Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Movie Music

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
Remembering Jerry Goldsmith: A Film Music Legend

Oh, Jerry, I can’t tell you how much I miss you. What a joy it was to go to the movies when you were still alive. Of course, the movies got precipitously worse in your last decade, but you lent a degree of enjoyment even to the transparently crappy ones – even if it was combined with a lingering wistfulness for the glory days of the 1970s.

I will always cherish your music for “The Flim Flam Man,” “Patton,” “Chinatown,” “Papillon,” “The Great Train Robbery,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” and especially “The Wind and the Lion.”

You often wound up playing second banana to John Williams (Williams got “Superman;” you got “Supergirl”), and a great many of the films you scored were unworthy of your talents, but you were always a professional (if at times a bit grouchy). I can recall many a moviegoing experience when your music wound up being the only redeeming quality.

But that’s the price of being fast and good. You were often brought on, on very short notice, especially late in your career, to write replacement scores for bad movies. Still, every once in a while you were tossed a bone, as with “L.A. Confidential.”

Criminally, you were honored with but a single Academy Award, for your work on “The Omen.” It was bad luck that “The Wind and the Lion” was released the same year as “Jaws.”

How many people know you also worked in television, providing music for shows like “Gunsmoke” and “The Twilight Zone,” or that you wrote the theme music for “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “The Waltons?”

I confess I don’t share your enthusiasm for electronics, but I understand you felt it was something you needed to work through. At least you didn’t require an intervention like Maurice Jarre.

What I would give to go see a quasi-intelligent, mainstream American movie again and see the credit, “Music by Jerry Goldsmith.” Those days will never come again, on any level.

Happy birthday, Jerry. I hope they’re still making good movies where you are.

“The Wind and the Lion”

“Patton”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdEy4GneZfw

“Star Trek: The Motion Picture”

PHOTO: Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004)

February 10, 2015
Toy Movie Music Picture Perfect

Eesh. Two posts already today, and I forgot to mention “Picture Perfect!” What day is it, anyway? Holidays…

With everyone still reeling from Christmas, I thought I would present an hour of music from movies about toys, including selections from “Citizen Kane” (shhh, don’t give it away), with music by Bernard Herrmann; “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” (it’s in the basement of the Alamo!), with music by Danny Elfman; “Toccata for Toy Trains” (Charles and Ray Eames love vintage toys), with music by Elmer Bernstein; and “Toy Story” (not much of a stretch there), with music by Randy Newman.

That’s toys everywhere this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies. I hope you’ll join me tonight at 6 ET, or for the repeat, tomorrow morning at 6; or that you’ll catch it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

December 26, 2014
Sherlock Holmes Movie Music on Picture Perfect

The game’s afoot!

This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s an hour of music from movies inspired by the world’s greatest detective.

Intrada Records has released the soundtrack to Bruce Broughton’s “Young Sherlock Holmes,” which is finally making it to compact disc after the better part of three decades.

Steven Spielberg produced the 1985 film, which offers a conjectural origins story, including Holmes and Watson’s first meeting as teenagers (ignoring the particulars laid out by Arthur Conan Doyle in his stories, with Watson already a war veteran who had served in Afghanistan).

It’s all for fun, though it’s unfortunate the filmmakers felt the need to interject ‘80s-style special effects, rather than simply trust in the inherent magic of the subject matter. “Young Sherlock Holmes” features the first photorealistic, fully computer-generated character. Also, some Indiana Jones B-movie antics involving an Egyptian cult seem especially out of place.

Interestingly, the film’s screenwriter, Chris Columbus, went on to direct the first two Harry Potter films. By my recollection, “Young Sherlock Holmes,” with its boarding school setting, has some of that same feel.

The music is certainly buoyant and beautiful, in the best John Williams tradition. Broughton, who’s probably best-known for his rousing music for the western “Silverado,” was one of the great film music hopes of the 1980s. He did score a handful of big screen hits, notably “Tombstone,” though arguably it is in the medium of television that he’s made his greatest impact. Thus far, his work has been recognized with a record 10 Grammy Awards.

Also featured will be selections from Hans Zimmer’s score for the Robert Downey, Jr., “Sherlock Holmes” (2009), Miklós Rózsa’s lovely, melancholy music for “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” (1970), and Henry Mancini’s theme for the tame Holmes comedy “Without a Clue” (1988).

It’s elementary, my dear Watson. “Picture Perfect” can be heard this Friday evening at 6 ET, or later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

May 8, 2014

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS