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| This is a comments thread about FSM CD: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland/Petulia |
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I own 2 copies of PETULIA on LP*, and haven't heard it in YEARS. I really should pick this one up.
It's perhaps the last year Barry wrote something that truly intrigued me.**
*2 copies? I couldn't tell you why, in case you were going to ask.
**Apologies to the woman I know who is the Barry expert!
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By the by, if you haven't seen PETULIA, you can't call yourself a John Barry fan.
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Petulia is one of Barry's most haunting scores from a prime period in his career.
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Alex, what is your source on that? I knew Barry and Lester fought over The Knack, and that Lester hated Robin & Marian, but I've never read a word about Lester's views on the Petulia music.
Lester, also, brought Barry in to re-score Joseph Losey's Boom! when Losey didn't like John Dankworth's score and was busy on another project.
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Even I love PETULIA (as someone who's not really a Barry fan), but I've never seen the film.
Huge fan of Barry's score as well. The film is worth seeing -- it's a strange but interesting look at what they used to call the "generation gap". George C. Scott plays a newly divorced, middle-aged doctor, who finds it difficult to relate to a culture that is now dominated by young narcissistic, druggies.
It's great-looking movie as well (I suspect due more to DP Nicholas Roeg than Richard Lester). It is also interesting to see late 1960s California interpreted by London filmmakers, when you consider the latter's dominating influence on pop culture was rapidly giving-way to the former's as the 60s drew to a close. There are even cameos by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead!
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Regarding the look of the film, give Roeg credit, sure, but let's not forget that Lester's strong visual sense was a hallmark of his sixties films--The Knack, the 2 Beatles films, A Fuuny Thing Happened . . ., etc.
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...
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Alex, what is your source on that? I knew Barry and Lester fought over The Knack, and that Lester hated Robin & Marian, but I've never read a word about Lester's views on the Petulia music.
Lester, also, brought Barry in to re-score Joseph Losey's Boom! when Losey didn't like John Dankworth's score and was busy on another project.
Barry did once hint at that in an interview, but I'm not convinced it's accurate.
Like you said, if Lester really didn't like Barry's work, you have to wonder why he kept hiring him, given he was not forced to do so.
As you said, the first thing Lester did after PETULIA was to direct (uncredited) the post-production on Joseph Losey's film, BOOM.
And the first thing Lester did on that was to dump the score that Losey had commissioned and ask Barry to replace it.
Again, you have to wonder why he'd do that if he really didn't like Barry's music.
The thing is, Barry was sometimes a terrible witness to his own history.
It's true that Lester didn't like ROBIN AND MARIAN, but as you know Barry was brought in by the producers to replace the score Lester had commissioned from Michel Legrand. Lester was always sore about that.
It could be that Barry was projecting that on to the other films they did.
Or it could be that Barry found Lester difficult to please on those films and exaggerated it in the telling.
Or it could be that after ROBIN AND MARIAN, Lester retrospectively cast shade on those earlier scores.
Or it could be that he was just plain misremembering.
Cheers
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To add to the Barry/Lester history, they worked together before The Knack--on TV commercials, where JB praised Lester's ability to quickly grab an audience, and, presumably, Lester admired Barry's versatility and ability to deliver the goods quickly. Barry's reputation of being difficult and inflexible really came much, much later.
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Even I love PETULIA (as someone who's not really a Barry fan), but I've never seen the film.
It's a must-see, Thor. If you think you can handle some unconventional film technique....
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I'm finally borrowing this ALICE dvd from the library. I've never seen it.
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Even I love PETULIA (as someone who's not really a Barry fan), but I've never seen the film.
You've had six months, Thor. I'm tapping my foot! 
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He, he. There is always soooo much on my to-see and listen-to list, something's gotta give. And I'm afraid this is one of them. But thanks for the reminder!
For every six months that passes without your seeing it, I'm taking away 1 Princess Point. 
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I'm finally borrowing this ALICE dvd from the library. I've never seen it.
Struggling to get through this.
Did John Barry think that it was artistic suicide to write anything uptempo? Tweedledee and Tweedledum were dancing a JIG for heaven's sake and Barry keeps sawing away at half-speed. Cheez.
(I also noticed that any special effect that relies on Geoffrey Unsworth is really great, by the way.)
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