Film Score Friday 3/16/01

Composer Richard Stone has passed away at age 47 from pancreatic cancer. Stone did excellent work on Warner Bros.' recent animated series, winning several Emmys on shows such as Animaniacs and Freakazoid. Of all the composers who worked on those shows -- we covered them in FSM a couple of summers ago -- he was the one who best captured the essence of Carl Stalling from the Golden Age of Warner cartoons.

Stone also scored several features, such as Sundown and Pumpkinhead. We will have a proper obituary in an upcoming issue of Film Score Monthly,

Jerry Goldsmith is scoring Rat Race for director Jerry Zucker.

Alan Silvestri is now in London recording his score for The Mummy Returns, which will be released on Decca on May 1st. The score does not utilize any of Jerry Goldsmith's material from the first film.

Intrada is releasing David Shire's piano score for The Conversation (1974) -- one of the best films and soundtracks of the 1970s. Although the score is piano-only it does include some electronic processing -- fascinating stuff -- for key suspenseful scenes. The album will be Volume 2 in the label's Special Collection series, available this June.

John Williams and Steven Spielberg are photographed and profiled together as part of the Vanity Fair 2001 Hollywood issue. There's also an advertising supplement which features a profile on Edward Shearmur.

Lee Holdridge has recorded his score for the TV feature The Mists of Avalon with the Muenchner Symphoniker in Germany. Cinemusic.de has a German language article on the sessions at http://www.cinemusic.de/special/leeholdridge/index.php3.

Hot news from Percepto Records:

CREATURE FEATURES will be hosting an exclusive ONE TIME ONLY signing with composer VIC MIZZY to celebrate the release of his long-awaited limited edition CD compilation featuring suites & themes from THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT, THE NIGHT WALKER, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, GREEN ACRES and many more.

The event will be held on Saturday, March 24th at 1802 West Olive Ave in Burbank from 1pm - 3pm. To order signed CD's by mail or for more information, call (818) 842-9383.

Last Monday's TV movie of Columbo, "Murder with Too Many Notes," featured film music as its subject, with Peter Falk's famous detective building a case against an arrogant film composer (played by Billy Connolly) who killed his ghostwriter. It was directed by Patrick McGoohan and scored by Dick DeBenedictis.

I did not see the telefilm but everything I've read about it has been negative, from poking fun at film scoring inaccuracies to criticisms of the plot. Hey...you wanted reality?!

From our friend Jeff Eldridge at www.johnwilliams.org:

It's Oscar time and NPR's Andy Trudeau has his annual roundup of the musical nominees for Best Score. Featured on Weekend Edition Sunday (aired Sunday mornings in most NPR markets), the first of three segments aired on March 11 and covered Tan Dun's "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" and "Gladiator" with music by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard; it can be heard online at: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/wesun/20010311.wesun.16.rmm

The second installment, covering Rachel Portman's "Chocolat" and Ennio Morricone's "Malena" will air on Sunday, March 18; the series will conclude on Sunday, March 25 with a look at John Williams' score for "The Patriot" and an overview of the five nominees.

For more information, see the NPR's Weekend Edition home page at: http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/

J. Ollinger has been collecting Pete Greenhill's summaries of the ongoing Monty Norman-Sunday Times libel suit over the authorship of the James Bond theme, adding additional information. Bookmark http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/2802/barry/lawsuit.htm as the trial concludes.

Here are some letters we received about the "trial of the century" (hey, it's a new century!) -- also see our current poll about who you would like to see win:

From: "Pulliam, Ron" <RPULLIAM@co.alameda.ca.us>

This poll does not offer enough choices.

I'm sure everyone wants Barry to come out as the "declared" co-composer of the piece, which is the most that can be expected to result from the trial, as I understand it. No verdict will grant him back royalties or anything since he signed away any rights he might have had when he accepted that particular job. No, the question is whether Norman can claim "sole authorship" of the piece, since he is suing the London newspaper for printing a story in which Barry is quoted as saying he wrote it.

Monty Norman is not a "film music" name most identify with. I see him as a definite underdog when it comes to fan opinion because Barry is so wildly populary and his James Bond scores something most fans agree to agree on.

There are strong arguments being made in court by both sides. I think a third choice in your poll might have been offered to allow a few curmudgeons like me to opt out of taking sides and selecting "Whichever composer actually wrote the bulk of the theme."

Despite Barry signing away any rights he might have had to royalties, Norman claims all thematic ideas in the theme are his from his body of work up to that point. Barry's claims are that he only used a few bars of what Norman had written and developed the rest himself.

I hope the truth will come out....but what is truth? And how can it be proven?

I must admit, I'm not at all comfortable with a "who should win the court case poll." Two men's reputations and one man's livelihood is at stake. This is about justice; we're not electing a president here.

There is indeed a misconception as to who is the actual composer of the "James Bond Theme." It's my understanding that Barry wrote the memorable bluesy, brassy lick that everyone identifies with James Bond, which itself is a modification of a big band tune JB composed years earlier. Monty Norman, the credited composer, wrote the guitar riff which follows the sting-like chords (Barry's invention) at the piece's opening. Though both Barry and Norman split writer's share of the performance royalties for the JB theme, Norman, because of his deal with the "Dr. No" producers, retains total authorship.

From: "Jeremy Marwil" <jmarwil@home.com>

A question for the filmscore gurus: I own the soundtrack to the movie "Heat". I think Mr. Goldenthal is extremely talented. I see that he receives credit for the opening song by Kronos Quartet. I also watched Krzysztof Kieslowski's "The Decalogue" series recently. Zbigniew Preisner did the music for this series which was completed well before "Heat". Priesner's opening music in the first of the 10 part series is extremely similar to the opening of the "Heat" soundtrack. Did someone steal from someone else? Is this a famous piece of music that I am unaware of ? Did Goldenthal take credit for something he should not have? I have no musical training so I'm just going off what my ear hears.

Music from the Movies (http://www.musicfromthemovies.com) named our Beneath the 12-Mile Reef CD as "CD of the Week" for March 12th. Hooray! See their review at http://www.musicfromthemovies.com/pages/reviews/beneath_twelve_mile.html

See Audiophilia for coverage on our Golden Age CD releases Prince Valiant, Prince of Foxes and All About Eve: http://www.audiophilia.com/software/da59.htm.