This week on “Picture Perfect,” we take flight with music from movies about airports and airplanes.
In the original “Airport” (1970), producer Irwin Allen established the prototype for disaster movies of all stripes by placing an all-star, aging cast in spectacular peril. Burt Lancaster! Dean Martin! George Kennedy! Jean Seberg! Jacqueline Bisset! Helen Hayes! The list goes on and on, longer than the longest runway. The bongo-laden theme is by veteran film composer Alfred Newman,” from the last of his over 200 scores.
Another movie with something of the same feel is “The V.I.P.s” (1963), allegedly inspired by the real-life love-triangle of Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and Peter Finch. The story is set at London Heathrow Airport, where flights are delayed because of a dense fog. The film was written by Terrence Rattigan and the parts cast from another laundry list of stars, including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, and Orson Welles, with Margaret Rutherford in an Academy Award-winning performance. The music is by Miklós Rózsa.
By contrast, Steven Spielberg’s “The Terminal” (2004) is an (intentionally) comic take on the predicament of a hapless Eastern European who finds himself in a kind limbo, trapped in an international arrivals terminal in New York, after his country erupts into civil war, so that his passport and other documentation are no longer valid. His plight mirrors that of real-life Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian who lived for 17 years in a terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Tom Hanks plays the unfortunate traveler, who makes the terminal his home, and Catherine Zeta-Jones the airline attendant with whom he strikes up a relationship. The music is by regular Spielberg collaborator John Williams (whose 94th birthday it is on Sunday), and I think you’ll find it quite different from the Williams known for his work on “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones.”
Finally, we’ll turn to the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest” (1959), a film in which Cary Grant encounters love and danger in, on, and from a variety of planes, trains, and automobiles. Planes are particularly significant. During the course of the film, it’s revealed that the title is in reference to a Northwest Airlines flight; Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) must do all she can to avoid getting on a plane with Phillip Vandamm (James Mason); and of course, Roger Thornhill (Grant) flees from a strafing crop duster. Bernard Herrmann’s opening fandango propels us into the adventure.
FUN FACT: The film’s most iconic scene (pictured) is actually played without music.
Rush more to Rushmore! Music propels the action on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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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 – 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
Tag: Steven Spielberg
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Music Propels the Action on “Picture Perfect”
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John Williams Scores Spielberg UFO Film!
John Williams, who again teased his retirement from film scoring following the execrable “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” has agreed to write the music for an upcoming Steven Spielberg UFO opus projected to open on June 12.
Not a lot is known about the project – not even the title – beyond the facts that regular Spielberg collaborator, David Koepp, wrote the screenplay (on an original story by Spielberg) and that the cast includes Colman Domingo, Emily Blunt, and Colin Firth. Maybe some of the other actors will be familiar to you, but I don’t recognize them, as I tend not to see a lot of newer movies.
Williams’ birthday is on February 8. He will likely be 94 years old at the time of the recording sessions. I have a ticket to hear his new piano concerto, with Emanuel Ax and the New York Philharmonic in March, so I expect the creative energy is still churning, if only he can hang on to his good health.
Spielberg’s had a history with this sort of thing (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” and “War of the Worlds,” along with a few TV series he executive produced that I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing). I don’t have high expectations for a return of the old Spielberg magic, since we are living in a post-Douglas Trumbull, Carlo Rambaldi age, but hopefully the CGI won’t be too contemptible.
A big plus is that Disney won’t be involved, which means the soundtrack might actually get wide distribution. For “Dial of Destiny,” the Mouse House pulled some kind of pre-order, limited edition bait-and-switch, meaning that millions of John Williams fans were shut out from obtaining the score on physical media and copies on the collectors’ market were priced in the hundreds. I finally managed to get a hold of a copy for $50 from Screen Archives Entertainment. Beyond “Helena’s Theme,” which is ravishing (and has no bearing whatsoever on the character in the film), the score is not top-drawer Williams.
I do wish he had said no to all these recent “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” films and poured his energies and creativity into more interesting projects. Let’s hope Spielberg’s film is not a retread and gives the composer something interesting to work with. It would also be nice if it’s not an alien invasion movie. There’s enough unpleasantness in the world right now. I know I’m hopelessly corny and old-fashioned, but I’m yearning for a little hope and uplift in my entertainment.
The film will mark Spielberg and Williams’ 30th collaboration. Their creative partnership dates all the way back to “The Sugarland Express” in 1974. Williams won three of his five Academy Awards writing for Spielberg films (“Jaws,” “E.T.,” and “Schindler’s List”). There’s no way he’ll win for this one, but it could bring him his 55th nomination. He is the most nominated person alive and the second most-nominated person in Oscar history, behind only Walt Disney (with 59).
At the very least, we can expect that the score will be “musical” and not simply a piece of electronically-manipulated sound design. That alone would be cause for celebration.
Best wishes to the Maestro on his latest screen endeavor. Whether or not it’s out of this world remains to be seen.
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/john-williams-steven-spielberg-ufo-movie-1236563896/
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Spielberg Hitchcock Herrmann Williams Radio
When Steven Spielberg was introduced to Bernard Herrmann during a scoring session for Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” he wound up going all fan-boy.
“Oh, Mr. Herrmann!” Spielberg gushed. “I’m such an admirer of your work! You’re such an amazing genius!”
Herrmann, who was notoriously prickly, looked him up and down and scowled, before replying, “So why do you always hire John Williams?”
Interestingly, not long before, Spielberg, buoyed by the box office success of “Jaws,” worked up the courage to meet Herrmann’s one-time employer, Alfred Hitchcock, on the set of Hitch’s final film, “Family Plot” (which, coincidentally, Hitchcock also hired Williams to score).
Before Spielberg could say anything, Hitch had him escorted off set, commenting to actor Bruce Dern, “Isn’t that the boy who made the fish movie?”
The very night Spielberg met Herrmann (albeit briefly), the composer wrapped-up recording his music for “Taxi Driver,” went back to his hotel and died of a heart attack, in his sleep, in the wee hours of December 24, 1975. Hitchcock would follow his erstwhile collaborator in 1980.
I establish these connections, because two of my three radio shows this weekend focus on the music of Bernard Herrmann and John Williams.
In the mid-1950s, Herrmann and Hitchcock came together for a string of commercial, critical, and artistic successes, including, most notably, “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest” and “Psycho.” But the two collaborated on no less than nine films, if we count “The Birds,” on which Herrmann acted as sound consultant.
Today, on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have selections from the other five – among them, “Marnie,” “The Trouble with Harry” and “The Wrong Man.”
Herrmann’s reworking of Arthur Benjamin’s “The Storm Clouds Cantata” was used at the climax of the 1956 version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” as a frantic James Stewart attempts to thwart an assassination plot at Royal Alert Hall. (In the film, Herrmann himself appears on the podium.)
We’ll also hear a portion of the rejected score for “Torn Curtain,” the project that ended the Herrmann-Hitchcock association. Hitchcock fired Herrmann, when the composer ignored his instructions to write something light and popular, under studio pressure. John Addison was hired as his replacement, and the film was a failure at the box office.
In recent years, Herrmann admirers have had several opportunities to sample the composer’s original thoughts. Quentin Tarantino is obviously a fan. He used some of Herrmann’s “Torn Curtain” music in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
I hope you’ll join me for lesser-heard Herrmann-Hitchcock, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies.
But wait – there’s more!
Tomorrow is John Williams’ 93rd birthday. To celebrate, I’ve assembled a miscellany of the composer’s music for film, television, and the Olympic Games for “Sweetness and Light.” Among the offerings will be selections from several scores written for Spielberg and one (“Family Plot”) written for Hitch.
Hitch yourself to Herrmann, this Friday at 8:00 EST/5:00 PST; then send well-wishes to Williams, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, on “Picture Perfect” and “Sweetness and Light,” respectively – exclusively 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!
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Close Encounters Returns Spielberg’s Sci-Fi Classic
“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” will return to theaters for showings on July 7 & 10, as part of a broader, ongoing celebration of Columbia Pictures for the studio’s 100th anniversary. (It’s a Fathom Event; google the complete schedule.)
Watching “Close Encounters” for the first time as an 11 year-old was a watershed moment in my movie-going experience. If you’ve only ever seen it at home, you haven’t really seen it. This is a film that definitely deserves to be experienced in a theater. Say what you will about Richard Dreyfuss’ sideburns, for me this will always be one of Steven Spielberg’s best films, with a transcendent score by John Williams. I would go so far as to say, “Close Encounters” is the most musical non-“musical” blockbuster ever made. I write much more about it here:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1608836975950253&set=a.279006378933326
Do yourself a favor, and check your local listings.
Alas, the “friendly extraterrestrial” movie seems to have been out of fashion now for quite some time. We seem to be mired in some neo-‘50s zeitgeist, as far as paranoia and invasion are concerned. But that certainly wasn’t the case back in 1982, when Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” almost singlehandedly turned everything on its head.
No more invaders from Mars. Spielberg would get to that a couple of decades later, when he remade H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds.” No, during the Reagan Era, with the Cold War winding down and terrorism not yet so much in the news, cinematic E.T.’s were benevolent at best, or at worst, just trying to do their thing. They were there to be misunderstood and even imperiled by man until a warm, fuzzy, often poignant finale.
Spielberg had already explored the concept of the benevolent visitor from space, of course, with 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” But there was an ambiguity for much of the film as to what exactly the aliens’ intentions were. In fact, there is at least one sequence that would have given a child nightmares. Whatever tension is generated dissolves in the euphoric finale, centered on the communicative power of music. Like so many films back then and so few now, “Close Encounters” doesn’t so much exhaust the viewer as leave him or her with feelings of uplift and hope.
John Williams wrote the music for both “Close Encounters” and “E.T.,” and the two scores couldn’t be more different. For “CE3K,” the avant-garde syntax of the early, eerier sequences dissolves into unabashed romanticism for the transcendent finale. “E.T” takes a much more intimate approach. The moving story of a friendship between a boy and a stranded botanist for another world is rendered in music that is by turns tender, buoyant, and touching. The score earned Williams a much-deserved fourth Academy Award. “E.T.” may very well be Williams’ masterpiece, and Spielberg’s too.
The “friendly” alien of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951), Klaatu, may come in peace, but it is a message delivered with tough love. If mankind refuses to abide, his giant robot, Gort, will destroy the planet. At a time when Martians invariably meant trouble, this was actually progressive. Bernard Herrmann’s score is one of his best, and certainly one of his most interesting. Always an eccentric orchestrator, Herrmann’s concept of extra-terrestrial music incorporates violin, cello, electric bass, two theremins, two Hammond organs, a large studio electric organ, three vibraphones, two glockenspiels, two pianos, two harps, three trumpets, three trombones and four tubas. Overdubbing and tape-reversal techniques were also employed.
Finally, Ron Howard’s “Cocoon” (1985) is one of the more worthwhile of the seemingly endless procession of extraterrestrial films to be released in the wake of “E.T.” At least this one took a different approach by bringing alien forces into contact with a Florida retirement community, with the unexpected result of rejuvenating its inhabitants. A modern take on the fabled Fountain of Youth, the film is a showcase for veteran actors Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Jack Gilford, and Don Ameche (who won an Academy Award). James Horner’s score is much sought after by collectors.
Klaatu barada nikto! I hope you’ll join me for the touchdown of benevolent extraterrestrial films 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!
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Patrick Read Johnson 5-25-77 Interview
Finally, finally, FINALLY, the much-postponed Patrick Read Johnson was our guest last night on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. This time, neither wild horses nor Fios-munching squirrels hindered an hour of absorbing anecdotes about Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and the making of 5-25-77.
We covered a lot of ground, with Johnson talking about the long and winding road to the realization of his autobiographical coming-of-age tale that coalesces around the opening of “Star Wars,” on May 25, 1977. Even so, there’s plenty of material we never touched on. Perhaps at some point there will be a sequel? For now, you can enjoy what we’ve got, here:
Next Friday, Roy’s guest will be Bonnie Moss, who will share stories about her longtime friendship with actor Leonard Nimoy.
Then on Sunday, Roy and I will reconvene on a special night to talk about James Cameron’s first sequel to surpass expectations, “Aliens” (1986). Is it better than Ridley Scott’s creepy original? It certainly is a fresh take, and a thrilling one.
Cameron, of course, would go on to prove it was no accident with the successful sequels “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
We’ll do our best to Alien-ate everyone, on “Roy s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner,” when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., next Friday and Sunday evenings at 7:30 EST!
https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner
Trailer for Johnson’s “5-25-77”
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