 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For me (my Friedhofer collection is hardly exhaustive) I'll only mention the three which I think are all absolutely top-notch -
1) ABOVE AND BEYOND
2)ONE-EYED JACKS
3)THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
I would have added NEVER SO FEW, which is largely wonderful, but burdened by a curiously schmaltzy love theme which is far more old-fashioned than the love themes he'd written for movies fifteen years previously.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Jul 22, 2012 - 5:46 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
ToneRow
(Member)
|
I don't have anything by this guy.
Does "THE RAINS OF RANCHIPUR" have any exotica content?
Hi, OB.
From what's available of THE RAINS OF RANCHIPUR on discs, there isn't any lounge/easy-listening/source music. The orchestral score itself does not incorporate typical Indian instruments like the Tabla or the Sitar. There are, however, very long-lined melodies in RAINS, not unlike an Alex North score, with the overall focus on 1950s glamour.
Both the original tracks (on Varese Club CD) and the re-recording on Marco Polo are incomplete, and this score is paired with SEVEN CITIES OF GOLD on both albums.
I'd recommend the Marco Polo re-recording because there are more tracks (7) than the Varese (which has only 4 tracks of the survivng original sound recording).
However, the Varese version has additional music following the Main Title which color the locale setting with ethnicity. So you can take your pick on whichever disc, depending on availability and budget.
[if you want authentic classical Indian instruments and performers, then I can't recommend any more highly the NINE HOURS TO RAMA soundtrack by Malcolm Arnold]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jul 22, 2012 - 6:06 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
ToneRow
(Member)
|
I don't have anything by this guy.
Ditto.
Funny story, though: a couple of weeks ago, I ran across VON RICHTHOFEN AND BROWN on TV. I'd only known that the film was directed by Roger Corman. I'd heard the lush, soaring music and (naturally) assumed, 'Oh, this is a pretty nice Les Baxter score'. Imagine my shock when the credit read, 'Music by Hugo Friedhofer'. How had I deprived myself of his work in the past? This is gorgeous stuff and if it ranks two out of four Friedhofers, the four-Friedhofer stuff must be mindblowing.
Hi, SBD.
Keep in mind that the ratings above are only ranking Friedhofer with respect to his own body of works. A 2-star Friedhofer means a "par-for-the-course" rating, not that any of those 2s are mediocre.
Also, VON RICHTHOFEN is a "late" Friedhofer score, past his 1950s prime.
Friedhofer himself had claimed that the mid-1950s (especially 1954, 1955 & 1956) were his most splendid years of film scoring.
Pick something - anything - from 1955 if one is willing to explore vintage Friedhofer!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jul 22, 2012 - 6:42 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
OnyaBirri
(Member)
|
From what's available of THE RAINS OF RANCHIPUR on discs, there isn't any lounge/easy-listening/source music. The orchestral score itself does not incorporate typical Indian instruments like the Tabla or the Sitar. There are, however, very long-lined melodies in RAINS, not unlike an Alex North score, with the overall focus on 1950s glamour.
Thanks Tonerow. When I say "exotica," I don't mean "lounge" or "easy listening." I mean rich and challenging orchestral color that evokes far off locales, along the lines of "The Rite of Spring," "La Noche de las Mayas," Ginastera's "Panambi," Antill's "Corroboree," Kaper's uber-superior version of Villa Lobos's "Green Manions," and Les Baxter at this very best, e.g. "The Sacred Idol."
So, based on my criteria for exoticism, it sounds like the score is typical 1950s Hollywood romanticism and not very exotic.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jul 22, 2012 - 7:36 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
ToneRow
(Member)
|
So, based on my criteria for exoticism, it sounds like the score is typical 1950s Hollywood romanticism and not very exotic.
Yes, with RAINS OF RANCHIPUR the Indian aspects were kept to a minimum in favor of standard Western orchestra instruments.
This is not typical of Friedhofer, who offers much more exoticism in a lot of his other scores.
There's muscular action music side-by-side with a lyrical love theme in THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA, which also has Asian scales and colorings all throughout to depict the Japanese locale.
ONE EYED JACKS is not a typical Western. It, too, has a romantic love theme, though much of JACKS is very dark and brooding music. There's no heroic Americana here, but plenty of Mexican seasonings, some gentle cantina guitar while other parts being bellicose bandito attack music. If you like Ginastera ballet music or Carlos Chavez pieces, then you could find a lot to like with ONE EYED JACKS.
Perhaps the most "ethnic" of all Friedhofer scores is BOY ON A DOLPHIN, which has very authentic-sounding Greek folk music. But most of this score is evocative and lush, with 2 tracks containing mermaid/siren-like wordless female vocalise. I've not seen BOY ON A DOLPHIN, but its rapturous music can just as easily conjure up underwater photography, hidden treasures and/or female pulchritude...
...speaking of which, I would have thought Intrada's THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER would be right in OnyaBirri's alley!
A CD album from 2006 which spotlights female voluptuousness on its cover is rare.
The main theme for MAMIE STOVER is a very sassy-brassy tune, and the rest of the score alternates big band jazz source tracks with orchestral passages signaling flirtatiousness.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jul 22, 2012 - 8:20 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
ToneRow
(Member)
|
I mean rich and challenging orchestral color that evokes far off locales, along the lines of "The Rite of Spring," "La Noche de las Mayas," Ginastera's "Panambi," Antill's "Corroboree," Kaper's uber-superior version of Villa Lobos's "Green Manions," and Les Baxter at this very best, e.g. "The Sacred Idol."
You want rich orchestral color and exotica?
You should try to get a copy of Varese Sarabande's BIRD OF PARADISE soundtrack by Daniele Amfitheatrof:
Listening to Amfitheatrof's PARADISE, one would think that Alexander ("poem of ecstasy") Scriabin hadn't died and was working in Fox studios in 1951 scoring this picture with rhapsodic Polynesian hedonism.
Amfitheatrof unleashes upon the listener dense aural textures of such Dionysian rapture that this score could be a concert companion to Karol Szymanowski's 1st Violin Concerto or 3rd Symphony (if you know of Ginastera, then I hope you are familiar, too, with Scriabin and Szymanowski).
And this is not too off-topic, because the companion piece on this Varese disc is Hugo Friedhofer's LYDIA BAILEY.
LYDIA BAILEY's restrained palette pales in comparison to BIRD OF PARADISE, but Friedhofer manages his own Hugo Voodoo by incorporating elements of Calypso into the standard Western studio orchestra to depict LYDIA BAILEY's Haitian setting.
This, to me, is an indispensable Varese Club CD of Foxotica!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But yeah OEJ is my favorite. 
