As I prepare to teach a class that has a significant portion of film music history, I have been cramming, besides, it is not an unpleasant way to spend time.
1) The Greatest Show On Earth (1952) CB DeMille's Oscar winning film, of which I have distant memories of, is such claptrap, I could not watch it all the way through! I went there for a score credited to Victor Young (of whose scores I am very fond of), but he has less music then the interminable circus wheezing, so not worth the time.
2) The Big Sleep (1946), oh com'on,
if this isn't as good a way to spend time, I give up. Bacall is so sexy and real. Women of today should look at her teeth in this, they are not all straight, perfect little chicklets, yet she exudes more of what it takes then ten of today's plastique fantastiques. Max Steiner (yes, my favorite) supplies, if not a great score, a perfect score. Each scene and sequence is limned in a series of functional parts, using the prevalent over wrought orchestrational style that we, now, just accept as part of film noir.
The simple minded would scoff "mickey-mousing", a supposedly derogatory adjective used by music lovers who are way too sophisticated or, let's just say it, simply too "intelligent" and "tasteful" (by their own estimation) to fall for the popular junk that movies and its music are. These people are much more common then would be thought possible, and they brook no argument. Just as well, I walk around them into the movie house, sit down with my popcorn, and enjoy the craft, hallelujah I AM a bum!
3) The Egyptian (1954) Another excuse to look at Gene Tierney, let alone the most curious Bella Darvi. The credit for the score is shared between our old "friend" Alfred Newman and Bernard Herrmann. Reputedly they alternated cues, a kind of fun behavior that could only happen during the time of studio film departments. I tend to associate the low winds and brass with Herrmann, and give the cues I like to him in my prejudiced mind, but I will have to research a bit more before I have a right to that prejudice. In any case, a score with some wonderful cues and sound that makes it worth while for a film music lover.
4) The Young Lions (1958) A war movie of such obvious and cliché heart that it belies a good cast. Hugo Friedhofer, now back to some sturm und drang as opposed to the "Americana" of The Greatest Years of Our Lives, is less affective. A competent but outside of a few better cues, an uninspired score.
1) The Greatest Show On Earth (1952) CB DeMille's Oscar winning film, of which I have distant memories of, is such claptrap, I could not watch it all the way through! I went there for a score credited to Victor Young (of whose scores I am very fond of), but he has less music then the interminable circus wheezing, so not worth the time.
2) The Big Sleep (1946), oh com'on,
if this isn't as good a way to spend time, I give up. Bacall is so sexy and real. Women of today should look at her teeth in this, they are not all straight, perfect little chicklets, yet she exudes more of what it takes then ten of today's plastique fantastiques. Max Steiner (yes, my favorite) supplies, if not a great score, a perfect score. Each scene and sequence is limned in a series of functional parts, using the prevalent over wrought orchestrational style that we, now, just accept as part of film noir.The simple minded would scoff "mickey-mousing", a supposedly derogatory adjective used by music lovers who are way too sophisticated or, let's just say it, simply too "intelligent" and "tasteful" (by their own estimation) to fall for the popular junk that movies and its music are. These people are much more common then would be thought possible, and they brook no argument. Just as well, I walk around them into the movie house, sit down with my popcorn, and enjoy the craft, hallelujah I AM a bum!
3) The Egyptian (1954) Another excuse to look at Gene Tierney, let alone the most curious Bella Darvi. The credit for the score is shared between our old "friend" Alfred Newman and Bernard Herrmann. Reputedly they alternated cues, a kind of fun behavior that could only happen during the time of studio film departments. I tend to associate the low winds and brass with Herrmann, and give the cues I like to him in my prejudiced mind, but I will have to research a bit more before I have a right to that prejudice. In any case, a score with some wonderful cues and sound that makes it worth while for a film music lover.
4) The Young Lions (1958) A war movie of such obvious and cliché heart that it belies a good cast. Hugo Friedhofer, now back to some sturm und drang as opposed to the "Americana" of The Greatest Years of Our Lives, is less affective. A competent but outside of a few better cues, an uninspired score.
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