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Joan, I was just going to mention the great main title. But why ignore that first minute? The slow, ominous build-up makes the big theme all the more powerful when it kicks in. (Too bad the Youtube clip is mostly stills in a montage instead of the actual main title. Those few brief shots of Fonda and the ships show how dramatic the combination of image and music is.) About Waxman and the wolf whistles. In the clip Howard posted, you can hear Waxman's orchestra playing snatches of "If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight," the song that Pulver keeps lasciviously singing and humming to himself in anticipation of his big date with the nurse. And yes, Henry's so right, Waxman's beeen one of the greats from day one and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and he just kept getting better and better, right up to his premature death. (He once told my composer friend Joseph Marcello that his own favorite among his scores was THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS. I always figured that had to be at least in part because the music had to carry so much of that particular picture.)
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Waxman does a just masterful job of matching the shifts of tone in ROBERTS, mitigating to some degree the hamhanded physical comedy moments (which I prefer to think are compliments of Ford's time on the film.) Waxman's death from cancer just a couple months after his 60th birthday was truly a tragic loss. As Morricone and Preston stated, he just kept getting better. His last major score for THE LOST COMMAND was as good as anything he ever did. Even his last effort for the made-for-tv film, THE LONGEST HUNDRED MILES, is terrific. Its on YouTube if you're curious--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ53DdHA3Y0 As I have said many times before, if Waxman had lived into his seventies I wouldn't have been surprised if he might have been a candidate to do STAR WARS. That's one to ponder along with Goldsmith signing on to PLANET OF THE APES instead of ICE STATION ZEBRA (which he felt bad about because he had enjoyed working with John Sturges but had committed to old friend Schaffner and APES.)
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Posted: Nov 17, 2016 - 7:19 AM Report Abuse Reply to Post By: joan hue (Member) "You are right, Preston. That whole ominous first minute seems to also used to set up the tone of a war movie. I just wanted people not to stop playing this youtube piece before they got to the main theme." You mean, people who "don't get him"?
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Posted: Nov 17, 2016 - 8:48 AM Report Abuse Reply to Post By: vinylscrubber (Member) "Waxman does a just masterful job of matching the shifts of tone in ROBERTS, mitigating to some degree the hamhanded physical comedy moments (which I prefer to think are compliments of Ford's time on the film.)" You're right on the money, Vinyl. Every book of film history or Ford/Fonda biography confirms your suspicions, in spades. Eventually, the star and director who had always been friends and colleagues on many classic movies literally came to blows over what Fonda saw as Ford's mishandling of the play which had come to mean so much to him. (Doubly ironic, considering Ford had insisted on casting Fonda when the studio wanted to go with Brando or Holden). Shortly thereafter, Ford left the production, ostensibly for medical reasons, to be replaced by LeRoy and (uncredited) Joshua Logan, the original play's director.
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Posted: Nov 17, 2016 - 9:08 AM Report Abuse Reply to Post By: Howard L (Member) "Schizoid element here. Didn't Fonda try to strangle Ford for turning the ship's crew into lame-ohs and compromising the gravity of the Broadway production?" Howard, you posted this while I was typing my post above. Obviously, you heard right, more or less. There are differing versions of the physical altercation between Fonda and a hard-drinking Ford, but there's no disputing the truth about Fonda's displeasure with Ford's broadening and, he felt, vulgarization of the play. I guess it's a tribute to the play's solid foundation, and the talents of the stellar cast, that this outstanding film works as well as it does. Also a tribute to Waxman, of course.
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Waxman's death from cancer just a couple months after his 60th birthday was truly a tragic loss. As Morricone and Preston stated, he just kept getting better. His last major score for THE LOST COMMAND was as good as anything he ever did. Even his last effort for the made-for-tv film, THE LONGEST HUNDRED MILES, is terrific. Its on YouTube if you're curious--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ53DdHA3Y0 Super cool. I was completely unfamiliar with this. I wonder if it survives so that Intrada might tackle Waxman's final score some day... Yavar
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Posted: |
Nov 17, 2016 - 3:39 PM
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By: |
filmusicnow
(Member)
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Posted: Nov 17, 2016 - 9:08 AM Report Abuse Reply to Post By: Howard L (Member) "Schizoid element here. Didn't Fonda try to strangle Ford for turning the ship's crew into lame-ohs and compromising the gravity of the Broadway production?" Howard, you posted this while I was typing my post above. Obviously, you heard right, more or less. There are differing versions of the physical altercation between Fonda and a hard-drinking Ford, but there's no disputing the truth about Fonda's displeasure with Ford's broadening and, he felt, vulgarization of the play. I guess it's a tribute to the play's solid foundation, and the talents of the stellar cast, that this outstanding film works as well as it does. Also a tribute to Waxman, of course. And that fight with Fonda and Ford eventually ended Fonda's working relationship with the director.
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Posted: |
Nov 17, 2016 - 4:05 PM
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By: |
Morricone
(Member)
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Posted: Nov 17, 2016 - 9:08 AM Report Abuse Reply to Post By: Howard L (Member) "Schizoid element here. Didn't Fonda try to strangle Ford for turning the ship's crew into lame-ohs and compromising the gravity of the Broadway production?" Howard, you posted this while I was typing my post above. Obviously, you heard right, more or less. There are differing versions of the physical altercation between Fonda and a hard-drinking Ford, but there's no disputing the truth about Fonda's displeasure with Ford's broadening and, he felt, vulgarization of the play. I guess it's a tribute to the play's solid foundation, and the talents of the stellar cast, that this outstanding film works as well as it does. Also a tribute to Waxman, of course. And that fight with Fonda and Ford eventually ended Fonda's working relationship with the director. The only version I heard was the opposite, Ford decked Fonda. http://www.thewrap.com/when-john-ford-punched-henry-fonda-and-how-it-led-one-fo-greatest-westerns-ever-77316/
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I always loved Waxman's main title from Mister Roberts. The film has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid.
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Howard L remembers, rightly or wrongly, "Fonda trying to strangle Ford." Henry cites the most pervasive version, in which Ford struck Fonda. I've also read accounts, if memory serves, in which Ford, drunk and angry, swung at Fonda but only succeeded in falling down, or else, swung and missed and had to be restrained. In any event, as filmusicnow pointed out above, it sadly severed the longstanding relationship between actor and director. And by "it," I guess I mean not only this final incident, but all their tensions that had been building up during the shoot.
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