1/28/00: Film Score Friday

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Film Score Friday 1/28/00

by Lukas Kendall

The big news this week is that Decca has announced a new CD of Jaws to contain 30 previously unreleased minutes of music. The only thing that people don't know is whether this will be a 70+ minute CD of the whole OST, or a combination of the existing album (which was a re-recording conducted by Williams at the time of the film, nicely fleshing out many of the cues) with parts of the unreleased original soundtrack. Well, we're blessed either way!

Speaking of Williams, the episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on 1/20/00 had Regis asking this question of a contestant:

Put the following John Williams film scores in the order they received Grammy nominations, starting with the earliest:

A. SUPERMAN

B. STAR WARS

C. E. T.

D. JAWS

What film score fan can't immediately blurt out DBAC?!?

Golden Globes

Fans of "The Maestro," Ennio Morricone, were thrilled to see EM win the Golden Globe last Sunday night for Best Original Score. However, it was an embarrasing moment... the award was presented by LL Cool J and Jennifer Love Hewitt. LL Cool J started to announce the winner, but upon seeing that it was "Ennio Morricone," he turned the envelope towards Jennifer Love Hewitt. She looked at it and smiled. Seeing that he would be getting no help from the tender young starlet, LL Cool J bravely took it upon himself to pronounce the name. He did so admirably (perhaps hearing it spoken aloud by an announcer seconds earlier helped out).

However, after a warm round of applause, he and Hewitt began to look around in confusion. Finally, Jennifer Love Hewitt said "They're not here?" with her smile still wide as ever. She then repeated more emphatically--"They're not here!" She said this because she thought Ennio Morricone... is a band.

Soundtrack Radio Program

From: Jimmy Aquino <jim@aquino.com>

If any of you readers like the music from those NFL Films documentaries, you might want to check this show out. Here's details about the next edition of my program A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS, taken from my Website, jim.aquino.com...

Check out my favorite scores of 1999, including the Golden Globe winner for Best Score, Ennio Morricone's THE LEGEND OF 1900, and SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT. I hear that soundtrack's an FCC favorite. Plus: As we approach Super Bowl XXXIV, we'll listen to selections from THE POWER AND THE GLORY: THE ORIGINAL MUSIC & VOICES OF NFL FILMS. Film Score Monthly editor Lukas Kendall discusses the NFL Films music, in an interview recorded last year. Tune in this Saturday to A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS, where the music is never as sucky as "The Super Bowl Shuffle." (Saturday, January 29, 12PM PST at http://www2.ucsc.edu/~kzsc/ - KZSC 88.1 FM)

Black Sunday

From: "Thomas Merritt Scofield" <CarolSco@concentric.net>

Here are a few comments about Image's BLACK SUNDAY DVD, which also contains a commentary (with false information about composer Les Baxter) by Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas:

There is no doubt that the Mario Bava classic is one of the very best, most visually beautiful horror films ever. I really even hate to call it a "horror film" because of the negative connotations of that term. This is really a dark visual poem performed in splendid black and white visuals.

While it is great to have the uncut European print, especially looking this good, the original English dub prepared in Italy is terrible, with awful performances, cut rate sound effects, and worst of all, a drab, lethargic score by Italian hack composer Roberto Nicolosi which would seem more at home in an old Monogram chiller.

When AIP brought the film to the U.S. they removed a few moments of gore, but did not, as has so often been assumed, tamper in any significant way with Bava's directorial effects. The main decision at AIP was to improve the dramatic effect by redubbing the film with better English speaking actors (AIP did NOT tamper with the script, which is obvious if both versions are compared), i.e., George Voskovich as Dr. Kruvyjan, and a haunting new score by Corman/Poe specialist Les Baxter, which makes the film seem to almost race along. It should be noted that AIP retained the Italian sound effects track, only occasionally beefing it up where the original sounds too thin.

I have many friends who agree with me on this one, in the best of worlds, the film would have the slightly longer European cut with the American soundtrack matched to it. Most English speakers, who grew up with the Les Baxter score and U.S. dubbing of AIP's edition, will be very disappointed with the drab Italian-prepared English dub and dreadful Nicolosi score. Overall, 5 stars for the visuals, but only 2 for the European soundtrack. Otherwise this would be five stars across the board.

I know Tim Lucas pretty well, and supplied him with a lot of information about Baxter's score to this and other Bava films handled by AIP, since I had corresponded with the erratic but often excellent composer back in the '70s, when I was in high school. Tim claims that I will receive special credit in his much anticipated Mario Bava book, if and when it ever comes out. As you may know, Tim wrote the liner notes for Bay Cities BLACK SUNDAY CD and basically gave Baxter's score a rave review.

What troubles me most about the DVD is that Tim's commentary makes a claim that Baxter heavily plagiarized Roberto Nicolosi's original score for material. I don't know where this comes from, the scores couldn't be more different, and Tim has been intimately familiar with the Nicolosi score for many years. He certainly never mentioned this supposed plagiarism in his Bay Cities liner notes. The Italian produced English dub has been circulating for years here in the States through Sinister Cinema and other sources, and the general consensus is that aside from a cut of about one second of gore, the American International version is a much better produced and faithful dub (strangely, Tim himself acknowledges this in his audio commentary on the DVD). Even Filmfax's excellent critic David J. Hogan has expounded on the superiority of the AIP version both musically and dramatically.

I really feel that Image should have provided both versions of the film on this disc, just in the same way that Anchor Bay provided the original version of Hammer's kung fu 7 Golden Vampires and the American-butchered abomination 7 Brothers Meet Dracula.

Image advertises, packages and promotes the film as BLACK SUNDAY, the American dubbed/rescored release, yet what they provide is the inferior, dreadful Italian produced English dub MASK OF THE DEMON, with Nicolosi's narcoleptic score. Sure, the film looks great, but not any better than the fine, restored AIP version (which retains all the footage except for one second of gore) that has been circulating on AMC and other cable/satellite channels.

Normally I would rejoice in a restoration like this, but this version only supplies an inferior English dub, the terrible Nicolosi score (neither of which Bava had any input or involvement with) and one second of extra, not very exciting gore. Although this released is being promoted as BLACK SUNDAY, that isn't what you get. Sure, it's great to have this alternate version, MASK OF THE DEMON, but they should have provided BLACK SUNDAY also.

I'm very upset with Tim for having taken information and Vinyl (Baxter actually released "Katia's Theme" on his album JEWELS OF THE SEA nearly a year before the film was released here in the States) supplied by me to further his knowledge of Baxter's involvement and somehow twisting it into an accusation of plagiarism that he can't possibly support.

I like Tim very much, and I have no ax to grind with him, but I find this plagiarism accusation against Baxter very disturbing, especially since I will apparently be connected in some way with it, in Lucas' Bava book. But most of all, I am disturbed to see the awful, Italian produced dub, MASK OF THE DEMON that was rejected in virtually every English speaking country in favor of AIP's superior dub and score, being promoted as the U.S. produced version, BLACK SUNDAY, when in fact, it isn't.

Thanks for the letter and info. Guess what? I have no knowledge of this movie so really can't comment. But if anyone out there wants to chime in, please do.

Mail Bag

This is an argument about something but I honestly can't remember to which column it refers. Sorry guys! Personally I think these are neat out of context. It's like, look at the passion!

From: Donny Gilbert, dggilb@franklincovey.com

Ouch!!!! Remind me not to try and make a point next time! :-)

The purpose for the response was to point out the error of Mr. Hobgood's logic. I must say that I'm a huge Bernard Herrmann fan and I know the scores (contrary to what was written, I do know them, especially Vertigo, one of my all time favorite scores).

It is one of the first times I've been filleted me on the forum, and I actually appreciate it. Makes me watch my step. The article was a simplification of the use of that particular music in those areas of the movie. If I were to spell out all the places where the music was played, the article would have turned into a doctoral thesis and nothing would have been accomplished.

I have to take issue with Kirsten's Vertigo account though. The love theme is played in the main title as well. Listen to it again. The "revelation" scene (as I like to call it) when Madeline returns, is one of the most brilliantly romantic pieces of music in any movie (or anywhere), it still makes me well up when I watch it. ( I wake up to a local classical music station, and one morning I woke up to the Scene d'amour from Vertigo, and damn near lost it right there.) She is right in saying that the love theme isn't played ad nauseum every time they are on screen, but how Madeline's theme slowly moves in the love theme. Madeline's theme is not for Madeline, it is for Scotty. It is his reaction to her. The love theme develops out of Madeline's theme.

The Main title music (the arpeggios) that appears in the beauty shop was more for trivia than anything else. But the point of the statement was to say that it reflects the swirling images of the Saul Bass opening and makes a near subliminal impact on the beauty shop scene. Why play that particular music there if you weren't trying to reference something? Again a thematic relation to something before! Whether it is vertigo or de ja vue, what does it tell you?

The point wasn't to analyze Herrmann, but more to say that Mr. Hobgood's assumptions about those scores was not exactly right. It isn't what was played, but why it was played.

FSM CD Movies on TV

We've released a lot of CDs by now, some of them scores to really obscure films. Here's a listing of movies airing in February for which we've released the OSTs, in case you want to check them out:

All About Eve

Thursday

February 3

5:00 pm American Movie Classics

10:45 pm American Movie Classics

The Comancheros

Friday, February 4, 5:00 pm American Movie Classics

Saturday, February 5, 12:30 am American Movie Classics

Mad Monster Party

Friday, February 18

7:30 pm American Movie Classics

11:00 pm American Movie Classics