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

1962 - How The West Was Won - Alfred Newman

A score that is almost as wide in scope as the Cinerama format it was originally presented in! As heard in the 2-CD Rhino version it comes in more as a musical as an orchestral film score with all the (period) songs used. A great main title theme starts things off and, for me, sits up there as one of the greatest themes around never mind a great western theme.

I do have to be in the right mood to listen to this one - and I rarely have time to listen to it from start to finish - but the breadth of feeling this score kindles is immensely satisfying.

Looking at all the other scores around this year it's another very difficult choice: Birdman of Alcatraz (Bernstein), Cape Fear (Herrmann), Freud (Goldsmith), Sodom and Gomorrah (Rozsa), To Kill A Mockingbird (Bernstein) & Two For The Seesaw (Previn) from "Hollywood" as well as foreign scores such as King Kong vs Godzilla (Ifukube) and Sato's Sanjuro are also worth a mention.

I too find the songs grating but the score is very good.

Still, I wouldn't have chosen this personally.

To Kill A Mockingbird is my choice

Absolutely.
That's why my absolute favourite is Walk On The Wild Side (followed closely by Newman's absolutely epic How The West Was Won by the way).

I am really curious what Alan's choice will be. It's really starting to heat up now as more people are starting to take an interest and voicing their opinion!

EDIT: I didn't notice there was a new page, hence my post was mostly in respinse to Tom's last post on the previous page.
Pleasantly surprised to see Newman's absolutely phenomenal and ultimately listenable and enjoyably rousing and moving score to How The West Was Won as Alan's favourite.
I've dearly loved and appreciated this score for MANY years: it's one that works on many levels (the visceral not being the least of them). The Entr'acte with Ken whatisname's choral work is just to die for. Sheer, bloody genius.
Love this score. LOVE it.

1963 - Cleopatra - Alex North

I know I'm going to come in for a lot of stick on this selection; particularly as there's Elmer Bernstein's The Great Escape in this year as well. It's a great theme, but it's repeated so often in the score and it's been tainted by the main theme's use by some brass-playing England football supporters.

I've been listening to both Bernstein's score and North's - and the latter score just seems more "meaty". North composed a couple of highlights themes (Caesar/Cleopatra & Antony/Cleopatra), both romantic (in their own ways) but both tinged with sadness.

It's a brooding score in many parts littered with pockets of (relatively) lighter music (love themes). A lot of people will be turned off by the more modern-styled North-isms heard in tracks such as "Moon Gate" and a lot of the battle sequences.

A definite powerhouse of a score worthy of some attention.


Other notable titles from this year include John Barry's From Russia With Love with that wonderful title song and Ronald Stein's brilliantly over-the-top theme for The Haunted Palace. There's Mancini's theme for The Pink Panther and Herrmann's score for Jason and The Argonauts.

And definitely worth a mention is the appearance of Ron Grainer's wonderful theme to Doctor Who (a theme that's been horribly mutilated in the latest incarnation of the BBC series airing at the moment.)

We're just stunned into silence.

I'm very surprised you didn't choose THE BIRDS? ( This variation on a joke is so old I'll get my coat )


Mancini's Charade was also this year and my own choice would have been Jerry Goldsmith's THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER ( though, of course, this has never been released ).

All I can say is this is a personal list. I like the Cardinal, Lillies of the Field, From Russia With Love.
Thomas

no argument from me either

It's a favourite saying of yours for the vast majority of my selections! I'm hoping that it's still interesting for you though.

Of course with the added proviso that whatever anyone thinks differently from myself is just plain wrong.
But that goes without saying.
Even though I just said it.

I have no idea which score I would pick for 1963, but definitely NOT CLEOPATRA. Too harsh for me. And obviously not John Barry.

Maybe Nino Rota's IL GATTOPARDO? Mancini's PINK PANTHER? Something like that (again it's the problem of knowing the release dates of films, which is NOT something I'm good at).

^
I use the same to confirm / re-affirm film dates.

That's always the worry I have as well when I come to do this sort of list. Maybe when I revisit this again in another 5-6 years FSM/Intrada will have released so many "mainstream" scores they'll be doing things like a French New Wave boxed set - with a limited run of half-a-dozen?

Yes, some, but far from all.

Some of the New Wave scores, especially the Godard ones, were often chopped up and moved around, so I think they could get new life as a coherent listening experience. Antoine Duhamel's score for PIERROT LE FOU, for example (an often-referenced example of mine), which has this lovely little scherzo that Godard simply turns on and off during one particular sequence.