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Posted: |
Dec 31, 2019 - 3:55 AM
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By: |
Rollin Hand
(Member)
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Yes, above all it would be great to have a selection of the wonderful Oliver Nelson cues. There are some fantastic action pieces throughout the first few seasons, not just generic TV stuff, but long sequences showcasing what sounds to me like Artie Kane (?) on keyboards.
And the Gil Mellé (POR SUPUESTO) for the Pilot Movie (later re-edited to make it part of the "normal" series. That became "The Moon and the Desert", didn't it? Amazing stuff, but it didn't fit with the later Six Buck Man sound template. I love it anyway, por supuesto.
And now a question - There were three feature-length "movies" before the series proper began, is that right? First the one which became "The Moon and the Desert" (the original TV Movie is sometimes referred to, I'm not sure if erroneously, as CYBORG). Then there was WINE, WOMEN AND WAR, scored - I think - by Stu Phillips (?). Then Mellé was back for THE SOLID GOLD KIDNAPPING.
That last one really interests me, because when I saw it (and taped it off the telly in the mid-'70s) it had the Mellé score as written. It's great too, with passages that could be right out of THE ORGANIZATION. And yet when the series went into syndication, that one was re-cut and replaced with an Oliver Nelson score. I think I read in an old thread that the Mexican (?) DVD set (EL HOMBRE NUCLEAR) has the two versions of THE SOLID GOLD KIDNAPPING. Is that right? And is it the only way to hear the Mellé score nowadays?
Actually here's another question - I believe that THE SOLID GOLD KIDNAPPING had the Mellé score jettisoned because by then, in syndication, it jarred with what people had become used to, which was the Oliver Nelson sound. And yet the original Mellé-scored Pilot, and the subsequent Phillips-scored (?) WINE, WOMEN AND WAR retained their original scores. Any more info on this?
The regular US DVD edition from Universal features the three pilots as they were first aired with their specific music scores.
https://amzn.to/2QaRFeg
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Posted: |
Dec 31, 2019 - 7:18 AM
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By: |
Rollin Hand
(Member)
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Oh, I didn't know that. Have you (or anyone) seen "The Solid Gold Kidnapping" with the original Mellé score? Any opinions?
Roughly
adequate, low-key, your typical Universal telefilm score by the composer (a Mellé's potpourri), with a dominant string section (supported by a piano, an electric piano, a flute, a bass guitar and a nice warm sax with a fat brass section), two bizarre electronic cues, on the whole it’s discreetly silky smooth jazz funk/jazz fusion, with pre-Kolchak The Night Stalker arrangements, one cue resembles “Lipstick Commercial” from The Sentinel which is a rework of a Columbo cue.
Do you catch the general idea of that solid gold Mellé?
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I'm crazy about what Oliver Nelson did for the show, but the Melle material is a different taste entirely.
Both bionic shows were incredibly lucky with their music: The Bionic Woman got Joe Harnell, whose sound was at least as important as Lindsay Wagner's charisma in making the show work. Many of the scripts were weak, but I kept coming back for Jaime's persona and Joe's sensational music.
Nelson made bionics cool, and Harnell practically created Jaime Sommers. Now if only the Nelson estate would do what Harnell did, and get his personal tapes out as albums.
Incidentally, Harnell's OOP CDs can still be found on eBay, but at $8.99 this double album set has to be one of the biggest bargains in the download universe:
https://www.amazon.com/Film-Music-Joe-Harnell/dp/B0040IBMN2/
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I just.watched.the second pilot.and was.shocked.they got away with this. risque, Bondian double entendre:
After making love to a Russian spy:
Woman: I always heard.American men were soft.
Austin: Well we rise to the occasion.
Later after busting through the.wall of their ship..cabin:
Austin: Sorry.i violated your porthole.
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I just.watched.the second pilot.and was.shocked.they got away with this. risque, Bondian double entendre:
After making love to a Russian spy:
Woman: I always heard.American men were soft.
Austin: Well we rise to the occasion.
Later after busting through the.wall of their ship..cabin:
Austin: Sorry.i violated your porthole.
Those first couple of TV movies were trying to create an American James Bond persona, a secret agent that women fell for despite his being a snarky male chauvinist making sexual wisecracks. Wine, Women, and War even gave its villain a "corporate boardroom" scene lifted right out of THUNDERBALL.
Thankfully, the weekly series dropped that stuff, and played to Lee Majors' strengths as a down-to-earth, warm and friendly mid-westerner.
As far as "getting away with" sexual snark, the 1970s were a LOT more permissive than the culture is now. Early feminism promoted sexual freedom and daring, probably more so than was good for women. The pendulum swung back later, and now feminism is more inclined to police male behavior, rather than encourage bawdiness to show how "liberated" we are.
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Agree with Zap
I'm gonna skip the.movies and go to a.1.
I'll.get back to it later.
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Posted: |
Jan 19, 2020 - 3:01 PM
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By: |
The Shadow
(Member)
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Dear Guys:
Of the Six Million Dollar Man series, which episodes should have their cues/soundtracks come out on a CD?
....What episodes would you choose?
==jthree
Oliver Nelson contribution to the series' success is huge IMHO and his musical ideas are well developed throughout the first 3 seasons, well, the first 50 episodes only actually (episode 1 POPULATION:ZERO to 50 HOCUS-POCUS) .
His heavy jazz rythm influence, his accurate sense of pace and orchestrations made his musical contribution to SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN unique in the adventure TV scoring stuff. The absolute very best thing of the seventies I guess.
Here is my selection of what episodes should be totally or partially released in priority.
At least a best of of each episode would be welcome, or a big compilation work assembling all the major motives.
FROM SEASON 1:
POPULATION:ZERO (that final run is great...)
EYEWITNESS TO MURDER
Dr WELLS IS MISSING (that hand fight in the snow is gorgeous...)
THE LAST OF THE 4TH OF JULYS
BURNING BRIGHT
FROM SEASON 2:
NUCLEAR ALERT (that fast motif when Steve leaves the car and runs after the truck...)
THE PIONEERS (the two notes ostinato at the begining and that big fight scene at the end...)
PILOT ERROR (what a finale!)
THE PAL-MIR ESCORT (once the GMC mobilehome is on the road, it never stops...)
THE SEVEN MILLION DOLLAR MAN (that assault on the bad guys by Steve Austin and Barney Miller)
THE MIDAS TOUCH (Oscal Goldman's car arrival at the mine...what a theme!)
THE DEADLY REPLAY (what a finale...)
STRANGER IN BROKEN FORK (the last 5 minutes are incredible...)
THE PEEPING BLONDE (for the Baja Bossa theme)
LOST LOVE
TANEHA (all the scenes with Steve running after the cougar are gorgeous, and feature a totally new theme)
THE E.S.P. SPY
OUTRAGE IN BALINDERRY
STEVE AUSTIN, FUGITIVE (that fight scene with the Caterpillar at the end...oups!)
FROM SEASON 3:
THE PRICE OF LIBERTY (that run of Steve after the truck holding the stolen thing)
THE SONG AND DANCE SPY
THE WOLF BOY (that big fight scene and the following run into the jungle after the wolf boy - what a counterpoint: 3 themes altogether!)
TARGET IN THE SKY (that roll contest on the river and all the search for the hidden missiles...)
ONE OF OUR RUNNING BACKS IS MISSING (running scenes once again...)
THE BIONIC CRIMINAL (second Barney Miller stuff, final fight: no word...)
THE BLUE FLASH
DIVIDED LOYALTY
CLARK TEMPLETON O'FLAHERTY
HOCUS-POCUS
And for sure THE BIONIC WOMAN and THE RETURN OF THE BIONIC WOMAN deserves a CD on its own.
Of course some motives come back several times throughout the series but there are plenty and enough of them to do at least a terrific 2 CD set "à la THE INVADERS" to get an overall view of Oliver Nelson work for the series.
The JJ Johnson stuff from end Season 3 to 5 is less interesting, as the arrangements are not the caliber of those by Oliver Nelson.
Well, what do you think?
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Those first couple of TV movies were trying to create an American James Bond persona, a secret agent that women fell for despite his being a snarky male chauvinist making sexual wisecracks. Wine, Women, and War even gave its villain a "corporate boardroom" scene lifted right out of THUNDERBALL.
Thankfully, the weekly series dropped that stuff, and played to Lee Majors' strengths as a down-to-earth, warm and friendly mid-westerner.
To be more specific, the two Glen Larson TV movies went in that direction. The first TV movie was much more in line with what we'd get at the start of the series proper. Wine, Women and War and The Solid Gold Kidnapping were pretty awful. The first one was at least funny and had memorable set pieces. Sold Gold was just dull. The only thing really going for them was the music. Okay, the Dusty Springfield theme was pretty cheesy, but the score for Wine, Women and War by Stu Phillips was top class. When the network wanted to go to series, Harve Bennett was brought in (some reference materials still erroneously credit Larson for creating and producing the series - he was only involved in those two sequel TV movies) amd he specifically went back to the original version of Steve: low key country guy, a "Gary Cooper" type who - for a while at least - wasn;t totally comfortable with his bionics. When I revisited the series in the late 90's for the first time since it aired, I was surprised how introspective Steve was in the first two seasons. For a show which was known after the fact for simply slow motion running, Bigfoot and cheesy stunt casting, it had some very serious undertones. Again, at first. Later, especially in the last two seasons, Lee Majors was obviously bored and show relied mostly on gimmicks. However, for those first three years, The Six Million Dollar Man was a solid action adventure with an appealing cast and strong themes.
And Oscar Goldman, for all of his "pal" dialog and his love for Jaime, was a real d-hole for the most part.
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Posted: |
Jan 19, 2020 - 6:29 PM
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By: |
JThree
(Member)
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Dear Guys:
Of the Six Million Dollar Man series, which episodes should have their cues/soundtracks come out on a CD?
....What episodes would you choose?
==jthree
Oliver Nelson contribution to the series' success is huge IMHO and his musical ideas are well developed throughout the first 3 seasons, well, the first 50 episodes only actually (episode 1 POPULATION:ZERO to 50 HOCUS-POCUS) .
His heavy jazz rythm influence, his accurate sense of pace and orchestrations made his musical contribution to SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN unique in the adventure TV scoring stuff. The absolute very best thing of the seventies I guess.
Here is my selection of what episodes should be totally or partially released in priority.
At least a best of of each episode would be welcome, or a big compilation work assembling all the major motives.
FROM SEASON 1:
POPULATION:ZERO (that final run is great...)
EYEWITNESS TO MURDER
Dr WELLS IS MISSING (that hand fight in the snow is gorgeous...)
THE LAST OF THE 4TH OF JULYS
BURNING BRIGHT
FROM SEASON 2:
NUCLEAR ALERT (that fast motif when Steve leaves the car and runs after the truck...)
THE PIONEERS (the two notes ostinato at the begining and that big fight scene at the end...)
PILOT ERROR (what a finale!)
THE PAL-MIR ESCORT (once the GMC mobilehome is on the road, it never stops...)
THE SEVEN MILLION DOLLAR MAN (that assault on the bad guys by Steve Austin and Barney Miller)
THE MIDAS TOUCH (Oscal Goldman's car arrival at the mine...what a theme!)
THE DEADLY REPLAY (what a finale...)
STRANGER IN BROKEN FORK (the last 5 minutes are incredible...)
THE PEEPING BLONDE (for the Baja Bossa theme)
LOST LOVE
TANEHA (all the scenes with Steve running after the cougar are gorgeous, and feature a totally new theme)
THE E.S.P. SPY
OUTRAGE IN BALINDERRY
STEVE AUSTIN, FUGITIVE (that fight scene with the Caterpillar at the end...oups!)
FROM SEASON 3:
THE PRICE OF LIBERTY (thant run of Steve after the truck holding the stolen thing)
THE SONG AND DANCE SPY
THE WOLF BOY (that big fight scene and the following run into the jungle after the wolf boy - what a counterpoint: 3 themes altogether!)
TARGET IN THE SKY (that roll contest on the river and all the search for the hidden missiles...)
ONE OF OUR RUNNING BACKS IS MISSING (running scenes once again...)
THE BIONIC CRIMINAL (second Barney Miller stuff, final fight: no word...)
THE BLUE FLASH
DIVIDED LOYALTY
CLARK TEMPLETON O'FLAHERTY
HOCUS-POCUS
And for sure THE BIONIC WOMAN and THE RETURN OF THE BIONIC WOMAN deserves a CD on its own.
Well, what do you think?
What do you think about the Bigfoot episodes?
Three
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The Secret of Bigfoot as the first episode I saw after a huge gap of years. Someone passed me a VHS copy of the laser disc print. I loved the music. I still do, there's some nice themes in there and a few great action licks. It's not on the level of Oliver Nelson, but I would welcome a CD of it.
J.J. Johnson did nice work for the series.
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Has anything official been said by one of the labels? Reading through the comments has brought back some nice memories of the show, however cheesy it may have been at times.
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I was terrified of Bigfoot when the episode first aired. I think my mother finally changed the channel so I could get a grip. Flash forward to 1995 & I come home Friday & Sci Fi channel has been added to the cable lineup. Six million dollar man is on at 6pm!! I sit down and damn it’s the “Secret of Bigfoot” episode ! Finally watched it 20 yrs later.
I like the music from the first episode. The fight sequence is really good I think. Luchi de Jesus did the music. It’s not as good as Nelson’s work but I still enjoy it a lot.
I was one of those kids with a cassette recorder during the show's first run. I remember hearing that Bigfoot fight music, and how I made a point of audio-taping the rerun. And when the composer's foreign name flew by in the credits, I remember thinking who the heck is that?
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I was terrified of Bigfoot when the episode first aired. Luchi de Jesus did the music.
That's right! Man, I totally forgot it was de Jesus and went mentally with Johnson without checking, Thanks!
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