Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Picture Perfect

Confidence Men Movie Music on KWAX

“There’s a sucker born every minute” is a phrase that’s often been associated with P.T. Barnum (who likely never said it). From our perspective in November 2024, we know there couldn’t possibly be that many gullible people. Could there?

All the same, this week on “Picture Perfect,” I stand to make a bundle with an hour of cinematic shell-games. We’ll hear musical selections from films about confidence men, charlatans, and hucksters.

In “The Magician” (1958), also known as “The Face,” Ingmar Bergman explores the idea of theatre as both confidence game and beautiful mystery. Max von Sydow stars as a traveling illusionist whose troupe of strolling entertainers, The Magnetic Healing Theatre, is put to test before being granted permission to perform at the royal court. The score, by Erik Nordgren, is sparse, made up of a dozen very short pieces for harp and two guitars, some movements for brass band, and in the main title, the addition of percussion.

George C. Scott plays Mordecai Jones, a confidence man who defrauds the populace of the American South through various means, with a specialty in rigged punchboards, in “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967). The film, shot on location in Kentucky by director Irvin Kershner, features a gallery of colorful character actors, including Jack Albertson, Slim Pickens, Strother Martin and Harry Morgan. The happy-go-lucky score, by Jerry Goldsmith, makes use of harmonica, banjo, and freewheeling honky-tonk piano.

Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can” (2002) is based on the real-life exploits of the chameleonic Frank Abagnale, who, before his 19th birthday, manages to successfully pull a series of cons worth millions of dollars. Along the way, he poses convincingly as a lawyer, a doctor, and a pilot. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Abagnale, and Tom Hanks, the bank fraud agent who develops an unusual relationship with him, as the light-hearted cat-and-mouse thriller unfolds. John Williams wrote the intimate and jazzy score, a throwback to the musical syntax of caper films of the 1960s, but also to the composer’s own jazz roots (when he still went by “Johnny Williams”).

Finally, we’ll hear music from that classic of religious hucksterism, “Elmer Gantry” (1960). Burt Lancaster plays the hard-drinking, fast-talking salesman-turned-revivalist, in one of the great movie performances. Lancaster was recognized with a much-deserved Academy Award for Best Actor. Shirley Jones, of “The Partridge Family” fame, won Best Supporting Actress for playing one of Gantry’s shady ladies. The film’s brilliant score was by none other than André Previn.

You can listen with “confidence” to “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 EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – 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/

November 8, 2024
Theremin Sounds from Classic Sci-Fi & Horror Films

We all know the sound. That crazy, trilled electronic whistle that dips into a whoop. Or it starts in a trough and shoots up into the super stratosphere. It’s the sound of UFOs and mad science. It’s the sound of the theremin.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we anticipate a hands-off Halloween with selections from four films enhanced by Leon Theremin’s visionary instrument.

“The Thing from Another World” was one of two seminal science fiction scores written in 1951. (The other was Bernard Herrmann’s “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”) On the soundtrack, the theremin acts as a musical counterpart to James Arness’ rampaging humanoid carrot. This was unquestionably composer Dimitri Tiomkin’s wildest hour; he never wrote anything like it again.

“The Thing” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still” may have been the most influential, but “Rocketship X-M” was the first. The film was rushed into production to beat George Pal’s “Destination Moon” to theaters in 1950. It was shot in just 18 days! The unlikely plot has the crew of a moon expedition blown off course to Mars. Interestingly, the composer was none other than Ferde Grofé – he of the “Grand Canyon Suite” fame.

Far more reputable, but still not wholly comfortable with its science, is Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound,” from 1945. Gregory Peck plays an amnesiac, who may or may not have committed murder, and Ingrid Bergman is the psychoanalyst who falls in love with him. The film is of greatest interest for its production design, which features dream sequences conceived by Salvador Dali, and for its score, by Miklós Rózsa.

Hitchcock disliked the music – he thought it got in the way of his direction – but Academy voters disagreed, and the score earned Rózsa the first of his three Academy Awards.

Closer to our own time, Howard Shore incorporated the theremin into his Mancini-esque music for “Ed Wood,” released in 1991. The film is Tim Burton’s love letter to the grade-Z director of “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” “Plan 9” is widely regarded as the worst movie ever made (worse even than “Rocketship X-M”).

Make contact with the theremin – its distinctive, extraterrestrial timbre, you’ll recall, conjured without physical touch – on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

FUN FACT: On three of the four movies from which scores we’ll be sampling (“Spellbound,” “Rocketship X-M,” and “The Thing”), the original thereminist was Samuel Hoffman. Hoffman played in dozens of Hollywood films in the 1940s and ‘50s. By day, he worked as a podiatrist!

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 25, 2024
John Williams’ Western Film Scores

Looking back on the cinematic western, by the mid-1970s it was definitely time to water the horses. For much of the preceding decade, most of the important statements in the genre had gone elegiac, revisionist, spaghetti, or some combination of the three.

With the release of “Star Wars” in 1977, elements of the western survived, but beyond a handful of exceptions, the western, like the swashbuckler, had moved to outer space.

Though John Williams became inextricably linked with the intergalactic spectacle, it is little known that he, in common with most of his contemporaries, scored a number of actual, old school westerns. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll listen to music from four of them.

Westerns don’t get much more primal than when revenge becomes a motivator. Mark Rydell’s “The Cowboys” (1972), one of the better of John Wayne’s later films, draws blood when Bruce Dern commits an unspeakable crime against the American West. If you’re a collector of Boston Pops records, you may be familiar with the rousing overture Williams assembled from his score.

Before he slipped into a lazy pattern of inviting his celebrity friends to goof off in front of the camera and then cashing the paycheck, Burt Reynolds made a number of effective dramatic films. In “The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing” (1973), Reynolds plays a laconic train robber haunted by a secret in his past, who finds a second chance with Sarah Miles, the wife of one of his pursuers, who rides along with his gang. Williams provided a really groovy opening number for this one.

Despite the how-could-it-possibly-miss teaming of Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson – with “Bonnie and Clyde” director Arthur Penn at the helm – “The Missouri Breaks” (1976) bombed with both critics and audiences. (If you ever wanted to see Brando in drag, then this is the film for you.) Williams took a different approach with this one, providing a more intimate, if off-kilter score, tinged with jazz and pop elements, and featuring guitar, banjo, harmonica, honky tonk piano, electric harpsichord, etc.

“The Rare Breed” (1966), on the other hand, is straight-down-the-middle, with James Stewart and Maureen O’Hara introducing Hereford cattle to the American west. Brian Keith, as Stewart’s rival, sports a red beard and a Scottish burr, for some reason. Williams, however, is wholly himself, providing an uplifting, wide-open main theme. Would that film composers still wrote like this.

Saddle up for selections from John Williams westerns this week, 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/

PHOTOS: (clockwise from left) Reynolds loves Cat Dancing; Brando in touch with his feminine side; the Duke; and an unrecognizable Brian Keith

September 20, 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
Great Artists on Screen Movie Music and Drama

How to translate visual art to the big screen? Generally, by focusing on the drama in the artists’ lives, that’s how.

And what drama!

This week on “Picture Perfect,” expand your palette with music from movies about the great artists. “The Agony and the Ecstasy” (1965), based on the novel of Irving Stone, dramatizes the friction between Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) and his benefactor, Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison), over the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. For his part, Michelangelo would have been perfectly content to stick to sculpture. Alex North’s score is an Early Music banquet, with allusions to – and sometimes outright quotations of – music of the Renaissance.

Stone had another bestseller in “Lust for Life” (1956), about the tormented Vincent van Gogh. This time Kirk Douglas plays one of his most sympathetic roles – and looks remarkably like the artist. Anthony Quinn turns up as his “frenemy,” the painter Paul Gaugin, and earns an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The great Miklós Rózsa wrote the music, softening up the edges of his brawny Hungarian sound with ethereal suggestions of the French Impressionists.

John Huston brought Pierre La Mure’s novel about Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to the big screen as “Moulin Rouge” (1952) – not to be confused with the more recent Baz Luhrmann spectacle starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, which relegated the artist to a supporting role. José Ferrer dominates the earlier version, spending most of the film walking through off-camera trenches and shuffling along on his knees. Georges Auric, one of the composers of Les Six (the loose collective that also included Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud), captures the spirit of the titular cabaret. The score became one of Auric’s best-known, thanks to the waltz, which yielded the popular hit “Where is Your Heart?”

“The Picasso Summer” (1969) is a departure from the usual formula of focusing on the artist himself. Instead, a young couple (Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux), admirers of Picasso’s work, take off on a European adventure in an attempt to track him down. Originally Picasso had agreed to appear, but he was driven off by some off-screen drama involving a matador friend and Yul Brynner’s wife! The film was based on a short story by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury hated the adaptation, as did the studio, and “The Picasso Summer,” after being heavily cut and patched with new footage, was never released theatrically in the United States. The film is striking for its extended animation sequences inspired by Picasso’s paintings, and for its score by Michel Legrand.

I hope you’ll join me for brushes with the great artists, 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 16, 2024

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