Historical Romances (1936-1946)

This is a nice disc of, what I would call, Korngoldian inspired music on Marco Polo. As it states in the liner notes, Erich Wolfgang Korngold specialized in historical drama, from swashbucklers like Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk, or more intimate stories like Anthony Adverse or Kings Row. Even the two sets of cues by Alfred Newman and Max Steiner in this anthology seem inspired by Korngold, so it’s fitting that they be put together. The music was performed by the Brandenberg Philharmonic under the direction of conductor Richard Kaufman. As it is so often, the scores were reconstructed by the great John W. Morgan and sound beautiful.

The opening is an overture for Warner Brothers’ 1939 historical drama Juarez that Korngold wrote for the premier. The film starred Paul Muni in the title role, and also Bette Davis. At the time I purchased this, the only music from the film was the love theme on the Charles Gerhardt disc of Bette Davis films. Since then, an extended set of sixteen cues has become available by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on Koch. The suite here is very nice, including some ingenious use of Mexican flavors and the brilliant love theme.

Next comes a very nice set of cues by Alfred Newman for the 1939 RKO production of Gunga Din. Newman starts off his opening with a few notes from the British national anthem and then moves into a set of martial themes. The fifth cue is a lovely melody that accompanies the reading of the Rudyard Kipling poem that the film was based on. Finally, “Auld Lang Syne” is heard before concluding with the end cast music. This is followed by a Korngold suite from Devotion, a 1946 attempt by Warner Brothers to tell the story of Bronte’s, England’s literary first family. Unlike the fluffy melodrama onscreen, Korngold attempted to bring in some of the gothic flavor of the novels written by the sisters and created music that seems reminiscent of his operas.

Finally, seven cues from Charge of the Light Brigade, another rousing Warner Brothers historical drama featuring Errol Flynn. This is almost superfluous now, with the two-disc set of the complete score available from Tribute Film Classics. But the different orchestra here is a nice contrast. The opening is a bit more ponderous than the William Stromberg interpretation, but soon settles into a nice set of cues. To my knowledge, this is the only disc with cues from Newman’s Gunga Din, and so that is a good reason to get it. But the overture from Juarez is very nice as well. As with most Marco Polo discs, the music is well recorded and a definite plus to anyone’s collection.

Works for String Orchestra (1936-1955)

I first fell in love with string orchestras when I heard Bernard Herrmann’s complete score to Psycho. It was captivating in a way that classical/film music had never been for me before. So, when I saw this Koch disc at the public library, I was intrigued. When I brought it home and played it, I was changed forever. I’m not a fan of atonal music at all, but that's not really what these pieces are about. They're more about dissonance, tension and release, something altogether different than abandoning tonality. That tension and release, and the interplay between the string sections, is something that resonates deeply for me, and this will forever be one of my favorite discs of music.

The disc begins with Franz Waxman’s “Sinfonietta for String Orchestra & Timpani.” Written in 1955, this is most tonal selection and the most accessible of the bunch. The timpani is a brilliant addition to the orchestra. It absolutely makes the music soar, and brings to mind the melodic and percussion work on Waxman’s music for Universal’s The Invisible Ray. The three movements last about fifteen minutes and, for me, perfectly evoke the fifties in a sonic way that even visuals could never do.

Miklós Rózsa has two selections here. The first is an “Andante for String Orchestra” from 1950. It’s a medium tempo piece about ten minutes long that has nice sections of counterpoint and drama that make it . . . dare I say the word, cinematic. And that is the beauty of all these pieces. Though written for the concert hall, they evoke in a powerful way each composer’s work in the cinema. Rózsa’s next piece is a “Concerto for String Orchestra,” written in 1943, three movements that clock in at almost twenty-five minutes. There is more dissonance in this than the previous piece along with, ironically, a strong melodic leitmotif that carries through all the movements.

The final work on the Koch disc is by Bernard Herrmann, and it is easily the most dissonant on the album, and also the earliest piece composed. His “Sinfonietta for String Orchestra” is from 1936. Five short movements around three to four minutes each, they instantly bring to mind his work on Psycho, in a fantastic way. In addition to this tremendous music I added a selection to the album from another disc to my iPod, the “Symphonic Serenade” for strings by Erich Wolfgang Korngold from 1947. It’s from a German import by CPO and makes this a complete string orchestra experience for film score lovers. This is my favorite music of all time, and I’m sure that other fans of film scores will find it equally enriching.

The Uninvited (1944)

Subtitled The Classic Film Music of Victor Young, The Uninvited is an interesting mix of unexpected music from a stalwart, if not great, Hollywood composer. The main cues, of course, are from the 1944 classic The Uninvited and are alternately atmospheric and humorous, in keeping with the split personality of the film itself. In fact, one of the great cues is the Squirrel Chase, which sounds as if it’s been used in a hundred films. Although the popular song from the film, "Stella by Starlight," is not included there is a heavy piano presence in the score as the main character, played by Ray Milland, is a pianist and composer.

The remaining cues are rather unexpected for a man who composed over two hundred films during his lengthy career. Leading off the disc is the Sousa-esque march from The Greatest Show on Earth. This was Cecil B. Demille’s penultimate picture and though it won the Academy Award in 1952, time has not been kind to it and it is seen today as somewhat overblown. The usual suspects for this Marco Polo release are here, music reconstructionist John Morgan and conductor William T. Stromberg and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, all of whom did a magnificent job.

The real gems here are the cues from Gulliver’s Travels. Max Fleischer’s attempt to compete with Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the same year, it pales in comparison in almost every way. The direction, the songs, the animation, are all a big step down from Disney’s genius. The films score, however, is amazing. Just listening to it you wouldn’t guess it was from an animated film. The opening credits are a wonderful, magical overture, complete with choir. Once, however, we get into the storm, we could be watching any great action/adventure film. Though I wasn’t expecting much, it turned out to be a real delight.

The final cues on the disc are from the Gary Cooper / Lauren Bacall historical drama Bright Leaf. Suitably dramatic music by Young underscores the pseudo-Western aspect of this film of tobacco plantation melodrama. It’s actually a nice bit of scoring. The entire disc was a real surprise for me, as Victor Young never really scored any pictures of enduring greatness and, as such, is considered somewhat lower tiered that the greats like Steiner, Korngold, Rózsa, Waxman, and Herrmann. Nevertheless, The Uninvited is a great disc for lovers of classic film scores.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

Though there have been some great scores from composers late in their careers, one thinks of Dimitri Tiomkin’s Guns of Navarone or Bernard Herrmann’s Taxi Driver, perhaps no composer had such a fruitful later career as Miklós Rózsa, who scored films like The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Time After Time and Eye of the Needle at the end of his career. But the score of his that is perhaps most impressive is his last, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid in 1982.

Several years ago the European company Prometheus released, among numerous others, two volumes of film music by Miklós Rózsa, the first being suites from Ben-Hur, King of Kings, and other of his later scores for Biblical epics. But, wonderfully, their second volume is the entire score of the Steve Martin/Carl Reiner masterpiece Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. The film is a comedy in which Martin is filmed in black and white as the detective Rigby Reardon, interacting with starts of the film noir era in clips from the classic films. The film also stars Rachel Ward and is easily one of the highlights of Martin’s career. For me, it’s the pinnacle.

It’s difficult to think of another composer more associated with film noir than Rózsa, writing for such classics as Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, The Killers, Spellbound, Brute Force, The Asphalt Jungle and a dozen others. It was natural then that Martin and Reiner would approach the master to see if he would score their film. Initially he turned them down flat, saying “I don’t do comedy.” Reiner told him it wouldn’t be like that, then asked to show him a scene from the film with Alan Ladd that had already been cut. When Rózsa saw the screening he agreed, and lovers of film music have been grateful ever since.

Rózsa wrote a beautiful main theme for the film that is the equal of any he wrote in the forties and fifties. In terms of the film itself, there were many clips that had existing music (much of it his) on it and he was forced to change keys and compose melodic bridges to integrate the existing scores. Because of this, he said it was one of his most challenging scores to write. He was no doubt inspired, though, by Martin’s antics onscreen as he also wrote a couple of cues that fully support the comedic undertone of the film. Ultimately, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is an incredibly satisfying score, complete with an extended Universal Theme at the beginning, and one of Miklós Rózsa’s best and comes highly recommended.