Willow  received an expanded CD release in 2022. The original soundtrack remained one of James Horner’s most popular works. The original album featured 73 minutes, 8 tracks, with 3 tracks over 10 minutes, and Bavmorda's Spell Is Cast  as an 18 minute track, but still 30 min were missing. Willow  stands out as one of Horner’s finest soundtracks with a powerful and majestic main theme and fabulous action tracks.   The movie Willow  is a 1988 American fantasy adventure film directed by Ron Howard and produced by Nigel Wooll. The film was executive produced by George Lucas and written by Bob Dolman from a story by Lucas. The film stars Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis, and Jean Marsh. Davis portrays the title character, an aspiring magician who teams up with a disaffected warrior (Kilmer) to protect a young baby princess from an evil queen (Marsh). Here is trailer Even though George Lucas developed the idea in 1972, he had to wait until the mid-1980s to make the film because visual effects technology was finally advanced enough to execute his vision. Lucas approached Howard to direct during the post-production phase of Cocoon in 1985. Bob Dolman was brought in to write the screenplay, coming up with seven drafts that Lucas was actively involved in the developmental process of each draft. The film was released in 1988 to mixed reviews from critics with praise for the visual effects and character designs but criticisms for its direction and plot. It grossed $137.6 million worldwide against a $35 million budget. While not the blockbuster some expected, it turned a profit based on international box office returns and strong home video and television returns and received two Academy Award nominations. A television series that served as a sequel to the film was released on Disney+ in 2022.   The music The plot of Willow  offered James Horner with a rich variety of various topics to compose music for. Horner described the music (quoted from in the liner notes to the expanded edition) as “one of the most relevant balances between concert and cinema.” The composer explained the rationale behind the music: “I am a musicologist, […] I listened to, studied and analyzed a lot of music. I also enjoy metaphors, the art of quoting and of cycles. The harmonic draft of the Willow score […] came from such a cycle, from such mythology and music history that I was taught, and that myself convey with my own emotions and compositions.” For this core Horner developed 14 leitmotifs, a significant theme, different harmonies and shifting orchestral colors. The overall score is built on traditional symphonics, but Horner expanded the traditional orchestra with enough percussion to require 10 players to play the various drums and whirly tubes, added three additional woodwind players to cover the Japanese shakuhachi flute, pan pipes, didgeridoo and medieval shawms. Keyboards included two pianos, two synthesizers, Alpine horns, mandolins and more. The famous heroic theme is introduced around 1 minute in Enchanted Forest  and varied throughout the whole score. The theme is mostly played by the brass sections, especially horns, but sometimes by flutes, oboes and clarinets. A fabulous piece that uses this theme is Willow's Journey Begins  with some dissonant parts in the middle of the track. And Willows Theme  presents the main theme in a wonderfully orchestrated track! I found a great live performance of the theme: The theme for Queen Bavmorda, played by Jean Marsh (famous for the British Tv-Serie Upstairs, Downstairs ) can be first heard in Death Dogs , also played by horns. The whole tracks reminds of the action tracks of another well-known Horner score Krull (1983) and the part around 1’22 reminds of the similar music in Titanic . Bavmorda's Castle  increases the haunting atmosphere. A love-theme is introduced in Escape From The Tavern , a fabulous action track in the typical James Horner style in his score from the 80s, wonderful orchestrated, and a real pleasure to listen to! More action can be found in the second part of The Sled Ride , Canyon Of Mazes , Tir Asleen , and the last track Willow the Sorcerer . Horner was a big fan of the Japanese shakuhachi flute which he uses a lot in his soundtracks. Willow  is no exception here, and this flute is used for the music Horner composed for the magic world in this movie. For the “real” world” Horner composed music in a more traditional way, and these two worlds and the different composing style are overlapping each other which makes Willow  one of Horner’s most ambitious soundtracks. Horner was very specific in his instruction and told the Kazu Matsui, the player of the Japanese flute, to improvise freely on the melody. This style can be heard in the funny music for the dwarf Willow and his people, music composed in a circus style, with a dominance of the solo violine. The expanded Intrada release offers the soundtrack on 2 CDs with a lot of new material. Willow  is not only one of Horner’s most popular scores, but it is also one of his longest with a running time of more than 100 minutes. Willow  was not the first time that director Ron Howard and composer James Horner worked together, in total, they worked on seven films together until Howard started his collaboration with Hans Zimmer. Horner praised the collaboration with Howard: “Ron has his heart which comes through on a lot of his films, and that’s what I go for, that’s what I aim for on every project. I never aim for the surface elements. I all the films I worked on, there’s always that “What is the hear of the film?” – and I try and nail that. Ron is so warm-hearted, it just happened we just clicked like that.” James Horner, who was an avid pilot, was killed in a single-fatality crash while flying his Short Tucano turboprop aircraft. He was 61 years old and is greatly missed these days! Let celebrate this soundtrack with another clip:

This review is another result of Covid-19. Even though, we are now allowed to meet more people, I am still sitting in my home office, okay with a bigger screen now, but it is still annoying. I found the CD of “Silver Screen” when I ordered another couple of CDs, and this movie is so full of childhood memories, and I love the main theme, that it is time now to add this review on my blog. I just realized it is the first review of a Henry Mancini score on my blog, and it is not “Pink Panther” or "The Thornbirds”. The movie “Silver Streak” is a 1976 American buddy comedy thriller film about a murder on a Los Angeles-to-Chicago train journey. It was directed by Arthur Hiller and stars Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, and Richard Pryor, with Patrick McGoohan, Ned Beatty, Richard Kiel in supporting roles. Kiel is playing a similar role such as his famous role “Jaws” from the James Bond-movies, and there is a joke about his teeth. Here is the trailer: This film marked the first pairing of Wilder and Pryor, who were later paired in three more films. Critics said that especially Pryor´s appearance was one of the reasons the movie is so enjoyable. Colin Higgins who was at that time famous for writing “Harold and Maude”, one of my all-time favorites, wrote the script "because I had always wanted to get on a train and meet some blonde. It never happened, so I wrote a script." The script was sent out to auction. Alan Ladd Jr and Frank Yablans at 20th Century Fox bought it for a then-record $400,000. Ladd said "It was like the old Laurel and Hardy comedies. The hero is Laurel, he falls off the train, stumbles about, makes a fool of himself, but still gets the pretty girl. Audiences have identified with that since Buster Keaton." Colin Higgins wanted George Segal for the hero, but Fox preferred Gene Wilder. "He's younger (Wilder was actually a year older than Segal), more identifiable for the younger audience. And he's so average, so ordinary, and he gets caught up in all these crazy adventures." Higgins also claimed that the producers did not want to cast Pryor because he had recently walked off “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings”. However, Pryor was very professional during the shoot. Gene and Pryor went to make two more movies together. “Silver Streak” became the fourth biggest moneymaker for that year, grossing $60 Million and is listed in the top 100 comedies by the American Film Institute. I saw the movie when I was a teenager and immediately liked it. The dinner scene between Wilder and Clayburg is a reminder of the scene from “North by Northwest”, and the plots remind you also of another Hitchcock thriller, “The Lady Vanishes” (1939). “Silver Streak” is one of the few movies that are even more enjoyable when you have watched it before because you know what is happening and can enjoy it. I found a nice making off: The last scenes with the training running into the Chicago Train Station is, as one critic said, alone worth the money. Without an overkill of CGI like in today´s movies, this scene is just amazing fun to watch, and furthermore, in the times of Black Lives Matters, this movie gives you also a good example of how People of Color were treated in the 70s. The composer Composer Henry Mancini (born Enrico Nicola Mancini; April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994) is a composer who normally does not know any introduction. He is very well-known for collaboration with Blake Edwards, especially on the Inspector Clouseau movies, with its Pink Panther theme. Mancini won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. His works include the theme for the “Peter Gunn” television series, the score and the song "Moon River" from “Breakfast at Tiffany's” (1961). Mancini also scored a No. 1 hit single during the rock era on the Hot 100: his arrangement and recording of the "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" spent two weeks at the top, starting with the week ending June 28, 1969. Mancini collaborated also together with director Stanley Donen on “Charade” (1963), “Arabesque” (1966) and “Two For The Road” (1967). What some people might now remember is that in 1952, Mancini joined the Universal Pictures music department. During the next six years, he contributed music to over 100 movies, most notably Jack Arnold´s “Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954), “Tarantula” (1955), “This Island Earth” (1955) and “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination), Orson Welles' “Touch of Evil” (1958). Mancini is famous for the “Baby Elephant Walk” from John Wayne´s “Hatari” (1962) and the music for the already mentioned TV-series “The Thornbirds” (1984). It is very easy to write a book just about the scores of Henry Mancini! His sense for melodies is so astonishing that a lot of people remember his music even though they might never hear the name of the composer. One from his latest more serious works is his music to Tobe Hooper´s “Lifeforce” (1985), a crappy but enjoyable SF movie in which French actress Mathilda May walks mostly around naked. The music I do not have so many Henry Mancini soundtracks in my library because mostly, I just like a few tracks or, for example, from the Stanley Donen movies, just the main theme. “Silver Streak” is different because here Mancini was giving a wide range of writing music for romance, comedy and action. The main title introduces the main theme and is a kind of a musical joke because Mancini transforms the slowly starting of a train into ascending music. Even though I think this Main Title is not the best track of the score, it is a great example of Mancini´s ability to write beautiful main themes and his feeling for rhythm and effective orchestration. The jazz tune is timeless. Here is the main title: You can find a lot of typical Jazz tracks in the score which I normally skip, one is the track “Something For Jill”, track 6 “Club Car Rock” another one, track 8 “Scenic Route”, track 12 “Redneck Blues”, track 15 “Shoe Shine”, track 16 “Men´s Room Rock”, My favorite theme of the score is “Hilly´s Theme” which you can hear the following track “Hilly´s Theme / Bye Bye Professor 7 Lie Down George”, a seven minutes track with some shocking sounds in the middle because of what is happening in the movie. In the liner notes to the CD, there is an interesting comment that Mancini had the special gift to compose sad melodies for a lonely and vulnerable woman, and that is really true! The next track “This Is Terrific” is another musical joke, the main instrument is the harmonica here. This theme is played when George gets thrown from the car or has to leave. This style of music is responsible that the comedy of this scene is so good working. And when you read that one track is called “Son Of This Is Terrific”, you know what happened. Track 5 “The Fun of Flying” for a wonderful photographed scene in the movie brings us back the train theme in a nice variation. You can just admire how Mancini varies the main theme here, what an artificial composer! There is also typical suspense music such as track 7 “Sneaky George”, track 9 “I´ll Try” and the following “Gold Teeth” (low-register clarinets and jagged string figures against a French horn to build up suspense) two very good suspense ones for a fabulous scene in the movie, track 13 “Pure Pussy”. The best suspense track is, of course, the music for the big showdown “Runaway Train”, this 6-minute-track is fabulous in his suspense approach and shows you the variety of Mancini´s composing style! I especially admire the constant increasing rhythm of this track until the train finally crashes in the station, and the music stops exactly in this moment. With track 17 “Hilly´s Theme”, we have finally this beautiful main theme in a pure track without any suspense effects. Just a wonderful melody, played heartwarming in the combination of strings and the piano as main instrument here. Track 18 “The Swirl Effect” is the last time we hear the train theme in a track except of the End Titles which brings the album to an end. Douglass Fake wrote in the liner notes to the CD that “Silver Streak” offers one of Mancini´s finest writing, and I totally agree. I would have wished that the Jazz sourcing tracks might be placed at the end of the album, but these days, you can program your CD player to skip them and concentrate on the other music. Though the film dates to 1976, Henry Mancini's score was never officially released as a soundtrack. Intrada's 2002 compilation became one of the year's best-selling special releases. Get the CD and enjoy this lovely music. And if you listen to this, then you realize again we are missing among the actual generation of film music composers! Here is Hilly's Theme: My favorite track and the reason I finally bought this CD was track “14 “On To Kansas City”: This track is just pure Gold! The scene is a sun setting, and Gene and Richard are on the rescue to Jill. The scene is beautiful shot, and how Mancini underscores this music, is one of the best examples what film music can do to a scene!

The Last Knight is one of the typical last minute replacements Jerry Goldsmith did in the last year of his career. Another one was Wolfgang Peterson’s Air Force One (1997) with additional music by Joel McNeely. Arthur’s Farewell, the music for the final battle, is an astonishing piece of music and one of the best tracks Goldsmith composed in the last days of his year. The movie First Knight is a 1995 medieval film based on Arthurian legend, directed by Jerry Zucker. It stars Sean Connery as King Arthur, Richard Gere as Lancelot, Julia Ormond as Guinevere and Ben Cross as Malagant. The movie tried to tell the famous story through a new perspective. The film follows Lancelot's romance with Lady Guinevere of Leonesse, who is to marry King Arthur of Camelot, while the land is threatened by the renegade knight Malagant. Screenwriter William Nicholson deleted the magical elements of the story around Merlin and emphasized the human and political elements of the story. Furthermore, the main character Lancelot was changed from a highborn knight to a poor but brave fighter. Here is the trailer: James Bond Regisseur Terence Young should direct the movie but died in 1994. Therefore, David Zucker who was involved as producer took over the direction. Costume designer Nana Cecchi who had a background in opera production followed Zucker’s direction to create costumes that were clean and theatrical. The film earned a domestic gross of $37 million and $90 million in foreign markets, but critics were not happy with the cast, especially Julia Ormond, and a lack of romance in the movie. The music Maurice Jarre was first hired to compose the music but he had four weeks to do a 90 minutes score for the original three-hour cut and turned the offer down. David Zucker then approached Goldsmith, and he had only three and half day to record the music! The director praised Goldsmith: “I loved Jerry personally and he was the perfect guy to do this movie.” Goldsmith said in an interview years ago that he always wanted to score a Robin Hood movie but The Wind and The Lion (1975) was the closest he could get. The astonishing quality of this score might be also a result of this long wish of the composer, and he perhaps considered The First Knight as his personally Robin Hood movie. Zucker gave another heart-warming inside about his collaboration with Jerry: “For a brilliant composer, Jerry didn’t have much of an ego. He was very sweet, kind of humble guy. Sometimes you can deal with a composer and these guys are all child prodigies and extraordinary brilliant, and they can get a little uppity about having their music rejected or changed, but Jerry would just say “Well, how about something like this, or let’s try it this way.” We got along and even when I‘m working on a drama I try not to lose my sense of humor and I would try to poke fun and make jokes, and he had a great sense of humor and a great laugh. I remember we had a big laugh because I was asking him about why he did something that I said wasn’t authentic – I said “You can’t do that!” and he said “It’s poetic licence” and I said I was revoking his poetic licence. We were laughing about that a lot and he kept telling everybody the had his poetic licence revoke. He was really wonderful.” Jerry Goldsmith summarized his feeling about this movie shortly after the release: “I don’t mind doing the action things, I just don’t like a steady diet of it. It’s more interesting for me to try and write music that gets inside people, and First Knight was perfect because I had all the romance and all that splendor and also enough action. Generally action scores are sort of fun to write, fun to record, but when you come right down to it people don’t really pay that much attention. Whereas First Knight, I can’t go out in the morning without people coming up and saying how much they liked it.” The soundtrack is composed in a classical tradition. Goldsmith’s theme for Camelot is a majestic theme heard in the first track called The Legend of Camelot. Horns in combination with the strings are playing this wonderful theme for the first time in the music. Here is the Camelot theme: Track 6 called Camelot is another epic version of this main theme and one of the highlights of the score. Track 2 Raid on Leonesse is the first action track in the score, a lot of the material can be heard in the music to the showdown in the end. Track 4 Does It Please You / Look At Me is one of the most beautiful arrangements of the Guinevere theme in the music. Track 11 Boat Trip is another action highlight of the score as Guinevere is kidnapped. This track is composed in the busy Goldsmith action music style! Track 16 A New Life (Lancelot accepts Arthur’s commission to become a knight of the Round Table) is another highlight of the score with its rich variation of the various themes and end with the wonderful music for Arthur’s wedding! Track 18 Night Battle is a fabulous action track composed in a march style with a heavy emphasis on the brass section. Some material used in this scene again was used in the great finale, but what this track so good is the specific use of the trombones who growl two notes and then grind upward in their own glissando against the rhythm of the strings. Arthur’s Farewell (Track 22) is the best track of the score. This over 5 minute action piece brings the action music to a powerful end with its mixture of Choir and Orchestra, a masterpiece that stands out not only in this soundtrack, it stands out in Goldsmith career as one of the best tracks the composer ever wrote. Unfortunately, in the movie the music is so low that you cannot really appreciate the power of the music! Goldsmith explained that this piece might never have been written: “They put Carmina Burana over it. They also used that in Excalibur. The schedule got a little bit hairy and so they were talking about keeping Carmina Burana and me going and rerecording it. I almost agreed because I was so pressed. I’m glad I didn’t.” I found a great live performance of the track conducted by the German conductor Ulf Schirmer. You can compare it with Jerry's music on the CD: Never Surrender features again the Camelot theme after the battle. Guinevere sits at Arthur’s deathbed, and the King gives Camelot, Guinevere and Excalibur in Lancelot’s hands. The music erupts to the last farewell and Arthur’s funeral. The music expressed Arthur’s idea that Camelot will live on, and therefore, Camelot Lives brings the album to an end. What Jerry Goldsmith achieved with First Knight is not only astonishing if you consider the production pressure of the music, Goldsmith created a timeless majestic theme and a score that can be used as an example what film music can really achieve. I found a nice performance conducted by the passionate Diego Navarto:

John Williams is mostly known for his collaboration with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and for his fantastic music for the Star Wars-Series and Indiana Jones, but John Williams composed also the music for some comedies, and I want to talk today about one of them. The movie “How to Steal a Million” is a 1966 American heist comedy film directed by William Wyler and starring Audrey Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, and Eli Wallach. The film is set and was filmed in Paris, though the characters speak entirely in English. Here is the trailer: The plot is a typical Audrey Hepburn comedy, but in my opinion a really good one. Wallach plays the Paris art collector Charles Bonnet and sells fake famous artists' paintings. His disapproving daughter, Nicole, constantly fears that he will be caught. Late one night at their mansion, Nicole encounters a burglar, Simon Dermott (O’Toole), holding her father's forged "Van Gogh". She threatens him with an antique gun that accidentally fires and slightly wounding his arm. For an important exhibition, Charles is lending his renowned "Cellini" Venus statuette that was actually sculpted by his father. Charles has never sold it because scientific testing would reveal that the "million-dollar" artwork is fake. Withdrawing the Venus from the exhibition would also raise suspicions. To protect her father, Nicole seeks Simon and asks him to steal the Venus before the examination. Unknown to Nicole, Simon is actually an expert consultant and hired to enhance security and detect forgeries. Because he fall in love with Nicole, he agrees to help her.. . The music John Williams, in the credits mentioned as Johnny Williams, composed a funny and quirky main theme with a lovely melody for brass and piano. Williams considers this movie a landmark in this career, and I agree. Here is the link to the main theme: The score overall just consists of a few nice tracks. It is very interesting that Williams is not using a lot of typical stereotype music for this soundtrack. The main theme is used in the comedy way as heard in the main title, or in a romantic way for Hepburn and O’Toole. Williams composed some suspense music when Hepburn and O’Toole are trying to steal the Venus. The artwork itself has a fanfare when it is transported in a truck, this music is more serious, but also added some humor. For example, as the truck passes a group of priests, the music briefly booms with church organs as the holy men cross themselves in reverence for the Cellini. During a very nice sequence, mentioned as “The key scene”, Williams composed a light and groovy melody with electronic instruments (apparently his first time using electronics). It is a very funny track because of its different instrumentation. It is one of my favourite tracks. Here is the link: According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $12 million in rentals to break even and made $10.45 million, meaning it made a loss. Despite that, it is still one of my favourite Hepburn movies because of the chemistry between Hepburn and O’Toole and Eli Wallach’s performance, he has some hilarious scenes. The charming movie is a great example of the typical romantic comedies from that time, and the fun of this music is also a result of John Williams music, one of this best in my opinions, and it is very sad that he was not hired to compose music for more comedies.

Nearly Pre-Christmas Time! This year – year 2 in Covid – was another more annoying year. We are finally allowed to meet in person again and can go to the movies, but I am disappointed with what we can see. My first idea was to talk about Daniel Craig’s last James Bond “No Time To Die”, but to be honest: The best parts of the music are the John Barry pieces from “On Her Majesty's Secret Service”, so no review of this score on my blog. Bring David Arnold back to the franchise, please! Therefore, let’s talk about another John Scott soundtrack: “Lionheart” (1990). Here is the trailer: The movie “Lionheart”, released internationally under several names including “Absent Without Leave”, “Wrong Bet”, and “Leon” is a 1990 American action film directed by Sheldon Lettich, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Brian Thompson, Harrison Page and Deborah Rennard. Rennard has some hilarious scenes, especially during the last fight when she is breathing heavily after seeing Van Damme fighting and winning. This scene always reminds me of Famke Janssens orgasm-like behavior after the killed a lot of soldiers with a machine gun… Van Damme plays a French Foreign Legionnaire. When his brother is seriously injured, he returns to Los Angeles to enter the underground fighting circuit to raise money for his brother's family. The Belgian actor plays again the typical underdog and, of course, wins in the end. I was not a big fan of The Muscles from Brussels and also not a big fan of this kind of action movies, but a friend of mine recommended me to watch this movie, and because John Scott as the composer, I was curious about it. Scott’s music is the best part of the movie, and you cannot underestimate the effect his music has! Director Sheldon Lettich had co-written “Bloodsport” (1988), the film that turned Van Damme into a star. They had become friends, and Van Damme agreed for Lettich to direct “Lionheart”. Lettich remembered the shooting, with a good sense of humor: Lionheart was a “defining film for Van Damme because I did not shy away from giving him considerable amounts of dialogue and character development. I trusted him to pull this off, whereas before nobody else believed he could do much more than just deliver some fancy kicks and simple one-liners. Lionheart was the first movie to demonstrate that Van Damme was more than just a flash-in-the-pan "Karate Guy" who would never rise above simplistic low-budget karate movies. In the film, Van Damme's rear is exposed in one scene. While we were filming the scene where he takes a shower in Cynthia's apartment, he asked me if he might casually "drop his towel" and show off his butt for a brief moment. My reply was "Sure, if you're willing, why not?” So, we did one take where he casually lets the towel drop away, and then we decided to put that shot in the movie. Well, that became a very memorable moment for the ladies in the audience, and for the gay guys as well. Showing off his butt (clothed or unclothed) almost became a signature trademark of his after that.” The music I already wrote about John Scott on my blog and in my book and mentioned his famous soundtrack for the Kirk Douglas movie “The Final Countdown” (1980). For “Lionheart”, Scott created another powerful orchestral music and used mostly two themes: a heroic one for Lyon, Van Damme’s character, and another, more lyrical theme for his family which is played to underscore the relationship of Lyon with his niece Nicole. John Scott’s liner notes for the Intrada CD are very interesting, and I want to mention some aspects here. The composer said that he was appealed by the variety the story seems to offer: The film opened in Los Angeles, travelled to North Africa, moved then to street fighting in New York, showed us with Cynthia a very ruthless woman wo runs a private fight circuit, and also has the emotional story with Lyon and his brother’s family, in Scott’s words: “To me the story was far more than a kickboxing movie and I felt that my most valuable contribution would be strengthen the relationships as well as build on Lyon’s inner rather than outer strength.” The action scenes are fabulous underscored with some very nice action music for the brass section and a good emphasis on the percussion section during the whole score. I read in one review that Scott used some wonderfully old-fashioned quality in composing this score, and this perfectly summarized the quality of this soundtrack. After watching the movie, I never went back to it, but Scott’s end credits music is one of my all-time favourites. Scott wrote in his liner notes than he wanted to “compose a theme which would contain two distinct parts and various motifs which could become sub themes. Subsequently I was able to build on LIONHEARTS’s theme throughout the course of the film.” When Lyon arrived in the US, Scott added some nice Jazz tunes into his score. The composer has a lot of experience with Jazz. He arranged for Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine and played for Henry Mancini and John Barry. Scott mentioned that he “chose a jazz group of trumpet, alto sax, keyboard, bass and drums for the relations between Joshua” (Lyon’s manager), and “Lyon which I was able to juxtapose with the symphony orchestra to give a distinct and powerful color to the atmosphere of the film.” For Cynthia, Scott used a a muted jazz trumpet as an essential color. The best parts of the soundtrack are the music for the fighting scenes, and the composer created each scene in a different way: The music for the street fight is more like source music, “Fighting The Scott” has a Scottish-flavoured riff in the horns when we see Van Damme’s opponent, “Fighting the Brazilian” features a fun samba beat-style, but the highlight of the score is definitely the music for the last fight. “The Wrong Bet”, a 9-minute action piece, starts slowly with suspense music and transforms the dramaturgical Over The Top-structure of the fight into fabulous music, with a powerful victory for Lyon in the end. I highly admire the constant changing of the tempi and the focus on the various percussion instruments. This is a marvelous action piece! If found a clip on YouTube with the fight, my favorite scene is Deborah Rennard at 9’20… In his liner notes, Scott realized the problem of the soundtrack which is a result of his composing approach: “It is not until Lyon reveals his full inner strength in the last fight that the LIONHEART theme is stated in it’s entirety. One thing that troubled me about the sequencing of this album was the fact that one has to wait until very near to the end to hear what I was getting at. On the other hand another director could have required me to use only the one theme throughout the film and in such a way that nobody would have a chance of missing it. Of course there is no denying that this approach as its advantages.” “Lionheart” is a great example of powerful and timeless action music. Intrada produced a fine CD with 63 minutes of the score, performed by The Munich Symphony Orchestra and conducted by the composer himself. One of the best reasons to buy this soundtrack is the beautiful end credits music called “Lionheart”. This track alone is worth buying the CD. I love the start of this piece with the string section playing the majestic theme in a wonderfully orchestrated track! I could not find this track on YouTube but found a nice suite of the score, starting with the end credits... Lionheart performed well at the box office, debuting in 3rd position in the US with sales of about $7 million. The film dropped to 7th in its second week, and earned $24.3 million worldwide on a budget of $6 million.

There are some scores in Jerry Goldsmith’s long career that got rejected, for example, “Alien Nation” (1988), “Gladiator” (1992), “Super Mario Brother” (1993), “Babe” (1995), “2 Days in Valley” (1996). “The Public Eye” (1992) was one of them and got recently released by Intrada, a great Jazz score which will be reviewed today. The movie “The Public Eye” is a 1992 American crime thriller film produced by Sue Baden-Powell and written and directed by Howard Franklin, starring Joe Pesci and Barbara Hershey. Stanley Tucci and Richard Schiff appear in supporting roles. The film is loosely based on New York Daily News photographer Arthur "Weegee" Fellig, and some of the photos in the film were taken by Fellig. Main cast Pesci took this role right after his Oscar-winning performance in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas”. Director-writer Franklin was unable to secure the rights to Arthur Fellig's story and wrote therefore the story of a Weegee-like photographer who smokes cigars. According to journalist Doug Trapp, Franklin was inspired to write the screenplay after seeing a show of Fellig's photos in New York City. The movie did not perform very well, it grossed $1,139 Mio for the weekend and total receipts after 12 days were $3,067 Mio. Here is the trailer: The music I never watched the movie, but as I heard that Intrada was releasing the score of this Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack, I was highly curious to get it. The fact that even 16 years after Jerry’s death, there are still soundtracks with his music released, is a very good sign of how popular Jerry Goldsmith still is. In the liner notes of the CD, Howard Franklin is quoted that he was thrilled to get Jerry Goldsmith scoring the film: “It was like the greatest coup ever!” Since Goldsmith composed the music for “Chinatown”, a movie which considered Franklin as similar to “The Public Eye”, Franklin was confident about his choice, but the confidence vanished when he attended the recording. Goldsmith, as Franklin pointed out, wrote a “beautiful theme. We loved it”, but the director thought that Goldsmith “hadn’t written anything beyond that theme. The composer protested that he was “not one to write a lot of themes for different things”, but Franklin found the result too repetitious.” Having worked with Mark Isham before, he hired this composer to replace Goldsmith. Here is the beautiful main theme of “The Public Eye”: Even though Jerry Goldsmith is my favourite composer, I have to admit that the score really sounds a bit repetitive, but the wonderful line notes by Frank K. DeWald are giving a good analysis of the score and why it has some haunting effect. I have to admit that this soundtrack was played by me a lot in the last months, I really like the atmosphere, and especially the main theme. DeWald explains that Goldsmith achieves the special atmosphere in this score by using short motifs and not using long-lined melodies, and this can be very good observed in the main title. There is one motif that is played by the clarinet: three rising notes C- E flat-G. This motif is repeated once and then twice at a lower pitch level. DeWald points out that Goldsmith used the same idea in another rejected score: “Gladiator” (1992) by Rowdy Harrington, for sure one of Goldsmith’s weaker scores, but I had fun listening to it. DeWald speaks then about a second motif - D-E flat - which can be heard for the first time in “First Sale”, the second track. Pizzicato strings can be heard like a ticking clock. A very good track which combines both motifs is “Ask Me”. There are a lot of similarities in the string part between this score and Goldsmith later success with “Basic Instinct”, a similar haunting atmosphere. It is fascinating to read in the lines notes how DeWald analyses Goldsmith’s artificial approach to use and develop these motifs during the music. The score is mostly composed for strings, the solo bass plays a dominant role, but we also hear sometimes woodwinds like the clarinet, the oboe (Track “The Morning Call” with some nice piano parts) or the flute. Slightly percussion is used, combined with a harp, and minor synthesizer effects, for example in “The Body”. DeWald thinks that with this minimalistic approach, the composer wanted to reflect how the main character sees the world: in black and white. Another interesting track to mention is “The Slaughter”; here Goldsmith also uses silence: The music stops for nearly a second a few times before it continues, and this has an amazing effect when you are listening to it. “Final Shot” is a kind of end credits music and one of the longest tracks on the album. The dominance of the string parts creates a more romantic atmosphere in the end, and it is again interesting to hear how Goldsmith varies his two motifs again. Jerry Goldsmith used this minimalistic approach a lot during his television years, especially in his music for “The Twilight Zone”, and compare to the big orchestra soundtracks Goldsmith composed later during his career, “The Public Eye” is a refreshing album which is becoming one of my favourite albums these days. Thanks, Intrada for creating such a nice album with this rejected score! Below is a link to the end credits of Mark Isham’s music for the movie:

Just to remind you all, we spent a few days ago the second Easter in lockdown. It is difficult to keep the positive mind up these days, especially with all this madness going around. Not sure if you watched the Academy Awards last year, but this was really the first time I did not care at all about the movies and the winners, but anyway: congratulations to Anthony Hopkins! I was visiting my brother in a small town in Southern Germany, when we went into a music shop, and I found the soundtrack of Dennis The Menace. At this time, Jerry Goldsmith was already my favourite composer, therefore, I bought the soundtrack without seeing the movie which I did a few weeks later then. I never heard of Dennis before, so for me, the movie was another one which might be produced because of the success of the Home Alone-movies. With the expanded CD and the very interesting liner notes, the history of Dennis The Menace was nicely explained, and I will summarize it here. The movie Illustrator Hank Ketchum created Dennis in 1951. The comic strip ran in more than 1000 newspapers in 14 languages and inspired a live action TV series, starring Jay North as Dennis, that ran for 146 episodes on CBS from 1959 to 1963. What the liner notes do not tell us is that in the UK, there is also a comic strip called Dennis The Menace. It was published in the British children's comic The Beano, published by DC Thomson, and first appeared in issue 452, dated 17 March 1951 (on sale 12 March 1951), and it is considered as the longest-running strip in the comic. The idea and name of the character emerged when the comic's editor heard a British music hall song with the chorus "I'm Dennis the Menace from Venice". Coincidentally, on 12 March 1951, another comic strip named Dennis the Menace debuted in the US. As a result of this, the US series has initially been retitled Dennis for UK audiences, while the British character's appearances are often titled Dennis and Gnasher outside the UK. There is a very entertaining documentary about the movie, and Ketchum explained that the inspiration for the comic came from Dennis Ketcham, the real-life son of Hank Ketcham who was only four years old when he refused to take a nap and somehow messed up his whole room. Hank tried many possible names for the character and translated them into rough pencil sketches, but when his studio door flew open and his then-wife Alice, in utter exasperation, exclaimed, "Your son is a menace!", the strip was born. For the 40th anniversary of the character, writer Ernest Chambers developed and wrote the book for a Dennis musical and wanted to make a movie based on the comic. Producers from Warner Bros. suggested Tim Burton as director, but Chambers wanted to have John Hughes. Hughes did not want the movie to be another Home Alone, and Hughes was tired because he worked six months on the sequel to Home Alone. He hired as director Nick Castle who, for example, was the director of The Boy who could fly (1986, with a fabulous score by Bruce Broughton). I found a nice documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mikzTa6duE The heart of the movie should be the relationship between Dennis and Mr Wilson, played by the wonderful Walter Matthau. In the liner notes, Hughes explained that he learnt from Ketchum how much Wilson needs Dennis. To find the right kid, 20,000 potential candidates were checked, and finally Mason Gamble was chosen. Mr Wilson’s wife was played by British actress Joan Plowright, and she has some great scenes. Christopher Lloyd gave a marvelous performance as invading criminal Switchblade Sam, so we have in the second half some Home Alone-scenes. He was perhaps a little bit too frightening for a family movie, and Matthau said that Lloyd’s character scared one kid, so he could not work for two days. As a balance, we have Lea Thompson, another famous cast from Back To The Future. here is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CogDP0vlfw You can see the genius of John Hughes in his comments of how to develop this story: “Innocence was the core of the story. A 5-year-old is completely innocent. The only person he is menace to is Mr Wilson, and he is a guy who expects all kids to be like 40 years old. Then I thought: These people live in an innocent world, why not threaten that innocence? So, when Dennis is with the thief, he thinks he is on a camping trip.” The film was a success at the box office. Against a $35 million budget, it grossed $51.3 million domestically and a further $66 million overseas to a total of $117.3 million worldwide. Critics were generally negative. They praised Matthau’s performance, considered Lloyd’s character Swingblade as too scary which might be true, and the movie too close to the humour of Home Alone. That might be true, but compare to Home Alone, we have in Dennis a real story, and that is the reason I really like this movie. The music Jerry Goldsmith did not compose a lot of comedy soundtracks. In the liner notes, it is mentioned that Richard Kraft recommended Goldsmith to do a career change and concentrate more on smaller and intimate projects that were short on violence. Jerry Goldsmith always said that he preferred these more human movies over the horror and SF material he became famous for. It looks like that Goldsmith was also frustrated with the feedback from Total Recall. Like usually, his music was mostly buried under machine-gun fire. Goldsmith commented: “I really thought Total Recall was a terrific score. I really liked it musically but nobody seemed to give a damn.” That is not true: Goldsmith was again nominated for a Saturn Award, and Total Recall is considered as a milestone in action-scoring. But nobody can blame the composer after this busy score to go back to smaller movies which allowed Goldsmith to develop more lovely themes and compose more intimate movies. The result is astonishing! Goldsmith composed one of his best scores for The Russia House (1990), one of my favourite movies with Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, and he continued to work for director Fred Schepisi on Mr. Baseball (1992, one of his most unusual scores), Six Degrees of Separation (1993, a tango score), I.Q. (1994, a lovely romantic comedy with a main theme very similar to the German children song Alle Voegel sind schon da) and finally Fierce Creatures (1997, the mediocre sequel to A Fish named Wanda). Goldsmith also composed in these year the music to Not Without My Daughter (1991, the highly controversial Family-Polit-Thriller), Julia Roberts’ Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), Mel Gibson romantic drama Forever Young (1992) and another Sean Connery movie called Medicine Man (1992) where Connery was jealous about Goldsmith’s ponytail, and another Michelle Pfeiffer Drama called Love Field (1992) – to name a few. Even though these soundtracks are not so mind-blowing such as Total Recall, they demonstrate Goldsmith’s ability to write beautiful love themes, and I am especially a fan of the main theme from The Russian House and love Medicine Man with its combination of orchestra and electronics. The Main Title of Dennis The Menace starts with a slamming of the orchestra to announce Dennis with his bicycle and introduced then the theme for Dennis played on a harmonic performed by Tommy Morgan who played this instrument for Goldsmith when he was working on The Twilight Zone. A second theme, a lovely theme, mostly played on strings, underscores Dennis already mentioned “innocence”, and for Mr Wilson, we have a theme played on the tuba which is also introduced in the main title. Here you can listen to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1peS-f808c Because of the storytelling, we have a lot of Micky Mousing, e. g. in Take An Aspirin, Babysitting (for a very funny scene and the fabulous comment of Matthau: Just a child!), and Shaggy Dog Story, just to mention three of them. There is also some comedy music in the score, e.g. The Doll, Spilled Paint or A funny taste, it is the fast change of atmosphere and rhythm that makes these pieces fun to listen to. There is a kind of lullaby Goldsmith wrote for the scene when Mrs Wilson brings Dennis to bed and recites a bedtime story, a lovely scene. Mr and Mrs Wilson do not have any kids, and you can see that Mrs Wilson is clearly missing having a child. Real Love, not used in the film, is another short track with this theme. Christopher Lloyd’s character gets a sneaky theme, played first time on the brass in Dollnapping, a great haunting theme with a wonderful effect in the movie. Even if you do not see Swingblade Sam, you hear the music and know he is not far away! The expanded CD edition has a lot of shorter tracks which are very dependent of the movie which therefore can be skipped. The Heist is the music for the very important scene when Mr Wilson finally has enough of Dennis and ends their friendship in a furious outburst. Dennis, really sorry and desperate about what he has done, rides his bike through the woods towards his tree house, but then Sam bursts out of the night (a fabulous part to underscore the emotions of Dennis can be heard from 2’54) and grabs the boy. Here is the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVteBObMuqg He’s back is a track that shows Goldsmith’s ability to create sadness, drama, action and love in one track, and this talent of Goldsmith cannot be praised enough! Dennis is still missing, Mr Wilson is really sad about his previous comment, but then the music slowly builds up after this sad moment, and you can feel that there is something coming, and finally the Dennis theme is telling us: The boy is back! A highlight of the score is the end title music called Toasted Marshmallows which gave Goldsmith finally a chance to put all his material together and write a very enjoyable piece which brings the CD to an end.

“Romancing the Stone” is a teenager memory for me, and in my opinion, the score to this movie is still one of Alan Silvestri’s best works. I love the End Titles music and especially the music for the action scene when Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner are escaping in a jeep. The movie “Romancing the Stone” was Robert Zemeckis third movie and it started the frequent collaboration between the director and composer Silvestri. It is interesting to observe how many directors like to work with a special composer on their films. Here is a trailer to the movie: The production history of this movie is very interesting. I read that 20th Century Fox expected the movie to be a flop after viewing a rough cut of it. Therefore, the producers fired Zemeckis as director of “Cocoon”. But the film became a hit surprise, earned over $86 Mio., launched Kathleen Turner’s stardom and made Michael Douglas a star finally on the big screen. Danny DeVito had some great scenes in the movie and established himself as one of the leading comedians in Hollywood. The success of this movie allowed Zemeckis to create “Back to the Future”, a movie that was even more successful. Kathleen Turner and Zemeckis had a hard time working together, but the cast came back to a sequel that is unfortunately really bad. A comparison between this movie and Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was obvious, but I think comparing these two movies is not fair. Even though “Raiders” is a far better movie and “Romancing the Stone” has sometimes the quality of a B-Movie, this film is still highly enjoyable and has some great funny scenes. Here is one of my favorite ones: What I also want to mention is the story of the screenwriter: Diane Thomas was a waitress in Malibu who wrote the screenplay five years ago. She died in a car crash shortly after the film’s release, so it was her only screenplay. The novel based on the book was published under her name but written by Catherine Lanigan. I also read the book, and I have to say it is really crap. I remember the awful written sex scene in the first pages, and I was nearly in the mood to throw this book into the corner of my room. Last interesting fact to mention is that originally Sylvester Stallone was considered to play the male leading role. The music I read that to combat the competition, the score should be more contemporary and reduce the orchestral action to a minimum. Silvestri impressed Zemeckis with his easy-going, jazzy and light rock ideas. In this way, the music is clearly a product of the 80s, but this is not a bad sign except the usage of the synthetic percussion that I still do not like very much. Some critics on film music sites do not like the score because of its composing style, and I also have to admit that the score just have a few highlights, but these are highly enjoyable. Varese produced a Club CD with 21 tracks. Let’s go through this. The “Main Title” provides you with the theme and a nice sax arrangement. The next track “Elaine” shows the kidnapping of Joan’s sister, one of the typical 80s track on the score which I normally skip. I also skip the next track “Ransacked Apartment” and “I’m In Trouble”, I just like the percussion here. With “Joan & Jack”, we hear the love theme in a nice but shorter arrangement. “The Gorge” is the first longer action track for one of the best scenes of the music. You can hear the typical way how Silvestri build up suspense, with drums and the brass section, and with a sudden erupt of the full orchestra. This track shows you perhaps the best difference between Silvestri and Williams in writing action pieces. The best action track of the soundtrack is the next track “Escape in the Little Mule”, for a highly entertaining action scene, combined with some sightseeing in a very special way. The only problem with this track is that is too short but this is the result of the length of the scene in the movie. “The Town” is some kind of source music for the carnival scene, I skip this track. “The Dance and They Kiss” is a funky arrangement of the main scene before it gets romantic. “Hotel Escape” is another action track, but not as much entertaining than the “Mule” track, so I skip this, too. “The Stone Revealed” is another track that I normally skip. “Mounties”, another action track, is similar to “Mule”, but nothing new, I still like it very much. “The Sqaure” is source music again, skip it. “Tregula”, skip it, too. We have now the big action piece for the showdown. As a teenager, I was pretty shocked about this violent scene that it is totally unnecessary in my opinion. The track is pretty interesting in its composing style, so I highly recommend listening to it. “So Long Jack” is a romantic track, but I also normally skip it. “The Sailboat” underscores the last scene of the movie with a very funny ending. My favorite track of the score is the already mentioned “End Titles” which combines the best parts of the score, and it is highly enjoyable because of the saxophone and the funky piano arrangement in the first minutes. This is a dancing piece, and you can have great fun when you suddenly start playing this piece of music on a party. Some people remember the movie, and a lively discussion starts, and the younger generation mostly immediately switches into dance move. My plan is still to play this piece on my own wedding… Here is the music to it: You have to decide if you want to buy the score for just four or five really good tracks, but in my opinion the soundtrack is worth it. Silvestri is great in composing this 80s style, and I like this score much more than “Back to the Future” because that score just has a good main theme. Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2017, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

Jerry Goldsmith’s „Under Fire“ has a very special place in my heart. I was very lucky to see this movie in a movie theatre in my small hometown and it was the first movie with a Jerry score I ever saw in the theatre. “Gremlins 2” was the second one, and “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” was the last one. The movie “Under Fire” (1983) is an American political thriller film set during the last days of the Nicaraguan Revolution that ended the Somoza regime in 1979. It stars Nick Nolte, Gene Hackman and Joanna Cassidy. Jerry's score featured well-known US jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and was nominated for an Academy Award. The film editing by Mark Conte and John Bloom was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Editing, and the film was shot in the Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. Here is the trailer Nolte gives one of his best performances in his career, and for me, this is also Roger Spottiswoode’s best movie. The director who worked also as cutter for legendary director Sam Peckinpah became more famous for his Bond-movie “Tomorrow never dies” or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “The Sixth Day”, but “Under Fire” is the best in his career and his most critical one. Even though the film is fictional, it was inspired by the murder of ABC reporter Bill Stewart and his translator Juan Espinoza by National Guard forces on June 20, 1979. ABC cameraman Jack Clark was shooting "incidental" footage and caught the entire episode on tape. The footage was shown on national television in the United States and became a major international incident, undermining what remained of Dictator Anastasio Somoza's support. The incident was the final straw for the Carter Administration's relationship with Somoza whose regime fell on July 19th (this explains one track title of the score). Nolte’s character is based on Matthew Naythons who was a photo journalist in Nicaragua and consultant during the shooting of “Under Fire.” The music I read that director Roger Spottiswoode was a fan of Goldsmith's “Patton” because the score captured the human emotions of war. Goldsmith combined for this score electronic and orchestral sound and used a lot of solo instruments such as pan flutes for the Central American setting and the guitar played by Metheny. The composer pointed out to the studio that the pan flute temp track that was used in the film was not appropriate to the region, but he had to use the instruments for the score. When I was attending one of Goldsmith’s concerts in the Barbican Centre in London, Jerry was talking about this episode and that after one guy came to him and said: “You know they do not use pan flutes in Nicaragua!”, and Goldsmith made a sarcastic comment about this. In his musical approach, “Under Fire” is one of Goldsmith’s best scores. Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny fell ill during the schedule for recording and had to record his solo parts a few days later. Metheny’s way of playing fits perfect into the score. Goldsmith uses four themes in this score. The most lyrical one is "Rafael's Theme", used also as love theme in the track “A New Love". The composer also added the synthesizers in a fabulous way to the score, for example in the track “Rafael”. We have then a march and a victorious rebel theme that can be heard in “19 de Julio”, a track with a heavy usage of synthesizers. Another theme can be called “Alex’s Theme” (track 9). The first track called “Bajo Fuego” is also the best track of the whole score. Goldsmith combines in a perfect way the solo guitar played by Metheny with the orchestra. I remember a very nice situation when I was listening to the album at home. My mom was coming into my room and loved the second track “Sniper”. She loved the way how Goldsmith created a lovely atmosphere in the first seconds of the track before the shocking outburst of the music when the murder happens. How Goldsmith was then able to go back to the lovely atmosphere with the orchestra, pan pies, the guitar, and further percussion is truly a sign of how gifted this composer was. I remember a very nice situation when I was listening to the album at home. My mom was coming into my room and loved the second track “Sniper”. She loved the way how Goldsmith created a lovely atmosphere in the first seconds of the track before the shocking outburst of the music. How Goldsmith was then able to go back to the lovely atmosphere with the orchestra, pan pies, the guitar, and further percussion is truly a sign how gifted the composer was. I found a video with Goldsmith talking about the score: The score is highly enjoyable in the different way Goldsmith uses his themes. After the dramatic “Sniper” track, we have with “House of Mammocks” a very lyrical one, and with track 4 “Betrayal” a more dramatic one and one of the best tracks of the score. Track 6 “Rafael” is truly a masterpiece in the way Goldsmith composed this track for one of the most important scenes of the movie. You can see what a photo is able to do! This track combines again the orchestra and the pan flutes, and this time the military march becomes more dominant. This track is another highlight of the score and even without seeing the movie, you can imagine what is going on. This is musical storytelling at its best! After the more lyrical “A New Love”, the pan flutes dominate the next track “Sandino” before we have another lyrical track called “Alex’s Theme” (that I normally skip), and then we have the lovely “Fall Of Managua”. “Rafael’s Theme” is the track with the most usage of local folk music of the whole score. Guitar, pan flutes and the orchestra are working perfectly together. I love especially the last minute of this track. The last one “Nicaragua” is like a summary of all the different aspects of the score and the last highlight. This wonderfully composed and orchestrated track is one of my all-time favorites. This track is again fabulous musical story-telling. You have first the folk elements, then the dominance of the march and the military elements like if the music wants to tell you that the innocent local people got overrun by the military to finally find back to their peaceful life again. I found a very nice piano transcription of the main theme: “Under Fire” is still a movie worth watching, but you also should say that perhaps without Jerry Goldsmith’s music this movie would be not so popular. This score is not only an example for amazing movie music, it is like film music should be: supporting the movie in the best way possible and stand alone as a true masterpiece, Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2017, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

Another Patrick Doyle score this week. I think it is quite strange that Doyle’s music to “A United Kingdom” will be released on CD not until February. The UK released date of the movie was in September, in the US, the movie will be released in February, and perhaps the producers want to release the score at the same time. Therefore, I want to discuss Doyle’s score for “Nanny McPhee” this week. The movie. “Nanny McPhee” is a family comedy fantasy film from 2005 based on the book “Nurse Matilda” by Christiana Brand. In the same year Doyle was hired to compose the music for the forth Harry Potter movie “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and took over after John Williams composed the music for the last three. I will discuss Doyle’s HP music in a few weeks. Emma Thompson who also plays Nanny McPhee wrote the screenplay for “Nanny McPhee”. Author Christiana Brand wrote three books about the hideously ugly witch nursemaid known as Nurse Matilda who has been highly recommended to Mr. and Mrs. Brown by several agencies. Nurse Matilda arrives at the household and becomes a nanny to the Brown children. The children are "exceedingly naughty" and frighten off many governesses in a wonderfully mischievous way, until Nurse Matilda comes. She teaches the children to behave, and deals with the fearsome and Great Aunt Adelaide Stitch (played by the fabulous Angela Lansbury). In the end the children become good and decent, and Nurse Matilda leaves to attend another family of naughty children. Here is the trailer: In the movie, Colin Firth is playing a newly widowed father who is clumsy, loves his children, but have no time for them and also has financial trouble. The children are giving him a hard time until hook-nosed McPhee arrives and teaches the kids to behave. The movie has some great funny moments, a good portion of romance and perhaps a little too much slapstick sometimes. In the end, Mr Brown founds his love, the kids are happy, McPhee lives, and the fairy tale is over. Some critics loved the movie so much that they considered “Nanny McPhee” as the new Mary Poppins, but the quality of both movies are not comparable. 2010, a sequel was released, but has nothing to do with the original one, and also Doyle did not compose the music. The music This kind of movie is perfect for Doyle and gives him a lot of chances to create funny music with musical slapstick, wonderful themes and melodies, and also a good amount of romantic music. I bought the soundtrack two years ago before even seeing the movie. A few weeks ago, I finally was able to see it decided to talk about the music this week. The first track “They’ve eaten the Baby” starts with a very nice melody played mostly on the spinet, and after one minute the full orchestra burst in. This reminds you a little bit of Danny Elfman’s music for “Beetlejuice”, but Doyle is a far better composer. I like especially when Doyle uses after 1’50 a typical Dance Macabre motif for a few seconds before going back to a lovely tune. The first track is like a first track of a score should be: a reason to buy it and listen to the whole music. I found the scene when Mr Brown meets Nanny McPhee: With 21 tracks on the CD, I cannot discuss all of them. Let’s just say that track 2 “No More Nannies”, track 3 “Secret Toast and Jam”, and track 4 “A Clockwork Mouse” continues with the comical approach of the story. Doyle does a lot of musical mickey mousing here (listen to the Tuba in track 4), and with the short fifth track “The Pink Chair”, we have a wonderful quiet piece. One listener on YouTube said “this almost made me cry”, and true, this is a great musical approach to put the feeling of loneliness into notes. Track 6 “I Did Knock” is for me the next highlight. Doyle uses all the various effects of an orchestra and especially some solo percussion instruments to create a truly magical atmosphere for one very important scene of the movie. After Track 7 “Goodnight, Children” (great balance of strings and woodwinds here), track 8 “Measle Medicine” (a funny movie scene, but a track that I normally skip), track 9 “Soup Du Jour” (comical again), track 10 “I Smell Damp” (lovely melody before the brass section starts, a little choir also is used here), track 11 “Barnyard Fashion” (short and funny), track 12 “Lord of the Donkeys” (Irish folk), we have with track 13 “The Girl in the Carriage” a very emotional and romantic piece for another important scene of the movie. Tracks like these are the reasons I consider Doyle as one of the best film music composer these days. After Track 14 “Kites in the Sky”, track 15 “The Room at the Top of the Stairs” (some magical moments again), track 16 “Toad in the Teapot” (lovely usage of the spinet again), track 17 “Our Last Chance” (romance again), track 18 “Mrs. Brown's Lullaby” (a song, I skip), track 19 “The Lady in Blue” (another lovely romantic piece), we have with track 20 “Bees and Cakes” the action track for the showdown, and with the last one “Snow in August” the longest track of the score that brings this album to a wonderful end. Doyle uses all his melodies in this great orchestrated piece. Some critics see in the usage of the choir similarity to Danny Elfman’s theme of “Edward Scissorhands, that might be true, but Doyle is not copying Elfman’s theme here. Here is the music for "Snow in August": You cannot find so many reviews of this score. That is really sad because comparing to other soundtracks out there which are more discussed, you have with “Nanny McPhee” an example of a real musical craftsman. The score is full of funny musical ideas, lovely melodies, great orchestration, the usage of different instruments that you do not hear so often in scores these days such as the tuba and the spinet, and an overall heart-warming approach to translate various emotions into music. Well done, Patrick! I love this score! Patrick Doyle is a great composer, and producers should give him really more intelligent movies like this to show his ability. I have one wish: Let Patrick Doyle compose the music for one “Star Wars” movie, please! Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2017, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

This week, because of Jerry Goldsmith’s 88th birthday at February, 10th , just some very personal notes. Without doubt, Jerry Goldsmith is the most gifted film music composer ever! Hans Zimmer might be more popular, John Williams composed for more popular movies, John Barry is famous because of “James Bond”, and James Horner very well-known for the James Cameron collaboration, but Jerry was the most-gifted and had the most variable composing style. What Jerry truly missed in his career, was a big hit score, but perhaps this was also because of this complex composing style. Jerry’s music is not so easy listening such as Zimmer’s scores. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I discovered Jerry Goldsmith’s music in 1989. I cannot remember which the first Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack was, but I am pretty sure, “Explorers” was one of the first. I watched this crappy movie because it was another movie of “Gremlins”-director Joe Dante, but when I watched “Explorers” because of “Gremlins”, then I knew that Jerry composed the music for Gremlins, see, it becomes tricky... But, for sure, I know that “Explorers” was the first Jerry CD I bought. The first LP of a Jerry score was “The Secret of NimH”, still one of my favourite scores. I also remember when I was a teenager and listened to the track “The Tractor”, my mom was a little astonished about the dramatic music I suddenly preferred except to the more melodic soundtracks I listened before. Since 1989, I became a huge fan of Jerry’s music, and for the whole year, I just listened to music of this composer, a whole year no other soundtracks! And the best thing was, I did not feel bored! I felt like a fish in the water with so many great scores and really enjoyed this truly gifted composer! In the following years, I watched a lot of movies just because of Jerry’s music, and it was a lot of crap among them, and I also throw one of his scores on the floor because it was so boring and the most unstimulating music I ever heard. This was the score for “Criminal Law”. Each year, I watched the Academy Award ceremony. Jerry was 18. (!) times nominated, one time I saw him in the audience, I think it was in the year of “Basic Instinct”, but even in this year he did not won. His only Oscar was for the “The Omen” (1976), long ago. Each year I became a bigger fan of Jerry. I felt like I was supporting an underdog. Jerry was the far better composer, but he never won, in 1987 his score for “Hoosiers” was nominated and he lost against “Round Midnight”, does anybody remember the score? 1980, Jerry’s score for “Star Trek” was nominated, and George Delerue won for “A Little Romance”. I love Delerue, but really, for this score an Oscar? 1993, Jerry was nominated for “Basic Instinct”, and who won? Alan Menken for “Aladdin”, he won the year before with “The Beauty And The Best”, now a second score for a nearly similar soundtrack? Oh, come on!!, and Jerry also made jokes about that “L.A. Confidential” lost against a sinking ship, Horner got the Oscar for “Titanic”. When I discovered that Jerry was giving annual concerts in London, I immediately bought the ticket, and when I was finally sitting in the Barbican in London and saw Jerry coming to the stage and listened to his music and his comments, I have to say this was the happiest moment of my life!! Since then, I attended every concert, and also the last concert (for his 75th Birthday) that was announced, but Jerry was too ill to come. Then Jerry died on July 21st, 2004, and since then film music is never the same. I watched “Lonely Tunes” because this was Jerry’s last score, and when I saw “Star Trek: Nemesis” and the name Jerry Goldsmith appeared on the screen, I got tears in my eyes... I want now present here six favourite tracks of Jerry’s music, each of them has a special place in my heart, and I will give no explanations, some of them I already discussed on my blog, others will follow: “The construction” – “Explorers” “End Titles” – “The Secret of NimH”: “Square One - End Credits” – “The Burbs” “Overture” – “The Great Train Robbery” “Bajo Fuego” – “Under Fire” “The Omen – Suite” Jerry, you are so missed!!! Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2017, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.

The original idea to talk about Danny Elfman’s score for “Edward Scissorhands”, I skipped after seeing “La La Land”. What a great movie, and what a great score! Therefore, this score will be discussed this week. The movie I heard a lot about “La La Land” before finally seeing it. In general, I am not a big fan of watching a musical on screen. I prefer to see them on stage, but I was finally curious to watch it because so many people were talking about it. I did not read any reviews, I never watched a movie of the director or listened to any music of the composer and could not even remember if I ever watched a movie with Emma Stone. Of course, I saw a few movies with Ryan Gosling, e.g. “The Ides of March” (2011) with George Clooney and which I did not like very much, but I loved “The Notebook” (2004), not because of Gosling, more because of Rachel McAdams, and I am still a great fan of her. Therefore, it was just pure curiosity to see it. Here is a trailer: Normally it is always a little awkward when you see a movie, and then suddenly the actors start to sing because there is, in general, no reason for doing so. “La La Land” is also different in this aspect. This beginning with standing in the always annoying traffic in Los Angeles, getting tired and bored and then finally start to sing because of you are bored and want to entertain yourself, first slowly, then with more and more passion and finally more people (including a combo playing in a van) are joining you… this was such a great idea and a great beginning! With this scene, the entertaining music and the passion of the singers to perform this scene, I immediately began to like what I was seeing. I was also immediately caught the score: This is exactly the music I want to hear in a musical, slightly-jazzy, dynamic and fun to listen to, just pure entertainment. The title “La La Land” refers to the city of Los Angeles, but is also an idiom for being out of touch with reality. Director Damien Chazelle, born 1985, directs with this movie just his second one after “Whiplash” (2014, also about Jazz). He wrote the script 2010, but could not find a studio willing to finance the production. Following the success of “Whiplash”, Chazelle was finally able to do it. Justin Hurwitz, also the composer of “Whiplash”, met Chazelle at Harvard. They were playing in the same band and then became roomies. In an interview with Hollywoodreporter, Chazelle explained the idea of the movie: ““Now more than ever we need hope and romance on the screen, and I think there’s something about musicals that just get at something that only movies can do. That idea of movies as a dreamland, movies as the language of our dreams and movies as a way of expressing a world in which you break into song, that emotions can violate the rules of reality. There is something very poetic about Los Angeles I think, about a city that is built by people with these unrealistic dreams and people who kind of just put it all on the line for that. “ Chazelle admitted that it was a challenge to place a musical in today’s world, but he was able to fall back on the timelessness of classic musicals to find his way. “La La Land” should also be an homage to all the creative people who moved to Los Angeles to chase their dreams”, said the director, and because of that, the film also has numerous visual allusions to Hollywood classics such as “Broadway Melody of 1940”, “Singin' in the Rain”, and “The Band Wagon”. The music is not only the reason that “La La Land” is so successful, the screenplay is also very well written, and the cast just perfectly fits. The story has a good sense of humour, but also a good amount of sad moments. Emma Stone is just astonishing in her role. For me, the best part is the ending, especially the last minutes of the movie, the “Epilogue” scene. After seeing it, I watched it two weeks later again, and these last minutes touched me even more, really made me almost cry. Well done! This is just great storytelling! The music The score is composed and orchestrated by Justin Hurwitz. The soundtrack has 15 tracks and starts with “Another Day of Sun”, the energetic dance number from the opening scene and the only cast song. This first track sets the tone for the rest of the score, the lyrics emphasize the importance of dreaming. This feel-good song is a perfect start of the album and the movie. The next track “Someone in the crowd” is the second highlight. Music should tell a story, and this song is exactly doing it: “Somewhere there’s a place / Where I find who I’m gonna be / Somewhere that’s just waiting to be found”, perhaps summarize of life as a journey. Emma Stone and her roomies are giving a great and lively performance in the scene in the movie that is just astonishing. Here is the song with scenes of the movie: Track 3 “Mia & Sebastian's Theme" is a wonderful piano track. This theme is a great balanced piece of music with a melody that you will never forget after you heard it. Track 4 “A Lovely Night” is the next highlight. The music underscores the first real scene between Mia and Sebastian and captures perfectly the playfulness of the relationship, and when suddenly the music breaks out into a tap dancing number, we have one of the best scenes in the movie. There are two versions of “City of Stars” (track 6, Ryan Gosling alone), and track 9 with Ryan and Emma Stone. This song won the Academy Award for Best Song, and it is highly deserved. Track 12 “Audition (The Fools Who Dreams)” is the last song on the album and the best song of the whole score. When Emma Stone is asked during the audition to tell a story, it becomes the story of her own dreams and disillusions. This scene is the first step to her final success in the end, a magical scene in the movie! We have a lot of instrument tracks on this score. I already mentioned track 3, but my personal favourites are “Planetarium” (track 7) and especially track 13 “Epilogue” (with some vocals in the end). We have a lot of instrument tracks on this score. I already mentioned track 3, but my personal favourites are “Planetarium” (track 7) and especially track 13 “Epilogue” (with some vocals in the end). When I was watching this “Epilogue” scene, an idea came to my mind: German opera composer Richard Wagner created a so-called “Tristan Accord” for his opera “Tristan und Isolde”. An accord consists normally of three notes, and they all have to be played, but because Tristan and Isolde are constantly interrupted when they are together, Wagner did not let all three notes of this accord during the opera until the final scene. Just in the last scene, the death scene, Wagner let the orchestra play the full accord. The music expresses the idea that now the couple is finally together, together in the moment of death. When you now listen to the last scene and watch how Sebastian plays his melody, I got the impression that he did not play the last note. He did not finish the theme in this scene because he and Mia did not come together in the end…. Might this be true? Happy to get comments about this. For me, “La La Land” is not only a great feel-good movie, it also tells a wonderful story about two creative people who believed in their dreams. Like each good movie, “La La Land” has also its sad moments, and the last scene is one of the saddest moments I saw recently. Both smile at each other, but you can see they are thinking that they – excuse me – just fucked up their chance to become happy together… is Mia really happy after this scene? I doubt it, her smile is not a real smile. It is the smile you put on your face when you try to hide your tears. Copyright © Stefan Riedlinger, 2017, all rights reserved. The reviews and other textual content contained on the amazingmoviemusic.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Stefan Riedlinger.