August 9, 2007

• General musings: 41 years of Film Music, part 1

  I've caught up mostly with the pile of CDs for review here.  Lots of traffic on the blog, so thanks to all you peekers out there.

  Celebrating a birthday Saturday, and so with that in mind, I decided to list here a few favorite film scores that influenced my musical tastes when I saw the films.  I didn't get to watch Bond films until ABC began regularly scheduling them so much of Barry's music for that series went mostly unnoticed, apart from the Bond theme (Monty Norman's contribution).

   

  If you grew up in the late 1960s and early 1970s your primary film viewing, apart from TV, was whatever old re-issue came to town.  I grew up in North Dakota mostly, so that meant many of the films I saw as a kid were already 10 years old or older.  Disney was focussing mostly on cheap live-action family stuff so there was not much to catch new on a regular basis.  So my list starts a little before my actual birthyear and obviously I was not going to some of these films as a 4-year old!  So I'm going mostly chronological here through about 1990.

   

   I was a big fan of those old Ray Harryhausen features, primarily The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, but loved Herrmann's music in Jason and the Argonauts (1962).  This style shows up in my own music a lot, I realized years later.

   

  My father loved comedy so it is no surprise that we saw all the Pink Panther films.  Mancini's 1963 score for the title film is still a favorite.  Don Knotts comedies were a staple at kiddie matinees, and my all-time favorite is The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1965) with that wonderful organ theme by Vic Mizzy.  Mizzy's music was a pretty steady diet in a household watching re-runs of The Addams Family and Green Acres!

   

  Musicals were a steady part of our movie watching on TV and in the occasional trip to the Drive-In or theater.  My dad had an LP of The Happiest Millionaire (Sherman Brothers) which I must have played to death.  I don't ever recall seeing the film.  Along with Mary Poppins, this was my most favorite of the Disney musicals.  Bricusse's 1967 score for Doctor Dolittle was also a favorite.  That is one of those "ok" films that still chokes me up because it struck a chord as a kid.  I remember reading all those Dolittle books in elementary school and this annual film made an appearance usually during school vacation breaks insuring its repeated viewing.  Then there was 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  And yes, there is only 1 Willy Wonka and he was played by Gene Wilder.

   

  Planet of the Apes (1968) and its subsequent films were staples of movie-of-the-week on CBS, where I first heard the music of Goldsmith.  I liked the music from Escape from the POA (1971) the most, followed by Rosenman's score, especially those religious sequences with the choral music in Beneath the POA (1970).

   

  Those hilariously bad star-studded Airport films were also a staple.  I guess my parents figured we would never be on a plane so it was ok to watch them crash and burn.  Though I'm sure we heard Alfred Newman's music in various older films replayed on TV, this is the only score I can recall having really been able to experience his music in at all. 

   

  My collecting music habits, inspired by my dad's music business, meant that I was always seeking out new music, mostly classical.  But for some reason I acquired a cheap 8-track tape (!) of Mancini's Oklahoma Crude (1973).  I recently bought a CD of this score, imported from Spain on RCA, and you know, it's not anything spectacular, kind of like Mancini does the Nashville Brass, but it is good fun with a fantastic main title.

   

  1974 was Ape time.  Planet of the Apes became a TV series which I watched (I guess I was one of the 500 who actually saw the series!).  Friends and I had those character dolls from the Ape movies (which I wish I still had somewhere).  And that meant that Lalo Schifrin's theme was a regular in my ears.

   

  Bennett's Murder on the Orient Express also came out that year, though I would pick it up on TV.  I was a big Agatha Christie fan at the time and so this was a great film to see as a young person.  Love that great waltz from this score.

   

  Either my parents were tired of my asking to go to the movies, or they had discovered a cheap babysitting tool.  But I remember going to see 1975's The Hindenburg in the theater where the final crash, completely with a burning man walking towards the camera, haunted my dreams for weeks.  Shire's score was great, and finally is on CD from Intrada.  We also were able to see Midway the following year with a minimal score by John Williams.  King Kong was the big hyped film (no pun intended) in 1976.  I don’t remember much other than the love theme Barry wrote for the film.  It was again, Mancini’s score to Silver Streak which struck the greatest chord with me and which I was overjoyed to finally see released a couple of years ago. 

   

  Then there was 1977.  Most of us who are film score fans point to this as a watershed in their awareness of film music.  This was the year that Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger appeared (surprised you didn’t I) and slugged off to the theater to see this mediocre film with a wonderful score by Roy Budd.  BUT, that summer, a friend of mine invited me over to hear this awesome new orchestra record he bought.  Turned out it was Star Wars.  I was hooked.  I never saw the film in its first-run, only when it was re-issued before The Empire Strikes Back.  But I had the action figures, the action sets, and had memorized that music and overplayed my record hundreds of times by then.  I don’t think my parents had any idea if I owned anything else, to tell you the truth.  I even bought Williams’ LP of Close Encounters which had a hilarious disco version on a bonus 45-sized “extra” disc.

   

  John Williams was my film composer of choice.  I never saw Jaws, but its sequel was good enough for me.  That score LP received more play than other scores by the composer far after it passed from the public eye.  Jaws 2 is my favorite score of this period next to Star Wars.  Superman was fine, but I was not really into the whole superhero thing by this point and the film seemed boring to me as a kid—though I bought the 2 LP set for the music, I rarely played more than the first side of the first LP.   

   

  The Empire Strikes Back (1980) would also find its way into my collection, but received less play than my other Williams discs.  It didn’t strike the chord that made 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark LP the other most played score album of my collection.  That year I also managed to see Ghost Story after having read Straub’s book.  It’s my favorite Sarde score with a great mix of bells and organ.

   

  1982 was the beginning of my move to cassettes.  So, it was that music to E.T. that pretty much played uninterrupted for hours.  Other scores that year that I remember were Trevor Jones’ music for The Dark Crystal, and the scary Goldsmith offering for Poltergeist. 

   

  IMAX began to appear in 1983 and it was here that I first heard Basil Poledouris’ amazing little score for Flyers.  It was released a few years ago on CD and I was able to rediscover and relive those first moments of being wowed by a huge screen.  Never thought I would fly in a plane, so this was the closest I thought I would ever get!  It was also the final chapter year for Star Wars.  Call me crazy but I like the original Return of the Jedi choral entry in the finale (not fond of the Ewok music but love the way the choir enters in—gives me goosebumps every time I hear it).

   

  I graduated in 1984 and that year there were three film scores that stood out to me.  Ghostbusters (not just Ray Parker’s song) was a cool musical approach that I remember going to the store to get only to discover that there was no score LP available.  Varese corrected that a few months ago…YEEHAW.  Lee Holdridge’s music for Splash is also wonderful featuring a great love theme.  And finally, the last really good Williams action score for a while, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, appeared.  The cassette I had was alright but the highlights seemed to be the “Anything Goes” sequence, Short Round’s music, and the “Parade of Slave Children”.  Not much to sustain two sides of listening.

   

  College kept me busier than I had expected.  I was studying hard so film music took a back seat to the many art music discoveries during this time.  There were a few things that caught my ear though.  The first was Danny Elfman’s music for Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.  I think it was the unique sound more than anything.  Mancini’s music for Lifeforce (even in its screwed up re-edited use) also struck me as wonderful and we now can actually hear what he wanted in a 2 disc set I reviewed here earlier this year.

   

  My interest in film music waned a bit during the mid-1980s as orchestral scores took a back seat to pop songs and disco.  I remember hearing Horner’s music in Aliens (1986) and later in Willow (1988), both of which sounded like cheap imitations of John Williams.  But I had hope it would get better.  Elfman’s music struck me again in 1988 when Beetlejuice appeared thus creating a fan for his music and for Tim Burton films.

   

  Three films in 1989 made me rethink that film music was worth my attention.  Patrick Doyle’s score for Henry V made me want to hear more only to discover it was his first effort.  Still played that CD tons and then went out to find William Walton’s music as well for the older Olivier film.  (That’s what being a film music fan means, you end up following tons of tangents only to become a fan of another great composer.)  Elfman’s Batman score was the second film score CD I bought that year and I began to wonder what ever happened to John Williams (though I had been faithfully purchasing his Boston Pops LPs since 1981).  Finally, Horner’s music for Glory just really impressed me, especially the choral work.  (It wouldn’t last for long….lol)

   

  By the following year, I was a devoted Elfman music fan hearing in his music something which only later would remind me of Bernard Herrmann and send me off to collect and rehear his film music.  I sat through Dances with Wolves and while Barry’s score was gorgeous, I just did not get it, though I love to let it wash over me now.  Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed Total Recall and was appalled when the theater cut off the end credit roll before the identity of the film’s music appeared…never went to that theater again and I even wrote to the distributors that this had happened.  But it was the beginning of a rediscovery of the great Jerry Goldsmith’s music.

   

  So there you have it, roughly the first quarter-century of my film music enjoyment.  Tomorrow, I’ll bring you up to today.

   

  While it may seem like random thoughts, I realized that now I need to go relisten to all this great music.  Maybe you will want to to….

  • 12:56 pm
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