Watching on TV in 1969. I was 11 years old. Here's the cue and then the scene with the cue. SPOILERS of course if you haven't seen the movie. I'm 65 now and hearing and watching I'm 11 again and overwhelmed by the emotion of the scene and the score. God Bless You Alex North!
Please share the First time the music in a movie made you cry. Thanks.
The direction by Kubrick, the acting, cinematography and editing must also surely be commended. North's music superbly jelled with all the elements and made it unforgettable.
I think the first time maybe was To Kill a Mockingbird.
But now that I'm older and no wiser the scene that cracks me up is when the Fredric March character arrives home in The Best Years of Our Lives. Friedhofer's music, yes, but the combination of that with the acting, direction, cutting, the atmosphere created, makes me blub every time, I'm not ashamed to admit...
Ah! Another one - the ending of Ride the High Country (aka Guns in the Afternoon) as the Joel McCrea character succumbs to his wounds. Again, it was all the elements working well; unquestionably George Bassman's magnum opus.
The first time I cried was when Cary Grant leaned against the door ...
I haven't seen the film for many years but I know that scene ... one of the greatest in the era of US cinema. Cary Grant may not have been the best actor but for me that scene showed just how wonderful he was as a STAR of the silver screen.
1: I keep hoping the Warren Beatty~Annette Benning 1994 remake Love Affair will get broadcast so that I can see if WB emulates CG ...
2: When I next watch AAFTR (1957), I shall pay attention to the music (hoping I'm not sobbing too much ...) and, if 1 holds, consider Ennio Morricone's take
I am aware that AAFTR was, itself, a remake of Love Affiar (1939) but I don't think I've ever seen it.
One that always reduces me to mush is the water pump scene in THE MIRACLE WORKER. Lawrence Rosenthal's music starts to build when Helen begins to speak and Annie realizes that she's finally succeeded. Then, the music soars when Helen's parents realize what is happening. The catharsis is so intense after all the challenges the audience endures through most of the film.
Jerome Moross' brother admitted when he heard the main theme to "The Big Country" it made him cry and my father almost did the same thing when he heard Angela Vickers' theme in Franz Waxman's score for "A Place In The Sun" (via the Charles Gerhardt rerecording).
Mine was near the begining of BEN-HUR when the star fades and the fanfare kicks off. I don't know what emotion hit me. It was at a roadshow showing on the gigantic curved screen at the Sheffield ABC with the Westrex 6-channel surround system on steroids. It all just overwhelmed me.
The Finale of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Elmer Bernstein was probably my second time crying. The BOO Cue was also quite emotional, but the Finale with Narration really floored me. Still does, always will! Sadly the only youtube offerings of the final scene are mangled and cut off before the music ends. That really sucks. What was even the point of putting them on?
First time actually crying -- ugly, weeping, face-a-blur bawling -- was the bicycle chase in E.T. Also cried during the falling yellow raft near the beginning of Temple of Doom (those trilling flutes mid-fall choke me up for some reason), and then many years went by, until The Iron Giant. Kamen scoring the Giant putting himself back together in the barn, and then, the final atomic explosion when he flies into the missile. Full on crying, even now.
My first time was in the mid-sixties as a kid. It immediately became my favorite film and over the years I've seen it every two or three years . . . do the math. Anyway, just had the opportunity to see it on the big screen a couple of weeks ago. Still heart-wrenching. Still one of my favorite scores.
This one kills me now, but didn't when I was a kid. Even though I loved the novel (one of the few I read in school I really connected this, though I've always been a big reader.) I don't even want to watch the last 15 minutes of Mockingbird any more, because it just makes me bawl my eyes out. (I'm actually getting a lump in my throat writing this, for real.)
The earliest I can remember, and I would have been something like 12 or 13, was the final moments of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, as Lillie Langtry reads the judge's last letter in the ghost-town museum. When that wonderful Jarre theme swells, I plotz. In a good way.
Miss Lillie Langtry/Judge Roy Bean by Jarre
Though now that I think about it, Brian's Song may have come first. When Jack Warden's narration says "But rather how he lived - how he did live" and LeGrand's theme comes in big.
Sometimes being on the nose is just the right answer.
I have no idea now what the first time was, a clear one stands in my mind from many years ago: "Ghost".
The re-recording of the main theme idea from Alex North's SADLY unreleased score to the award-winning and unreleased for purchase or rent film "Unchained".
Just works so beautiful wonders in the film. And odd choice, but it was a good decision.
I turn to a wailing baby at the end of Field of Dreams. When the orchestra swells as Kevin Costner asks his dad to play catch. UGH. Gets me every f*****g time. Horner just absolutely nailed that assignment and slayed it thereafter.
Pretty certain that it's the scene in the blind man's hut in Bride of Frankenstein. It had a big impact as a fairly little kid, certainly before I left primary school, so before I was 11. Obviously the scene altogether was effective, but I absolutely know the music was the biggest reason.
One that always reduces me to mush is the water pump scene in THE MIRACLE WORKER. Lawrence Rosenthal's music starts to build when Helen begins to speak and Annie realizes that she's finally succeeded. Then, the music soars when Helen's parents realize what is happening. The catharsis is so intense after all the challenges the audience endures through most of the film.
If you don't cry during this scene, you're dead inside.
