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Posted: |
Oct 17, 2020 - 9:35 AM
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By: |
OnyaBirri
(Member)
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Ms. Birri and I are on our annual Halloween movie binge, and last night we watched Ed Wood's 1965 masterpiece "Orgy of the Dead," one of the greatest films ever made.
We use to have this gem on VHS, but we never upgraded to DVD. Luckily, we found it on Tubi.
I always assumed that the music was anonymous library music, but it was all apparently written by a composer named Jaime Mendoza-Nava.
Mendoza-Nava's imdb listing suggests that he did a lot of B- or even C-grade films. Still, his music for "Orgy of the Dead" is quite varied. (I will not tell you why it is varied, as that would involve possible spoilers.) While some of it is unlistenable, there are some nice Baxter-esque moments and some big-band-ish charts with some interesting harmonic devices.
I would assume that the tapes are long since gone. And maybe that's not a big deal, as I would rather enjoy this music in the context of the amazing visuals.
Anyone know anything about Jaime Mendoza-Nava?
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Posted: |
Oct 17, 2020 - 9:40 AM
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By: |
OnyaBirri
(Member)
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Wikipedia reports the following:
Mendoza-Nava was born in La Paz, Bolivia. He studied at The Juilliard School and Madrid Royal Conservatory, the Sorbonne, and with Nadia Boulanger. He won the Madrid Conservatory's First Prize in 1950, completing the five-year program in a year's time. Eventually, he was on the staff of Walt Disney Studios and his works were recorded by MGM Records.
Much of his music is inspired by the pentatonic music of the Andes.
In Hollywood, he also had several credits as a sound editor.
He died in Los Angeles, California, on May 31, 2005.
Mendoza-Nava’s grandson, Nic Mendoza (born April 4th, 1989), is a music and multimedia producer.[1] Nic is the founder of his production entity, Uprise LLC, and Co-Founder of a production company and record imprint, Encore Endeavor One (EE1). Nic is the Producer of Up, Up & Away! a musical fable, starring Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis, Jr. and The Next Dimension, and continues to work with the duo on their forthcoming project with BMG.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Mendoza-Nava
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Ms. Birri and I are on our annual Halloween movie binge, and last night we watched Ed Wood's 1965 masterpiece "Orgy of the Dead," one of the greatest films ever made.
Muhahaha! Thanks for that one.
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Ms. Birri and I are on our annual Halloween movie binge, and last night we watched Ed Wood's 1965 masterpiece "Orgy of the Dead," one of the greatest films ever made.
Muhahaha! Thanks for that one.
Frame for frame, it is a better film than much of what routinely gets discussed around here.
Well, it is an Ed Wood film even among Ed Wood films, so it certainly has curiosity charme.
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This is on CD on the Strange label: (Strange 0001-2) from 1995.
I found it at Tower Records in Boston in 1995 , but have seen it once or twice since then.
This is just an audio rip of the soundtrack with dialogue and sound effects as well as the Mendoza-Nava score. There is some traditional, dramatic score but this is very minor. Most of this is a type of exotica-burlesque style programme that is background for the dance numbers the victims are forced to watch. The good part of the dance music is that much of it plays dialogue-free with only occasional shouted encouragement from Criswell.
There are 19 tracks. There are 9 pictures of the nude dancers on a non-stapled, folding cover of the booklet type used by BSX, and some Monstrous Movie Music releases. There is a plot summary and brief producers notes .
There are no stand-alone Jaime Mendoza-Nava tracks. All are marred.... or enhanced... as you may prefer, by wolfman howls, and Criswell soliloquies. It proudly sits on my shelf alphabetically next to Alan Menken's Disney output.
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I can't think of an Ed Wood film that is as good visually as this. The colors are great.
Hey, hey... easy on the peyote.
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