Arthur Benjamin and Leighton Lucas

I'll beat Timmer here to the post.

The 1958 film ICE COLD IN ALEX was scorerd by Leighton Lucas ; I own a region 2 DVD of this film.

While the bulk of the score after the main title credit sequence is not too memorable, I recall quite vividly how similar STAR WARS by John Williams sounds to the main title credit music by Lucas.

The musical model for both these themes was no doubt "The Planets" by Gustav Holst, but, even so, it is striking when watching ICE COLD IN ALEX for the first time and thinking to oneself "Hey, that sounds like STAR WARS" because, even though this British war film was made about 20 years earlier, the fame of STAR WARS makes the Williams score the 'standard' by which many other scores are assessed.

Leighton Lucas also scored the Hitchcock film STAGE FRIGHT, but very little attention is afforded this because discussions of Hitchcock film music always seem to revolve around Bernard Herrmann.

There's definitely more by Lucas to check out.

Perhaps another member can comment on Arthur Benjamin?

Regarding Benjamin, I'm afraid I'm only familiar with the "Storm Cloud Cantata" from THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.

The other one I've heard of -- vaguely -- by name, but that's about it.

DAM BUSTERS...isn't that by someone named Eric Coates, if memory serves?! Or are there several versions?

Coates submitted the previously-written march for the film. And Lucas composed the score based around the theme - I think.

Here's a section from the booklet regarding The Dam Busters:

...The apocryphal story is that Eric Coates was approached by the film company to write the score, but told by his agent, Teddy Holmes, that film scores were not his thing. However, one day at the home of Coates, Holmes heard him start to play something on the piano – the slow tune of what would become the March – after which he went back to the film company and proclaimed that Coates would write the Theme, but at some cost! Whether the story is true or not, Coates’s March The Dam Busters has proved one of the most memorable film themes of all time. Only the slow tune in the middle of the concert march actually appears in the film. (Coates’s sole recording of the work curiously places the material in a different order to that of the printed, and oft recorded, version of the score.) The rest of the film score was composed by Lucas, who produced his own main theme, one which seems to play hide and seek with Coates’s throughout the film, both vying for supremacy...

Does anyone on the board have Arthur Benjamin's Jamaican Rumba in a digital file so that I might listen to it? I understand it is somewhat famous but I've never heard it but would like to.
Tom

I found this version by Mantovani on Youtube Tom...

JAMAICAN RUMBA

After a few seconds I immediately recognised it.

Did you listen to Jamaican Rumba Tom?