A movie that really needed some kind of musical grounding, beyond a one-note Mark Isham score, and one of the best scores he wrote from that era. Absolute shame it was removed.
I'm a big fan of John Barry's score for THE SCARLET LETTER. In his commentary on the Blu-Ray, Roland Joffe mentions a couple of times how much he loved Barry's score and how well it supported the film. IMO Bernstein missed the movie that was on-screen. It's not that the score itself is "bad," but it's too bombastic, even harsh at times, and seemed to miss the particular vibe of the picture, which Barry did a better job of capturing in that instance.
Talking of rejected scores, this is a very interesting interview with Maurice Jarre, where he gets into the removal of his music from both White Squall and The River Wild...
It's interesting, and yet it isn't. It's not surprising that the composer believed everybody liked his music besides the one tone-deaf fool at the top. (He may well have been told exactly that – nobody ever wants to be the bad guy.) When you read composer interviews about scores that are later tossed, they pretty much always go this way (unless Hitchcock was involved!).
In the case of The River Wild, I had a friend back in 1994 who was editing promotional material for the film. He's also a film score guy. He told me before Goldsmith was brought on that there was a lot of concern about Jarre's score around the office. It was three decades ago, I certainly don't recall if he ascribed any of that to Hanson (whom he rarely dealt with). But it wasn't high-fives all around until that damned Sheinberg meddled!
In addition to many of those listed, I wish to add "BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON" which had a beautiful original score by Riz Ortolani. The original European title is "Fratello Sole, Sorella Luna" and a soundtrack was issued under that name.
Donovan wrote some songs for that version and they were lovely, but what was done to the score on its U.S. release was horrific. New Donovan songs and a rather oddly redone underscore credited solely to Ken Thorne who wrote some original music and also incorporated spots of Ortolani music that goes uncredited.
I saw both versions, the first in Italy. It is beautifully mounted, costumes and sets brilliant, and ably directed by Franco Zeffirelli. The U.S. version seems a bit choppy to me, but I have only seen in on TV showings and it was likely cut for those.
A movie that really needed some kind of musical grounding, beyond a one-note Mark Isham score, and one of the best scores he wrote from that era. Absolute shame it was removed.
The Public Eye is a terrific movie -- which would be more terrific with Goldsmith's score.
I'm a big fan of John Barry's score for THE SCARLET LETTER. In his commentary on the Blu-Ray, Roland Joffe mentions a couple of times how much he loved Barry's score and how well it supported the film. IMO Bernstein missed the movie that was on-screen. It's not that the score itself is "bad," but it's too bombastic, even harsh at times, and seemed to miss the particular vibe of the picture, which Barry did a better job of capturing in that instance.
Huge fan of Elmer Bernstein -- but he scored The Scarlet Letter like a western. I can see why it didn't go over well.
