This Noose Friday 10/31/97

by Lukas Kendall

Halloween already? One thing I hate about L.A. is that the ridiculously mild weather screws up my internal climate sensors. Trick or treat for Unicef! I wish there was a CD of the Great Pumpkin Halloween music.

I learned the weirdest bit of film composer trivia the other day. There are some legendary pieces of soundtrack knowledge, that Jerry Goldsmith started at CBS radio as a typist and stuff, but those are things people know.

Here's one that I had no idea about:

Basil Poledouris was in an episode of the original Star Trek. He played a Klingon. He can't remember the episode but said he had to run up and look in a window at the end of the act, and that he wore the black shirt and green/gold pants. I knew that Basil acted in various student films he made at USC in the late '60s, but this was news to me.

So, now Jeff Bond and I have to watch all the Klingon episodes of the original Star Trek to find Basil. It could be "A Private Little War" or "The Day of the Dove."

Folks, this is why you read this web site! Tell us if you find the episode!

November 7 Events

There are a few film music related events happening next Friday (besides the fact that Starship Troopers opens with a cool Basil Poledouris score).

Peter Boyer will conduct in concert at Claremont Graduate University, CA, Elmer Bernstein's Toccata for Toy Trains, a score for a 1957 short film by Ray and Charles Eames. It's for eight instruments--it's a neat little short film. The Eameses are also the makers of that cool "Powers of Ten" short that they make you watch in physics class, which Bernstein also scored.

Also at the Claremont concert on Friday is Benjamin Britten's The Sword in the Stone, a suite of incidental music Britten composed for a BBC radio drama in 1939, and rarely heard since then. The concert will take place at 12:15 PM on the campus of Scripps College, Balch Auditorium, 1030 Columbia Ave, Claremont.

Next Friday night there will be a concert by Ron Jones, formerly of Star Trek, conducting his "Vivaldi Dreams" chamber ensemble in a concert of Vivaldi and original works in Burbank, at the Pickwick Center. See Jones's site, www.emotif.com; also call for information, 818-845-3902.

Richard MacDonald wrote me to report,

On November 7th, the Austin Chamber Ensemble will be presenting an evening of chamber music by film composers. The concert includes works by Bernard Herrmann, Jerome Moross, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, J.A.C. Redford and Mark Governor.

If the concert is successful, it could become a yearly event. More information can be found at: http://www.armonico.org/

I realize that these events are impossible for most people to make it to, but you never know who might read this and be on the same block as these things.

Star Wars Presentation

A report from Steve Head, SHead84417@aol.com. You can also find some write-ups of this at Harry Knowles's Aint It Cool News site:

Yesterday afternoon I attended the Smithsonian Tribute to George Lucas at the Lisner auditorium in Washington D. C. As George was sitting in the front row, along with Dennis Muren, Ben Burtt and Ralph McQuarrie, the Smithsonian premiered the new documentary "Star Wars: the Magic of Myth. I was sitting five rows behind them. As I was watching the film, I was thinking, all I have to do is look over to my right and there's THE MAN. I couldn't believe I was watching George watching scenes from the trilogy.

The film had all new interviews. On-screen, George told of Steve (Spielberg) introducting him to Johnny. He reffers to Williams as Johnny a couple of times. Although very short, there was an interview with Williams in what appeared to be his living room. Amazing: the fireplace and the rooms general design (from what could see of it) looked sort of in the style of Obi-Wan's hut. Here he discussed meeting with George. What was really brought to the front was the collaboration between Lucas/Burtt/and Williams. It was unsusal for a sound designer to work so closely with the composer. They talked about how they were able to bring the heart of the score to the front amidst all the lightsabre sounds. Burt made special mention of the influence of the male choir in Jedi, and the film showed the scene with his comments. There was also an interesting bit of behind the scenes footage with George, Ben Burtt and Williams at the control board during the scoring session for Star Wars.

For anyone wondering, it's pretty much sealed that Williams will score the next Trilogy. Thank the Force.

Questions

From: LogieD@aol.com

What has happened to Bill Conti? The Right Stuff is on my top 10 list, Rocky and For Your Eyes Only are on my LP play list and I havn't heard a score in years. I remember watching Mission Impossible and thinking, Conti could have done well with this one. Has he done something good I don't know about or is his Score Voice not in demand these days?

Conti is still very much active. Besides doing the annual Oscars telecasts, where he is the orchestra conductor/music director, he just scored Napoleon, and the upcoming The Real McCaw. For now it seems he's doing comedies, such as the recent Spy Hard.

From Scott McCulloch, cnbr115@lismore.cc.strath.ac.uk

Last month my local HMV here in Glasgow were promoting the soundtrack album for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Special Edition), music composed by Brad Fiedel (Varese Sarabande VSD 5861). The publicity blurb claimed that this reissue was timed to coincide with the UK widescreen release of the T2 Special Edition on home video. It was stated that the album was approved by director James Cameron and included previously unreleased music, with several tracks on the original album (Varese Sarabande VSD 5335) being expanded. Another store still had a copy of the 1991 release and upon comparison I found that both albums shared the same number of tracks, with the individual tracks having the same title wording and identical running times. In short what is so "special" about the Special Edition (excluding the fact that the 1997 CD is released in a silver colored slip case).

I asked Varese about this and they said this CD was a production of their German Colosseum distributor, and that it's just the original CD with a new slip case. Like Malibu Stacy with a new hat or something. Sounds like somebody is just marketing it with bad information.

Varese Relaunches CD Club

...or so that's what they've said on their web site, www.varesesarabande.com. The announcement is for new Club titles to be out in mid-1998. No further information is available. I say: this would be great, it's about time, but don't hold your breath. Also, as if some of their regular CDs lately aren't cool enough?

Alien Resurrection Sneak Look

From Julian Knott, JulianK@dial.pipex.com

There was an Alien Resurrection screening here in London tonight, and I thought you might like a snippet of news on John Frizzell's score. Well, there's an awful lot of Goldsmith in it - an awful lot of Alien, in particular that two-note see-sawing phrase used at the beginning of the Hypersleep cue. Most of the score is mixed pretty low. There is also at least one passage that mimics Horner's Aliens score.

Suffice to say that the music, like the film itself, is unremarkable. A lot of people are going to be very disappointed indeed.

Well, if true, this is too bad. I have to confess that the whole Alien series is becoming a joke to me. She's dead! It's back! She's back! The Bitch! Anyone else have a look-see-hear yet? The Alien 4 CD comes out from RCA on November 11.

Basil at Creature Features

Reprinted for everybody's notice from last Friday's column:

L.A. residents: Basil Poledouris will sign Starship Troopers CDs at Creature Features in Burbank (1802 W Olive Ave; 818-842-9382) on Saturday, November 8, from 1-3PM.

One rule: if you want to get a Starship Troopers CD signed, you have to buy it in the store. The CD comes out Tuesday the 4th, so you might want to restrain yourself until the Saturday. By the way, it's on Varese, and is 35 minutes long, and that includes the 4-minute song by Zoe Poledouris which she performs at the high school graduation in the film.

Feel free to bring other Basil CDs like Conan, Robocop and Lonesome Dove and have those signed. But in order to avoid losing a ton of money the store will not allow other copies of Starship Troopers inside.

More Questions

Someone asked if there are any plans for a Switchback score album (also Poledouris). At present, no.

Joe vs. the Volcano (Delerue) has never been released.

Last week I asked what the movie was where the schoolteacher says "Laurence Olivier--which some some of you might remember as Zeus," and the kids are like, oh yeah. Robert Delaney informs me correctly that that was The Last Action Hero:

The teacher is about to show the class Hamlet, and the boy imagines a "cooler" version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger: "You killed my fodduh. BIG MISTAKE."

Thank you. Robert also mentions the important Logan's Run trivia that there is "Star Trek fan among the extras who holds up his hand in the Vulcan salute right in front of the camera during the final scene." Cool.

Last week, someone asked if there was any good software to use for contracting musicians. A reply, from the wonderful readership:

From Randall, vcs03@telis.org:

In regards to Thomas Wanker's question about contracting software: I personally have never heard of any specific program for organizing that kind of info--that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, of course. However, all of the contractors I've ever talked to have used Microsoft Excel. It allows them to create their own custom spreadsheets for any combination of information they might need. You might try getting in touch with one to see if you can get a copy of their template files. Better yet, design your own to fit your exact needs.

Together, we truly can solve any problem. Here's another good example:

From: David A. Koran, David_A_Koran@xn.xerox.com

Lukas, you asked a question a while ago about the lyrics in the closing credits of Glory... well, since my computer is toast here at work, I've had an opportunity to decipher them. Yay! I dunno if this was a request from one of your writers, but it's only a three line repeating phrase:

Chorus from "Glory"

by James Horner

(sung by the Harlem Boys Choir)

[Track 6 - "Closing Credits"]

Blow The Horn

Play The Fife

Beat The Drum Slowly

As always, check out David's ever-expanding www.soundtrack.net.

Two Bond Things

From Peter Schueller, Peter.Schueller@ahrweiler.netsurf.de:

I just watched "Moonraker" on TV and it is really the movie with the most most recognizable movie themes ;-)

It has the 5 notes from Close Encounters, the theme from Magnificent Seven and of course the James Bond Theme.

It also contains the first three notes from Also sprach Zarathustra, which is also a very recognizable theme used in movies (but not a movie theme in the sense of this discussion).

There is also a love theme, played when Jaws finds his girl in Rio, which I have heard somewhere else. Where was this taken from?

I forget about the latter but this is a good, funny observation about the quotes in Moonraker, the Bond movie that makes Bond films wince. "Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him." Actually, the best part is where Drax and Bond are out shooting quail. Drax shoots his birds, then it's Bond's turn. The birds are scattered, and 007 takes his time before firing, off the mark it seems, in the woods. Drax says, proudly, "You missed!" Then an assassin falls out of the nearby tree, dead.

"Did I?"

From matthew c hightshoe, mchights@indiana.edu

I was reading the Oct 20 article on most recognizeable themes and came across the one about the James Bond Theme. It seemed that a person was giving credit to John Barry for composing such a great theme. If I am not mistaken he didn't compose it. I have never seen his name attatched to it especially on the Dr. No album. This may seem like an insignificant thing to inquire about but for years it seems people have mistaken John Barry for composing the theme.

The original composer on Dr. No, the first Bond movie, was Monty Norman. The producers were dissatisified with the title music that Norman had recorded and hired John Barry to come in and do a new arrangement of it. To this day Norman has retained credit, although it's pretty clear that the sound and recording of the Bond theme as we know it is the doing of John Barry. So I guess you're right, we should credit Norman for this theme--it's still assumed that he wrote the melody, and he sues people who suggest otherwise--but everyone just refers to the Bond theme as being Barry's.

As Barry is known to say, (paraphrasing) "If I didn't do it, why didn't they ask him [Norman] to score the next movies?"

Search Engines/Lists

Okay, I know you guys are always looking for ways to kill time. Here are some doozies:

From Mark Koldys, mkoldys@pop.flash.net

You can solve a lot of arguments about who composed what logo or signature tune by linking to David Shields's page:

http://www.vvstudios.com/studioLogos.shtml

he identifies the composers of just about every film studio, tv network, or cable channel logo you can think of, and documents his information.

It would be nice if you linked to his page on 1950s tv themes too, which is similarly chock full of interesting info:

http://www.vvstudios.com/50sTVThemes/tvSeriesList.shtml

And I think the Motion Picture Guide database is a far better (and WAY more complete) tool for researching film composers, especially those from older films, than the IMdB:

http://www.tvguide.com/movies/database/

We'll be adding those links to the Borg, I mean our links page. Check them out. I still like the IMdB.

Stumper

From Geoff Keighley, editor@gameslice.com

Do you know what the name of the song is that is played during the first part of the Devil's Advocate trailer? It's under the "A young attorney" narration. A very low-key piece. VH1 used it in a clip package for their Fashion Awards this week too.

Please let me know; I think it's commercially available.

Anyone?

Finally...

I'll add that Julian Knott also mentioned, "Jerry Goldsmith is holding a ninety-minute 'Master Class' lecture at London's National Film Theatre on 16th November at 11am.The NFT's box-office phone number is 0171 928 3232."

All right, enjoy the one night a year where your scary movie music like Alien is accepted by the general public as cool to listen to.

Send comments or questions to: Lukas@filmscoremonthly.com