This week on “Picture Perfect,” settle in for a little armchair traveling as, musically, we follow the English abroad.
We’ll hear selections from “Enchanted April” (Richard Rodney Bennett), “A Passage to India” (Maurice Jarre), “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (Thomas Newman), and “Around the World in 80 Days” (Victor Young).
Bennett, quite the accomplished concert composer (and occasional torch song singer), supplies a sensitive score for the 1991 Merchant/Ivory adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel about four English ladies who spend an idyllic month at an Italian villa.
Jarre received his third Academy Award for his music to David Lean’s final film, a 1984 adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel of repression and racial tension in colonial India.
Newman incorporates traditional Indian elements into his score for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” the 2012 surprise hit about English pensioners reinventing themselves in retirement in Jaipur.
And Young won his only Oscar (alas, posthumously bestowed) for “Around the World in 80 Days,” the star-studded, light-as-a-feather, though admittedly charming mega-winner at the 1956 Academy Awards. It takes longer to watch the movie than it does to read Jules Verne’s novel – though it does provide a rare opportunity to see Ronald Colman in color.
No need to pack your valise for Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
PHOTO: There’s no balloon in Verne’s original, but as long as there’s champagne, who cares?
April fools! No, not the holiday (such that it is); I’m talking about the performers.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have musical selections from big screen comedies. For whatever reason, it’s seldom that we get a chance to sample from comedy scores. The emphasis is usually on drama or action. The more I think about it, it seems very few scores for comedies tend to achieve classic status – proportionately speaking, of course.
Henry Mancini never seemed to have a problem with that, thanks in no small part to his long association with director Blake Edwards. We’ll hear music from my three favorite installments in “The Pink Panther” series – the original (1963), “A Shot in the Dark” (1964), and “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” (1976). That’s right, the one in which Chief Inspector Dreyfus goes stark raving mad and determines to destroy the world with a doomsday ray, as the franchise hilariously jumps the shark.
Imagine how difficult it must be to write music for comedy, without it coming across as sounding like cartoon music. Which isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) marked the feature debut of director Tim Burton. It was Burton’s first teaming with composer Danny Elfman, who would become a regular collaborator. Elfman is obviously a big fan of Nino Rota.
If you ever wanted to see Alastair Sim in drag, then I’ve got the film for you. Sim, you’ll recall, played Ebenezer Scrooge in the classic 1951 film version of “A Christmas Carol.” A few years later, he appeared in “The Belles of St. Trinian’s” (1954) in two roles – as the headmistress of a girl’s school and her criminal brother. None other than Malcolm Arnold provided the music hall-style score.
“It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” (1963) is a relic from the “more is more” school of comedy, with Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Jimmy Durante, and a tired Spencer Tracy. Ernest Gold’s approach to the music is defined by a manic waltz.
Before John Williams became a household name, with music for blockbusters like “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” he was known as Johnny Williams, when writing for television shows like “Lost and Space” and “Gilligan’s Island,” and for a string of mostly forgettable movie comedies.
“A Guide for the Married Man” (1967) starred Walter Matthau and Robert Morse. Interestingly, the film was directed by Gene Kelly, and a number of cast members from “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” have cameos. (It seems you couldn’t make a film of this kind without Terry-Thomas.) Looking back on the score is fascinating, in that there are already hints of the Williams we know in the thick of very period-specific music.
Elmer Bernstein, who wrote music for such classics as “The Ten Commandments,” “The Magnificent Seven” and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” received a second wind in the late ‘70s, when he was offered the chance to score “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” produced by Ivan Reitman and directed by John Landis. This led to opportunities to work on “The Blues Brothers” and “Ghostbusters,” among others. We’ll conclude with some of Bernstein’s music for the Reitman service comedy, “Stripes,” which teamed Bill Murray and Harold Ramis. The key to Bernstein’s big success as a comedy composer during the era is that, musically, he mostly played it straight.
We’ll be unscrewing the tops on all the salt shakers and swapping out the hard-boiled eggs, as we spring into April with a smile on our face, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org!
Fasten your seat belts – it’s going to be a bumpy night!
This week on “Picture Perfect,” for Academy Awards weekend, the focus is on Bette Davis.
A two-time Academy Award-winner, Davis was the first actor to receive ten nominations, five of them in consecutive years. She remains one of the most recognizable figures from Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Enjoy an assortment of classic scores composed for her indelible films, including “Now, Voyager” (Max Steiner), “Mr. Skeffington” (Franz Waxman), “All About Eve” (Alfred Newman), and “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).
Davis’ wins came early – she received statuettes for “Dangerous” (1935) and “Jezebel” (1938) – but she turned in solid performances for pretty much her entire career. There is little about her style which doesn’t scream “ACTING!” So it seems only an appropriate choice for this Academy Awards weekend.
It’s a grand throwback to an era when the big screen was filled by larger-than-life personalities. You can always bet on Bette, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
The craze for the romantic movie concerto likely achieved its delirious apotheosis with the “Warsaw Concerto” from the film “Dangerous Moonlight,” a 1941 potboiler about a fictional pianist who escapes Nazi-occupied Poland, enlists in the RAF and, while suffering from amnesia, attains glory as a fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain.
Richard Addinsell’s showstopper (arranged by Roy Douglas and performed on the soundtrack by Louis Kentner) is said to have yielded over 100 recordings. It certainly spawned numerous imitators.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll hear five other movie concertos, including three for piano, one for cello, and a virtuosic showpiece for violin and orchestra.
Tune in for the “Cornish Rhapsody” from “Love Story” (1944) by Hubert Bath; “Symphonie Moderne” from “Four Wives” (1939) by Max Steiner; and the “Concerto Macabre” from “Hangover Square” (1945) by Bernard Herrmann; also the Cello Concerto in C from “Deception” (1946) by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and the “Carmen Fantasy” for violin and orchestra from “Humoresque” (1946) by Franz Waxman.
Enjoy these concerted efforts for the silver screen, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Bait-and-switch trailer for “Deception”
Laird Cregar burning down the house in “Hangover Square”
Three-time Academy Award winner Miklós Rózsa left his stamp on dozens of classic films, including “The Thief of Bagdad” (1940), “The Jungle Book” (1942), “Double Indemnity” (1944), “The Lost Weekend” (1945), “Spellbound” (1945), “Quo Vadis?” (1951), “Lust for Life” (1956), “Ben-Hur” (1959), “King of Kings” (1961), and “El Cid” (1961).
Less well-known is his later work. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll sample selections from five of the composer’s last seven projects, including “Providence” (1977), “Fedora” (1978), “Last Embrace” (1979), “Eye of the Needle” (1981), and “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” (1982).
Born in Budapest in 1907, Rózsa studied in Leipzig. He cut his teeth in Paris, where one his friends and associates was Arthur Honegger. Following a concert that had featured works by both composers, Rózsa asked Honegger how it was that he was able to make ends meet. Honegger confided that he supplemented his income by writing for film. Rózsa went to see “Les Misérables,” which Honegger had scored, and became enthralled by the possibilities.
It was following his move to London that he became associated with the Korda brothers and had his first opportunity to write for motion pictures. Rózsa immediately demonstrated what he could do in films like “Knight Without Armor” (1937) and “The Four Feathers” (1939). It was his involvement in the Kordas’ “The Thief of Bagdad” that brought him to Hollywood, since the project had to be moved mid-production as a result of the war. From there, the composer went on to work with many of the great directors, including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and William Wyler.
In a career that encompassed nearly 100 scores, Rózsa was recognized with Academy Awards for his contributions to Hitchcock’s “Spellbound,” the George Cukor thriller “A Double Life” (1947, starring Ronald Colman as an unhinged Shakespearean actor), and of course “Ben-Hur” – all the while keeping one foot in the world of concert music. He wrote important works for Jascha Heiftez, Gregor Piatigorsky, János Starker, Leonard Pennario and Pinchas Zukerman. His “Theme, Variations and Finale” featured in Leonard Bernstein’s legendary debut with the New York Philharmonic.
Rózsa was a towering figure of Hollywood’s golden age, but he lived through some pretty lean times, as emphasis in the industry began to shift away from a classic orchestral sound to what was perceived as a more lucrative, youth-oriented approach, reliant on popular trends. Fortunately, with the extraordinary success of John Williams, in films like “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” old school composers like Rózsa were given a new lease on life, and he was able to round out his career with a series of beautiful, wholly characteristic scores.
I hope you’ll join me in examining “Late-Career Rózsa,” on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Rózsa talks film music (and Bernard Herrmann) with André Previn and John Williams
From the same broadcast (“Previn and the Pittsburgh: The Music That Made the Movies,” PBS, 1978), Rózsa conducts “Ben-Hur”
PHOTO: Rózsa (right), with whippersnappers Williams and Previn
