In one of those quirks of fate that makes me think our electronical goods are developing some form of sentient life, my mp3 player - set to random - threw tracks from SOUL SURFER (Marco Beltrami), LILO & STITCH (Alan Silvestri) and Hurley's tune from LOST (Michael Giacchino) at me in quick succession. Which got me thinking! How many scores are out there that adapt the Hawaiian sound, that Hint of Honolulu that makes ya wanna dance and sway? There are two obvious ones I know of (although I've never heard them) ... THE HAWAIIANS by Henry Mancini and HAWAII by Elmer Bernstein. What else is out there?
They were the three i thought of. Now erm... Erm....
The elvis one?
There are actually 3 Elvis Hawaiian pictures. GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS is often forgotten as taking place in Hawaii because it doesn't a) feature in the title and b) feature prominently in the usual travelogue way BLUE HAWAII and PARADISE HAWAIIAN STYLE do.
Also, the song "Blue Hawaii" originated in a Bing Crosby film, WAIKIKI WEDDING. Not sure if there was ever a soundtrack to that film, though.
I was just about to mention that. Even though Williams was "forced" to adapt Hugo Winterhalter's (who?) theme song for much of the score, there's plenty of his own tinkering with the "Hawaiian sound" too.
This was the first John Williams feature film score to get a soundtrack at the time of release.
How creepy, since I am working & playing Mancini's THE HAWAIIANS right now, as this thread just resurfaced!
I had to add in mine, since its sort of left field- Zimmer's THE THIN RED LINE. I played this a lot when I went to Maui. I know it's not Hawaii, but the island footage in the film, and the (overall) hush of Zimmer's score - it was cool.
