Cook definitely had bona fide correspondence with Newman, Darby, Raksin, Friedhofer, Rozsa, Bernstein, and probably others. He quoted some of these letters in his column -- sometimes without attribution. Could he have planted prank quotations as well? Anything is possible, but it seems unlikely. Attributing bogus statements to a living correspondent would have been counterproductive as well as unwise.
Has Cook's correspondence been archived? I seem to recall something about a collection at the U. of Wyoming.
.....Cook definitely had bona fide correspondence with Newman, Darby, Raksin, Friedhofer, Rozsa, Bernstein, and probably others. He quoted some of these letters in his column -- sometimes without attribution. Could he have planted prank quotations as well? Anything is possible, but it seems unlikely. Attributing bogus statements to a living correspondent would have been counterproductive as well as unwise.
Has Cook's correspondence been archived? I seem to recall something about a collection at the U. of Wyoming.....
To the best of my recollection, James D'Arc of Brigham Young University wanted Cook's various correspondence very much for the film music collection archived there, and I believe the executor of Cook's estate did, indeed, send it there.
I think we should raise a fund for Max to get some top people to engineer enough evidence for him to write the first retrospective book on the ALAN FIVEHOUSE franchise. Clearly no-one else is more qualified.
Another recollection of Page Cook- the infamous "bete noir" (black dog?) award given to the most horrid score reviewed in his column, won often by Maurice Jarre, whom he referred to as Mssr. Jarre.
As mentioned by Scott, one composer he briefly championed was Edward David Zeliff, who's lone work available on LP, THE LIVING WORD, is terrific.
If Mr. Zeliff is out there and reading, I'd love to know what is going on with your career and would love to hear some more music by you, especially PILATE'S EASTER.
Alive and still writing lovely stuff, it seems.
This is a world premiere of a piece, in July 2011.
I read Page Cook religiously back in the day because there wasn't a lot of film music writing to read back then. I not only though Cook was nuts, but though he was a woman for several years.
I read Page Cook religiously back in the day because there wasn't a lot of film music writing to read back then. I not only though Cook was nuts, but though he was a woman for several years.
Here are some of Mr. Cook’s takes on the scores for films from 1973:
CHARLOTTE’S WEB (Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman) – “forgettable tunes and synthetic ditties…ineptly supervised and conducted by Irwin Kostal”
TOM SAWYER (Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman) – “third-rate odds-&-ends rubbish” (but “adapted and conducted with a skill by John Williams that is service beyond the call”)
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (John Barry) – “dreary and insipid” (but Cook found that a three-song suite that Barry re-arranged for Polydor Records was “utterly enchanting and delicately languid”)
LOST HORIZON (Burt Bacharach / Hal David) – “The year's most ignominious filmusical insult” “so beneath contempt it defies description.”
BREEZY (Michel Legrand) – one of the year’s “most awful offenders”
THE LONG GOODBYE / THE MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING / CINDERELLA LIBERTY (John Williams) – "all so egregiously lacking in intertest and quality, it’s obvious that certain composers can be as numbskulled in accepting assignments as certain actors are in tackling ill-advised roles."
VISIONS OF EIGHT (Henry Mancini) – "as musically pretentious as that mess is filmically empty”
SERPICO (Mikis Theodorakis) – “perhaps the most ridiculous farrago of all”
I read Page Cook religiously back in the day because there wasn't a lot of film music writing to read back then. I not only though Cook was nuts, but though he was a woman for several years.
As much as I disliked Cook's insulting reviews, they were the only game in town, and there are times that I wish I had a stack of those old Films in Review to peruse those reviews. Does anyone know if they're online anywhere?
I read Page Cook religiously back in the day because there wasn't a lot of film music writing to read back then. I not only though Cook was nuts, but though he was a woman for several years.
Is there some new restriction on the word "thought" that I'm not aware of?
Some of Page Cook’s opinions on the scores from 1974:
THE GODFATHER PART II (Nino Rota) – “plodding, lugubrious pasta that [Rota] over-boiled”
McQ / GOLD (Elmer Bernstein) – “cannot be called polished scores no matter what rationalizations [Bernstein’s] admirers proffer”
THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (Maurice Jarre) – “inoffensive, which is enough from this ‘composer’”
THE THREE MUSKETEERS (Michel Legrand) – “empty bombast, save several beautifully written sequences”
THE LITTLE PRINCE (Lerner & Lowe) – “devitalized odds-&-ends” “embarrassing” “Angela Morley’s orchestrations and Douglas Gamley’s conducting of the Lowe music are trite.”
HUCKLEBERRY FINN (The Sherman Brothers) – “better, or rather, less boring [than THE LITTLE PRINCE], but not by much”
THE DOVE (John Barry) – “innocuous earth-bound sounds”
THE GIRL FROM PETROVKA (Henry Mancini) – “stale throw-away tunes”
99 and 44/100% DEAD (Henry Mancini) – “features a repulsive whistled theme”
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (David Shire) – “vacuous jazz-rhythms”
THE CONVERSATION (David Shire) – “negligible piano piffle”
MAN ON A SWING (Lalo Schifrin) – “opprobrious”
THE GAMBLER / BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (Jerry Fielding) – “banal”
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (Richard Rodney Bennett) – “abysmal triflings”
THE GREAT GATSBY (Nelson Riddle) – “worthless garbage shoveled onto the soundtrack”
As Cook skewers some of our favorite scores, it should be noted that most of his columns were filled with effusive praise for the scores that he did like.
Some of Page Cook’s opinions on the scores from 1974:
THE GODFATHER PART II (Nino Rota) – “plodding, lugubrious pasta that [Rota] over-boiled”
McQ / GOLD (Elmer Bernstein) – “cannot be called polished scores no matter what rationalizations [Bernstein’s] admirers proffer”
THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (Maurice Jarre) – “inoffensive, which is enough from this ‘composer’”
THE THREE MUSKETEERS (Michel Legrand) – “empty bombast, save several beautifully written sequences”
THE LITTLE PRINCE (Lerner & Lowe) – “devitalized odds-&-ends” “embarrassing” “Angela Morley’s orchestrations and Douglas Gamley’s conducting of the Lowe music are trite.”
HUCKLEBERRY FINN (The Sherman Brothers) – “better, or rather, less boring [than THE LITTLE PRINCE], but not by much”
THE DOVE (John Barry) – “innocuous earth-bound sounds”
THE GIRL FROM PETROVKA (Henry Mancini) – “stale throw-away tunes”
99 and 44/100% DEAD (Henry Mancini) – “features a repulsive whistled theme”
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (David Shire) – “vacuous jazz-rhythms”
THE CONVERSATION (David Shire) – “negligible piano piffle”
MAN ON A SWING (Lalo Schifrin) – “opprobrious”
THE GAMBLER / BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (Jerry Fielding) – “banal”
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (Richard Rodney Bennett) – “abysmal triflings”
THE GREAT GATSBY (Nelson Riddle) – “worthless garbage shoveled onto the soundtrack”
As Cook skewers some of our favorite scores, it should be noted that most of his columns were filled with effusive praise for the scores that he did like.
it Would interesting to see what his choices were for the Best of 1974.
