Movie/TV/Game Scores Through The Ages - Alan's Personal Favourites

Fortunately I know what you're like and I know that you don't really mean it!

Red River doesn't really do much for me - although the presentation of the score in the re-recording to another triumph in production. If it's any consolation, Madame Bovary was a very close second to Samson and Delilah but I just couldn't pass on that theme. Which is more than I can say for The Third Man. That's a particularly annoying theme to me.

Thomas

1950 - Sunset Blvd. - Franz Waxman

There wasn't really any other choice for 1950 - and not just because I don't have very many examples of scores from this year. Waxman's score is wonderful and it gets off to a frenetic start with the prelude and "Chase and Mansion".

Sunset Blvd. is full of nostalgia for the era (a lot to do with the orchestrations Waxman chose) and the music is moody (whilst being listenable!). Though there are lighter moments, particularly in some of the use of Joe's theme. There's never a dull moment and that's a testament to Waxman's talent.

I admit that this isn't a score that I listen to very often - and I'd forgotten just how interesting it can be. But listening to it again now I can appreciate it again.

Waxman is my favourite Golden Age composer and everything, but somehow, I never really got to like SUNSET BOULEVARD. I don't know why...it's something about the film noirish "intensity", almost Rozsa-like in its use of of dramatic brass and strings that grate a bit. I have the Varese rerecording, and the performance is fine and concertey - just the way I like it - so it's only a property of the music itself. I think the theme/suite is enough for me here, so I'm actually selling the CD and keeping the suite on the LEGENDS OF HOLLYWOOD compilation.

I think that this is what I like so much about Sunset Blvd. and why I'd say that this was may favourite Waxman score!

And I really like the Varese re-recording.

BTW, 1951 is going to be a touch choice - and I may need an extra day to finally decide what my choice is.

Sunset Boulevard was one great film too! As part of my North Park older film series a few years back this was one of my selections. A film not to be missed.
Thomas

Interesting foreword from the series' editor Kate Daubney who uses the platform to complain at the fees charged by copyright holders for the reproduction of manuscript quotations/extracts.

She mentions that sometimes the costs can be so high that score quotations that are used in written works that discuss film scores can be so show as to make their quotation meaningless for any useful discussions.

No, not really. It's just a short editorial:

She talks about how the series of books needs to reflect the changing environment of film scoring, changes such as the use of computers and electronic composition techniques and even the increased interest in director's cuts in DVD releases*. But, something that hasn't changed is the relationship between film music studies and the holders of copyright.

She talks about how the concept of "fair use" of quotation from "textual sources" is commonplace and universally accepted in research but researchers in film music are constantly being obstructed from seeing original manuscripts or quoting passages by the copyright holders..."they seem suspicious of authors' reasons for requesting such permissions with some charging outrageously high fees for small numbers of quotations that do not represent in any accurate way a potential threat to their revenue." They seem to be afraid that their music (in manuscript form) is going to be illegally reproduced.

*From reading some of the text in the book it seems that Alex North's score for the film was originally edited out because the censors/filmmakers felt that in the original form the score was too provocative at one point. A subsequent release of the DVD to A Streetcar Named Desire may have seen this portion re-introduced as originally intended? I need to read the book to see if this is correct.

1951 - The Day The Earth Stood Still - Bernard Herrmann

Okay, get it over with. Give me your wrath! I've been listening to other worthy scores such as A Streetcar Named Desire, The Thing From Another World and Rozsa's Quo Vadis but, for me, they don't really compare with what Herrmann came out with.

This captures all the insecurities of the era (through his style) and more-or-less defines the sound of sci-fi scores with the brilliant use of the theremin. Track after track is mood-setting rather than mirroring the action (listen to something like "Klaatu" and on the surface it seems boring but just think what the music is trying to say and it's just brilliant!) But he's not averse to mimicking the on-screen action: Gort's lumbering gait is perfectly captured by Herrmann's music.

I'm a bit biased - I love Herrmann's style in this mode rather than a lot of his earlier "romantic" scores - but it's a solid score that was a bit overshadowed by a lot of "better" scores in 1951.

Quo Vadis for me easily compares with Herrmann's work, and in fact surpasses it in sheer beauty: Rozsa is in top form here and delivers not one note out of place. In fact, while I prefer symphonic suite representations, the archival cues on FSM's Rozsa box are so magnificent that they blow a lot of the Ben Hur archival cues right out of the water!

BUT Herrmann's work on The Day The Earth Stood Still is a landmark work. It's taut, it's clever, it fits the film, the mood and the era to a T, and -next to North By Northwest- is my favourite Herrmann score of them all. In fact, I'm quite sure this would have been my pick of '51 as well.

But what a year for film music.

What. A. Year.

Too stunned to comment
Thomas

Alan just said that he might not have Herrmann next year

Street Car is good

I think that North's score is probably the more technically accomplished of the two scores. The recent book I have on A Streetcar Named Desire is certainly full of discussions on what North composed - and how his score fits in the whole scheme of things. It is certainly my second choice.