Some letters on our favorite Lenny -- first of all, however, want to
buy a great, obscure Rosenman score for 99 cents? Intrada has deleted their
CD of Keeper of the City, an early '90s TV movie score with some
great choral passages. Go here (http://www.intrada.com/intdel.txt)
for the complete list of their cheap cut-out titles for sale.
Subject: The Chapman Report (1962)
With the resurgence of interest in Mr. Rosenman's film music, we
may have overlooked:
Leonard Rosenman's jazz-tinged score for 1962's The Chapman Report
is interesting. A score album, as opposed to a soundtrack album (which
were usually re-recordings anyway). It captured a lush, sunbaked California
of the early 60's, and dealt with four Californian women (Claire Bloom,
Jane Fonda, Shelley Winters and Glynis Johns) and their sexual problems.
The film - to this day unissued on video - was based on the best seller
by Irving Wallace, and was surprisingly frank for its time.
Dr. Chapman (based on Dr. Kinsey) was played by the late TV and
movie stalwart, Andrew Duggan (reminding many of President Eisenhower).
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was his assistant. Others in the cast included a young
Chad Everett, Harold J. Stone, John Dehner, Ray Danton and Corey (Rebel
Without a Cause) Allen as Wash.
Rosenman re-did his main theme for records in a much faster, bouncier
pace than the rhythm used in the soundtrack version ( which called to mind
Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" as interpreted by Carl Stalling);
he wrote themes for the major female characters. One theme ("Naomi")
even made it as a piece of piano sheet music. A few disonnant moments throughout,
but still a rather pleasant listen. Rosenman even added 2 pop versions
of his then best-known themes, "East of Eden" - slow and easy,
with a harmonica solo, and a triplet-laden version of "Rebel Without
A Cause", recalling "A Summer Place" and "The Prize".
Catalog number for vinylphiles: Warner Bros. W/WS-1478, a promo single
also exists with Main Theme, and Naomi Interview.
I very much enjoyed your "Great Apes Debate" article on
the FSM website. Obviously, I'm a champion of Leonard Rosenman's work,
and with regard to how he was chosen to score "Beneath the Planet
of the Apes", it was probably made because the producers of the film
wanted a score to reflect an avant-garde sensibility; Jerry Goldsmith's
willingness to make such an artistic statement was evidenced quite nicely
in his "Planet..." score. Leonard Rosenman shared a willingness
to do the same in his previous works, so he was not only a good choice
to score "Beneath...", he was also the logical choice. (Alex
North or Bernard Herrmann probably cost too much to even be considered
seriously by the management of the studio. But I'd almost be willing to
bet that their names came up, if not for "Beneath", certainly
for the first film.)
However, I'm glad Rosenman scored "Beneath..." for a number
of reasons that differ from your own. First of all, the first and second
film are quite different in tone. "Planet..." functioned mainly
as metaphor, black comedy and satire; as a piece of science fiction, it's
actually kind of flimsy. (For instance, I can only assume that since Charlton
Heston's character, an astronaut, has had a better education than myself.
The fact that he landed on Earth, therefore, shouldn't have come to him
as such a shock. First, he spent quite a few days and nights on the supposedly-new
world after he landed, and therefore, he could have gotten a good look
at the night sky; if he was on a planet orbiting a star in the constellation
of Orion, he wouldn't be able to see the constellation at night. In fact,
none of the stars would look right; and most of the constellations would
be either altered or erased entirely. Second, the presence of human beings
on the "new" planet would be a dead giveaway; similar beings
would be believable, but beings identical to humans would be pretty much
impossible. Thirdly, the apes speak English; even if evolution had created
human beings as well as simians on a distant planet, they would definitely
have a language, but it certainly wouldn't be identical to colloquial English.
Let's face it, it doesn't take a genius to put these clues together...of
course, I think that on some level, Taylor always knew he was on Earth,
but he was in a major fit of denial.) However, it obviously wasn't the
producer's intent to make a hard science fiction film; they wished to make
some rather pointed social commentary, and they do so quite well.
Goldsmith's score is his first masterpiece. It's always seemed to
me to be an almost "naturalistic" score. The metal mixing bowls
motif, as well as the slide whistle and other bizarre instruments, gives
the audience a feeling that a traditional, more tonal score simply can't
provide. It's almost a non- score.
"Beneath the Planet of the Apes", on the other hand, is
a less cerebral, more adventure-oriented film, with a more literal approach.
The plot kicks into high gear almost from the start, and fairly quickly
our new hero, Brent, finds himself in the middle of a war brewing between
the Apes and the mutant humans who live beneath the surface. He's also
a far more likable character than Taylor, who was a smug and arrogant fellow
who only wins audience sympathy after being brutalized for much of the
film by the apes. Brent is a likable guy, who signed up for the mission
to find Taylor, who was a character who had so little faith in mankind
that he turned his back on the Earth. Much of the metaphor and social commentary
of the first "Apes" picture has been jettisoned to make way for
the adventure to follow. (Of course, it's still present. Actually, it's
a bit more dated to my mind that the social commentary of the original,
but that's certainly a debatable point.) The film, like four out of the
five "Apes" features, has quite a downbeat ending; "Beneath...",
however, actually does something that very few films have actually followed
through with--it makes good on the threat to destroy the world. (As far
as I know, only "On the Beach", "Dr. Strangelove",
and "When Worlds Collide" are the only others.) Unfortunately,
the producers of the "Apes" movies simply couldn't leave well
enough alone, and save for the scores by Goldsmith and Rosenman for two
of the three remaining films, there's not a great deal to recommend in
any of them.
In the original film, Goldsmith brings his score to a halt before
the Statue of Liberty is fully revealed to the audience, and it's replaced
by the sound of the pounding surf against the shore. In the reprise of
the scene in "Beneath", Rosenman provides the sequence with some
rather stinging and unsettling music. Right from the start, Rosenman tells
us that this sequel is going to be a bumpy ride.
All the things that make a score uniquely Rosenman's are here in
abundance; in a lot of ways, "Beneath..." plays like a warm-up
act for Rosenman's masterpiece in the avant-garde style "The Lord
of the Rings". Like Goldsmith, Rosenman's willingness to use avant-garde
idioms is very clear. In fact, Rosenman's avant-garde approach, at least
to my ears, is far more aggressive than Goldsmith's--and considering that
the major theme of the film is a Holy War between the mutant humans and
the apes, it's perfectly appropriate. (A personal note: growing up Catholic,
the society of mutants offended me deeply when I first saw the film at
the age of 10. I rooted for the Apes to wipe them off the face of the Earth;
better no church at all than a church so debased!)
As for the Heston-mandated change to the end of the movie...well,
Chuck probably doesn't care too much for science fiction films; his characters
in "Soylent Green" and "The Omega Man" both are killed.
It took TWO "Apes" films to finish him off.
"Beneath the Planet of the Apes", like all of the "Apes"
sequels, doesn't play all that well today. Many of its sequences, written
and filmed in a different decade, reflects the social outlook of the time.
The sequence in which the Chimpanzee protesters are carted off, filmed
suddenly and inexplicably in documentary style, has become nearly laughable,
for example.
However, one of the wonderful things about great music is that it
ages well. Great film music, when divorced from the images it was written
for, has the same quality. Today, Rosenman's score for "Beneath the
Planet of the Apes" is one of its major attractions. There's a reason
it's a commonly requested title for the FSMs "Silver Age Classics"
series; it's simply a great piece of film music that deserves preservation.
