Gandalf with the exquisite whiteness of his beard

June 5, 2015
Movie Music with Women’s Names

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have music from movies with women’s names for titles.

“Rachel, Rachel” (1968) stars Joanne Woodward as a repressed, small-town schoolteacher, who learns to take control of her own life. The film marked the directorial debut of Woodward’s husband, Paul Newman. “Rachel, Rachel” was nominated for four Academy Awards, including those for Best Actress and Best Picture. Newman picked up a Golden Globe and a New York Critics Circle Award for his direction. The lovely Americana score was composed by Jerome Moross.

“Emma” (1996) was adapted from the Jane Austen novel. Gwyneth Paltrow plays the high spirited-though-somewhat-clueless matchmaker, who fails to recognize her own feelings or those of the men around her. Also among the cast are Alan Cumming, Toni Collette, Ewan McGregor and Jeremy Northam. Screenwriter and director Douglas McGrath fell in love with the book while an undergraduate at Princeton University. Rachel Portman wrote the Academy Award-winning score.

Otto Preminger’s film noir, “Laura” (1944), features quite the cast, including Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Judith Anderson and Vincent Price. The equally impressive theme, which is heard in endless permutations throughout the film, was by Philadelphia-born David Raksin. Outfitted with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, it became the second most-recorded song during the composer’s lifetime, after only Hoagie Carmichael’s “Stardust.”

Finally, “Diane” (1956) takes us back to 16th century France, with a plot concerning Diane de Poitiers (played by Lana Turner), a member of the court of Francis I, who becomes the mistress of the king’s son, Henri d’Orleon (played by a very young Roger Moore). Their illicit love unfolds against the backdrop of Medici intrigue and lust for power. Miklós Rózsa, M-G-M’s go-to-composer for its historical spectacles, wrote the music.

I hope you’ll join me for “What’s in a Name?,” tonight at 6 ET, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Dana Andrews likes his women stiff, like his bourbon

May 8, 2015

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