E-Mail Bag

Compiled by Jeff Bond, Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith

This week's e-mail bag features a host of dazzling movie music-related celebrities: Bernstein, Goldsmith, John Barry, Sol Kaplan--right down to Pia Zadora. Let's get right to it, shall we?

Peter Randall, ee@marinternet.com:

Thanks for the news about the Rykodisc label, and the upcoming releases. I also wanted to mention a little something about the Varese Sarabande titles that have just been released. No one has mentioned the To Kill A Mockingbird score. I for one was truly excited about this release, since the film is also one of my favorites. It was nice to read in the booklet (excellent notes by Kevin Mulhall) a quote from Elmer Bernstein, in which he spoke about the film. He mentions how difficult a film it was to score, and until he determined that it was truly a film about children did he understand how to score it. This quote explains why the music so perfectly fits the film, and helps the viewer recall his or her own childhood. One of the best films for atmosphere I think has ever been made. The central theme is played beautifully on track one. I think it deserves even a brief mention, either in your mag, or on a letter day on your website.

I too was very excited about this release. My favorite performance of this score is still the original one contained in the movie (released on LP by Varese in the early '80s), but the new recording comes in a close second, and the vast improvement of sound quality makes up for some of the differences in tempos and accents. Truly one of the most beautiful scores ever written.

Marcelo Vita, New York, NY writes:

One more thing. Having nothing to think about the other day I started to imagine how they're going to release the new Star Wars CDs (the new films I mean). Do you think we'll have everything at once or something like a 30 minutes CD the first year, then someone will find the "original masters" (not all of them ,though), which will translate into a 59 minutes CD that will last another year, until "the Ultimate Anthology" will hit stores. Unfortunately the music heard as a background intro to Princess Leia's mother's wedding will be missing, resulting into a frenzy among collectors because a rumour indicates that a 50 copies were made as bootleg. Then again, things may go fine.

We find your lack of faith disturbing.

Bob Siksa, BobSiska@aol.com writes:

Sol Kaplan was an incredibly talented and underappreciated composer. May they re-release The Victors, which I could shoot myself for not buying 30 years ago. Father of director Jonathan Kaplan, Sol is not in many of the common sourcebooks. His last score for a teenage movie Jonathan made early in his career (I forget the title) was outstanding. I was always hoping that Jonathan might have arranged a tribute disk of some kind...

Amen, sister! Kaplan's two Star Trek scores alone rank up there with some of the better film scores that have been written, let alone music for television. His final film was Over the Edge, primarily remembered now as an early vehicle for Matt Dillon. Kaplan's dark, brilliantly orchestrated score played out like a sequel to his fantastic "The Enemy Within" score from Star Trek. The Spy Who Came in fromthe Cold is another moody, atmospheric work from this composer.

Pat H. Mooney, phmooney@flash.net writes:

In the liner notes for the new Patton release, it says that Mr. Goldsmith is working on a series of his own scores. Great! Is there any chance that Wind and the Lion might be one of these. I have the Intrada CD but would very much like more if Mr. Goldsmith has more to give. I recall an article years back in which Mr. Goldsmoth said that it was one of his best and that he thought he might get an Oscar for it... until he heard the opening bars of Jaws. Not necessarily better or worse, but an obvious shoo-in for the Oscar.

Also, could you pass on a suggestion to Robert Townson. One of the best CD's they have done so far is Victor Young's Rio Grande. Might I suggest the original Stagecoach coupled with She Wore A Yelow Ribbon. Richard Hagemann did the latter and had a hand, with about seven others, in Stagecoach. There have only been suites from Stagecoach and the odd track from Yellow Ribbon.

Goldsmith's new series of recordings for Varese are indeed a boon for soundtrack fans. The Wind and the Lion has several cues not included on the Intrada album that would make for an exciting expanded CD, but recapturing the fire of the original performances would be a daunting challenge. My hope is that Mr. Goldsmith will focus his energies on works like Tora! Tora! Tora! and others which have never seen album releases.

thomasc@nowtranslations.com writes:

I was in the Woodland Hills Tower a few days ago, finally buying Goldsmith's Explorers, Steve (Genesis) Hackett's Midsummer Night's Dream with the RPO, Siegfried Wagner's Symphonic Poems (yes, Wagner Jr., but actually more listenable than Sr.), A weird new Mussorgsky Sony release featuring Mr. M's arrangement of Night on Bare Mt. for voices. No, I bought no Bartok or Stravinsky with this eclectic mix.

But I did buy a Pia Zadora CD. OK, actually it was a filmscore by Arthur Rubinstein on a label called LaserLight Soundtracks Digital (yes, that LaserLight). The score is Fake Out, an early 80s Zadora film with Telly Savalas and Desi Arnaz Jr. The CD sound is very good and I bought it because I like Rubinstein and thought, "Heck, no one seems to be releasing Blue Thunder, so I'll get this" (that same day, I heard that BT was goind CD!). Pia sings on 2 of the 14 cuts.

Not only is this yet another label entering the soundtrack ranks, but LaserLight is even releasing something that I don't think was on an LP before. And get this. It was six bucks. Cash. American. Perhaps the FilmScore Monthly detectives can find out what else LaserLight has up its budget sleeve.

Coincidentally, I've just waded through most of Laserlight's prodigious series of retro releases and the results should appear in the October issue of Film Score Monthly. Fake Out was one of the best of the bunch, especially the "Shower Play" cue. I think fans of Pia Zadora will soon adopt Laserlight as their favorite label.

MegadethDC@aol.com writes:

Anyone have any information on Ken Thorne, the composer who ripped off John Williams score for Superman 2 and parts of Superman 3? This guy's original stuff was dire in Superman 2, especially the Honeymoon Hotel bit. I guess we were lucky he didn't fill the whole film with his own stuff.

Anyone know what other movies he has scored?

I believe Thorne's other films include Richard Lester's thriller Juggernaut. This might be an appropriate time to point out that Thorne was hired to adapt John Williams's original music for Superman 2 and 3, a major contribution to the fact that, at least in my opinion, those two movies stink. Thorne's personal style didn't mesh well with Williams's, the orchestrations were abysmal, and the lack of a distinct musical vision (as opposed to a retread of material that really had no relationship to the second and third movies) helped cripple these films.

To get a filmography for Thorne, or any other composer for that matter, journey to the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com).

Mike Olson at RippedWM34@aol.com rips, I mean writes:

I know that Thomas Newman is a great composer and put him high regard, it was just a disappointment when Barry left the Horse Whiperer's Project. I just don't understand why, if Redford and the powers that be wanted something different, they didn't give Barry the opportunity to rework his themes to suit there ideas of what the score should be?.... Or is Barry just unwilling to change what he submitted? I understand that he had conflict with Barbara streisand when working on Prince of Tides a few years back... Ironically, James Newton Howard replaced Barry on Tides and more recently, The Juror. I have always felt that Howard was a Barry rip anyway, and a good example is his score for Wyatt Erp, an other film I thought would have suited Barry... I understand that there a lot of great film composers, and Barry is just one of many I admire and appreciate, I just want to see him tackle nice epic or meaty film like He did with Dances with Wolves, and look what happened, won his fifth Academy Award for best score.

Well, these things happen. They seem to be happening a lot to Barry of late, but it's very possible that he's reached the stage where he just doesn't feel like overhauling a score every time a producer whines about it. I really think this is the fault of the people who hire Barry, as I don't think that there is a more known quantity in film scoring at present than John Barry. I mean, you know exactly what you're going to get, so if that's not what you want, why are you hiring him?

LogieD@aol.com writes:

I know they think no one would buy it but I disagree (of course) and I can,t as a starving artist afford to produce a CD of lesser known music but the fans are out there that know their stuff and if they saw the titles would buy it. If you know a producer at Varese, Telarc, Silva, etc, I would be glad to record a tape of the type of themes missing on the market and they could judge for them selfs if given a up to date sound that it would not sell and sell big. If we can have Hollywood 95 and 96 and have it sell or a Blood and Thunder title, I can't believe it would not sell. How about "Music for the Back of a Darkened Theater"?

Yes, the fans are out there... but are there 50,000 fans out there? I, for one, would love to see more classic Star Trek CDs, but if GNP/Crescendo, which is not exactly MCA, can't make a profit on them, that's not going to happen. There has to be a change in the way these albums are marketed and financed for the more esoteric stuff to get out there. For a success story along these lines, check out Marco Polo's rerecordings of soundtracks from the '30s, '40s and '50s.

Some additional comments on some items from last Wednesday's E-Mail Bag:

Kyle Shold writes:

While many of us would like to see suites from "Amazing Stories" and other previously unreleased music on these compilation albums, I'm sure Sony Classical realizes far greater sales from a re-recording of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. These compilation albums are geared to people who do not already own the original soundtrack albums to every film John Williams has ever scored. Still, one would think that Sony, Silva, etc. would realize even *greater* sales if in addition to all of the ubiquitous pieces they would include at least one previously unavailable cue on each CD--this way both Joe Q. Public and the soundtrack completist would buy the album.

Saul Pincus wrote about Heartbeeps:

MCA reportedly planned a Heartbeeps LP, but the film tanked at the box office and these plans were scrapped. It is the only Williams film score after Star Wars that has not been issued in one format or another. MCA/Universal did release the film on VHS ages ago; you can order it from many online video retailers. Williams' Heartbeeps score might make a nice 25-30 minute album; this is certainly a case of less is more.

Andy Dursin also wrote:

Briefly on Heartbeeps: it's actually interesting that someone brought that up in the reader column, because it's a wonderful score. I think it's a gorgeous Williams effort, one of his most charming and memorable--and definitely one of the first scores that made an impact on me when I was growing up. As for the movie, the reader was wrong--it is available on VHS from MCA Home Video. Unfortunately, it's panned-and-scanned, in mono, and also very hard to find (though supposedly it is still in print, and has aired on Encore in the last year). The film was butchered to death by Universal (who specialized in tampering with sci-fi/horror films in the '80s), who released the film at a scant 79 minutes in 1981. It would be great to see Universal reissue the film at some point on laser, maybe in a restored version, though, obviously, its obscurity would be a stumbling block in seeing that happen. But Williams' score!! For anyone who enjoyed E.T., Close Encounters, Home Alone, Raiders--this score is very much of that caliber and it's astonishing that it has never received a release (and that so much mediocre crap has!!).

We will print in a separate column the many reader suggestions we received for "the most recognizable movie music." Be here tomorrow for This News Friday with Lukas!

Send your comments to MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com