ALTERED SCORES, PART TWO

Here is a continuation of the article on scores which were significantly altered after the original, credited composer had finished scoring them, with some help from our readers.

REBECCA - Franz Waxman

From: Gregory Scott Stevens <gregorys@multcolib.org>

Producer tampering affected Waxman's work for Selznick on "Rebecca" -- some existing Steiner cues were tracked into "Rebecca"

SPELLBOUND - Miklos Rozsa

From: pdishal@comcast.net

Miklos Rozsa's music for the ski-run sequence in "Spellbound" (1945) was replaced with the climactic car ride music from Franz Waxman's score for "Suspicion." Rozsa says in his autobiography that even he doesn't remember the reason, but my guess is, given his reputation for meddling, that it was Selznick's idea, not Hitchcock's.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE - Dimitri Tiomkin

From: Preston Jones

I quote from Dimitri Tiomkin's autobiography, "PLEASE DON'T HATE ME," Doubleday, 1959:

Seems that Frank Capra originally wanted Dimi to score the opening scenes of "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE" with snatches of "LOHENGRIN."

"...I wrote my own music for the night scene. LOHENGRIN was sublime, Frank was right, and using Wagner would have been in the Hollywood tradition; but it would have been a little brash to use it in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

"The picture was in the best Capra style. Frank thinks it the finest he ever made. I don't know. I never saw it after it was completed. After the music was on the soundtrack, Frank cut it, switched sections around, and patched it up, an all-round scissors job. After that I didn't want to hear it. In our picture work Capra had spoiled me. He had left it to me to be the judge of the music, and I had come to expect it.

"This is a complaint a composer often has in Hollywood. Big-time directors make themselves writers, musicians, everything; they revamp dialogue, and cut and shuffle the music track to suit their fancy. It would not matter if it were only a case of tunes; but it is unendurable when the music is composed and has structure.

"Frank and I had no wrangle about the matter. I said nothing. We simply didn't see each other for a year and a half."

CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF - Benjamin Frankel

Music from Leonard Salzedo's score to Revenge of Frankenstein was tracked in

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE - John Barry

The helicopter crash and boat explosions featured tracked in music from Monty Norman's Dr. No score.

KING KONG VS. GODZILLA - Akira Ifukube

Universal released the film in the U.S., and replaced much of Ifukube's inimitable work with tracks from the Creature From the Black Lagoon scores.

FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH - Tristram Cary

The epilogue was tracked with Witchcraft by Carlo Martelli. Cary's original version can be heard on the GDI disc The Quatermass Film Music Collection, as well as the Cloud Nine collection Quatermass and the Pit: The Film Music of Tristram Cary, and was seemingly written for an earlier cut of the film, as the music bears no relation to the dour, reflexive ending of the release version.

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN? - David Raksin

Raksin's music was significantly re-edited in the release version.

THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO. - Tom Scott

Music from Goldsmith's The Flim-Flam Man was tracked in.

THE BLACK STALLION - Carmine Coppola

from: Analyzethat9118@aol.com

Carmine Coppola came on board after the original composer William Russo left the film (he didnt' write any music) after disagreeing with director Carroll Ballard on his direction for the score. Music Editor Dan Carlin, Jr. was tapped as "music producer" after Ballard asked Coppola to make changes to the score and Shirley Walker and Nyle Steiner were brought on to make the necessary changes and add additional music for certain scenes, most notibly "The Island Music". Coppola did orchestrate their music for these scenes along with his score. But once again during the recording, Ballard asked Coppola to change his music once again which he really disagreed to it. So Walker was asked to rescore some of the major scenes and Carlin had to reconduct the entire score after Coppola left the film after more disagreements. The final composing tally ended as follows: Carmine Coppola, Shirley Walker, Nyle Steiner, Bill Douglas, Kenneth Nash, George Marsh, and Dick Rosimini.

GODZILLA 1985 - Reijiro Koroku

Cues from Christopher Young's Def-Con 4 were tracked in.

LIFEFORCE - Henry Mancini

From: Geoff Hitchins <geoffhitchins@bigpond.com>

Another important altered score to note is Henry Mancini's 'Lifeforce', which - in the film's original theatrical release - had several cues removed, with additional material supplied by Michael Kamen and another composer, whose name eludes me. The longer cut of the film contains only Mancini's music - and a bit more of it - but the music editing in the longer cut is ironically much worse than that in the theatrical cut.

HOWARD THE DUCK - John Barry

Sylvester Levay was credited with additional music.

BROADCAST NEWS - Bill Conti

Director James L. Brooks had Conti redo much of the score, and ended up having Michael Gore write some additional cues, giving him a special thanks in the end credits.

THREE O'CLOCK HIGH - Tangerine Dream

Sylvester Levay was credited with additional music. Both Tangerine Dream and Levay were featured on the Varese score album for the film.

BILOXI BLUES - Georges Delerue

Little of Delerue's score survives in the final version.

AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD - Zbigniew Preisner

Music editor Robert Randles substantially altered and rewrote parts of the score, and Preisner complained that the soundtrack album mixed his and Randles' contributions instead of presenting his score as he'd composed it.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS - Trevor Jones

Jones was reportedly unavailable for rescoring, so Randy Edelman was brought in to write some new cues. The two composers shared credit, and their cues were clearly delineated on both the original soundtrack album and on the recent Varese re-recording.

RUBY CAIRO - John Barry

Some of Barry's cues were replaced by more ethnic/geographically oriented music by music editor Robert Randles. The film received a brief theatrical release as Deception. Bizarrely, Miramax cut out a major sex scene and got the film a PG-13 rating, but still billed the movie as an erotic thriller.

GOLDENEYE - Eric Serra

The filmmakers had orchestrator John Altman write a new cue for the St. Petersburg tank chase scene, making more traditional use of the James Bond theme. The soundtrack album features the original Serra version, while the Silva album Bond Back in Action 2 features a re-recording of the Altman version.

A GOOFY MOVIE - Carter Burwell

The studio had Don Davis rework much of Burwell's music.

MAD CITY - Thomas Newman

Philippe Sarde, who'd scored Music Box for Mad City director Costa-Gavras, wrote a couple credited additional cues.

THE INSIDER - Lisa Gerrard, Pieter Bourke

Graeme Revell was brought in to write additional music. Three of his cues are featured on the soundtrack album.

MYSTERY MEN - Stephen Warbeck

Shirley Walker was brought in to rework some of Warbeck's original score -- how much was changed has never been officially determined.

FREQUENCY - Michael Kamen

Also from: Analyzethat9118@aol.com

Michael Kamen's score to Frequency features it's second half of the Main Title sequence scored and properly credited to J.Peter Robinson during the End Credits. His music is notable and distinguishable to Kamen's original score.

J. Peter Robinson was hired to rescore much of the film, though the original score remains intact on the GNP Crescendo soundtrack album.

From: Thor Joachim Haga <t.j.haga@media-stud.uio.no>

I'm currently writing a term paper on film music, and it includes an analysis of the ALIEN score. Parts of it, anyway. Although I had the DVD at my disposal and COULD have analyzed Goldsmith's original score as he intended it (since there was an isolated score track), I decided to go with the "Scott alteration", since that was what ended up in the film and that was the best way to know how the music worked with the finished sound effects. I can then only attest to the fact that the score STILL HAS A MEANING and STILL HAS A STRUCTURE, despite that it does not correlate exactly to Goldsmith's vision. And although Scott's decision to tamper with the music might be considered controversial, there's no denying that the man is musically conscious.

But as I said, it's just a story and may not be true. In Scott's defense, Alien is a brilliant piece of film direction. Whatever you may think about his use of music, the other elements -- cinematography, editing, art direction, casting, effects, sound -- are brilliantly deployed, and of his work since then I think only Black Hawk Down comes close for sheer excellence in filmmaking.

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