Film Score Friday 5/7/99

by Lukas Kendall

Wow, what a week! I've been buried in reader comments about The Phantom Menace, most of which we'll print next week. On top of this we also received at the office this week The Mummy by Goldsmith, the Don Davis score album to The Matrix (my favorite film of the year), Silva's new Kubrick compilation featuring unreleased Gerald Fried music, Rykodisc's Battle of Britain restoration including the unheard William Walton score, Lalo Schifrin's release of The Osterman Weekend (some fun '80s music on there)... and I'm still in love with all four volumes of Canto Morricone.

Considering all of this, I was a little "oh, damn" about our timing in releasing Prince Valiant (Franz Waxman) this week -- go here for complete details. But in many ways it's good timing -- this is one of the antecedents to Star Wars, a truly symphonic adventure score from Hollywood's Golden Age. Please, check it out.

Ready for another scoop? Rykodisc will release on CD the last James Bond score which has never seen digital media -- For Your Eyes Only by Bill Conti, scheduled for late August. No word on adding any extra music or not. And no, there's still no plans for any of the '60s and '70s Bond scores to be reissued. But FYEO has long been the missing link in CD collections of 007 and has a well-regarded title song. Because you demanded it!

Jerry Goldsmith will be honored with the "Hollywood Outstanding Achivement in Music in Film Award" at the Third Annual Hollywood Film Festival. The award will be presented at a gala ceremony on August 9 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

The current issue of Mix magazine has a massive article on recording the score for The Phantom Menace. You can find it online (the text, without the pics) at http://www.mixonline.com.

Variety's review of The Mummy had a mention of the music... but probably not the kind that the composer wanted to read: "Jerry Goldsmith's heavy, ever-present score has a deadening effect on the action, however, and has to rate as one of the worst of his long and distinguished career."

Film Music in Weird Places

From: Scott Halander <shalande@ucsd.edu>

Speaking of film music in educational films, during my freshman year at UCLA, I watched a film on DNA in Biology 5. During the video I could not help but notice the cool (synthesizer?) music that served as BGM. The film ran past the lecture hour by a minute so as the 300 other students were leaving the lecture hall, I stuck around waiting for the credits to see what the source music was. The credit read:

Music By Basil Poledouris

!!! I wish I could remember the title and year but I can't. I think it was made in the early eighties.

Poledouris scored a number of educational and short films in the 1970s, prior to his big break on 1978's Big Wednesday. Another big name who has done interesting shorts is Elmer Bernstein, who scored many of the Eames' famous films like The Powers of Ten.

From: "Karolenko, John" <Karolenko_John@phh.com>

Hey Lukas - A small follow-up to film music showing up in unusual places.

Thanksgiving day in 1997, I had the Macy's parade playing on the television. In the middle of doing some other things and only paying half attention, I'm aware that a marching band in the parade is playing a familiar tune. After a moments pause, I recognize the piece as the opening march to the "Battle of Britain". The funny thing is that this all-American band is playing the bombastic march of the Nazi's!.

While it's a very hummable tune, I had to chuckle to myself as I was probably one of only a handful of people who recognized the irony as this band was playing this particular music during a celebration of the freedom that America commemorates on this day.

I'm sure no offense was intended, but go figure.

The Black Hole

From: georgep@asu.edu

Kudos to Andy Dursin for his pretty-much dead-on review of the DVD of "The Black Hole," although it remains somewhat unclear which features the DVD offers that the video Collector's Edition doesn't, and vice versa.

I must confess a sentimental attachment to that overgrown mutt of a film, particularly John Barry's (never ponderous!) score. Yes, Robert Forster emotes like he's in it strictly for the money (in a Disney movie?), but the Cygnus and its captain (Maximillian Schell), yes, even his redundantly-named henchrobot Maximillian remain imposing figures that even a wooden script can't steal thunder from. The ending is pure Dante, with the probe ship flying into what for all the world still seems to be a poached egg.

But the driving force behind the film is Barry. Without generous support from his usual masterful deconstructions of trumpet and percussion, "The Black Hole" would probably go down asDisney's greatest box-office disaster of all time. No other science fiction score has expressed the simple vastness and intimidation of the cosmos as well as this one.

As it stands, "The Black Hole" is a middling "Star Wars" imitator that in spite of all its warts, has at least one loyal fan--thanks in most part to Barry's best-ever Sci-Fi score.

I love the Black Hole score. Dum-dum-dum WHEE wee wee wee.

Composer CDRs

Composer Evan Evans has available CDs of his film scores at his web site: http://www.E3Productions.com

Nyman in Concert

Tomorrow, Saturday May 8 at 8PM, the Michael Nyman Band is performing a world premiere of selections from his score for Ravenous at The Dome, Brighton, UK. Box office telephone: +44 (0)1273 709709; Box office fax: +44 (0)1273 707505; http://www.brighton-festival.org.uk/

Back next week with Phantom Menace, Phantom Menace, Phantom Menace... and if you don't like it, tell us what you think of Prince Valiant, Prince Valiant, Prince Valiant...

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