Film Score Rundowns

Film Score Blogs by Bill Wrobel
Saturday, October 9, 2004 at 8:26 pm [# 7]

Today was a day off from film music research during my vacation! However, I did go to Office Depot at 9 am when it opened to xerox pages of some of my research to mail to a few people. Later in the morning Susan & I went off in the rental car (that I extended for a third week) to go to beautifully rustic Forest Falls in San Bernardino County. First I mailed my two envelopes overseas, and then we shopped at Big Lots. I personally wanted to buy several high protein/fiber bars from “Go Lean” (honey vanilla yogurt flavor). It only costs 49 cents a bar there, but $1.49 at Wild Oats. Then we went to Vitamin City where I bought a case of Penta ultra premium purified drinking water at $29 a case. Reality taste of good water: it tastes real good even when warm! I stopped at MacDonald’s nearby to treat my wife to a fruit walnut salad and a coffee. Then we finally got on the freeway to Redlands (off the 10). To get to Forest Falls, you need to get off Orange (to Route 38) and then go thru the city of Mentone along 38 to the Forest. You go about 12 miles to the turnoff to Forest Falls (otherwise you go up the mountain to Big Bear!).

It’s a very short trip thru the beautiful tall tree-lined valley road. The town is very tiny. One restaurant, a gift shop (with a grocery store attached), an art studio next door. In fact, we talked to the British lady of that art gallery who specializes (with her boyfriend) on animals and landscapes. Very excellent work. I was tempted to buy a print but didn’t have enough money to pay $150 for a very nice cougar painting. She does wolves, bears, raccoons, etc. They also do commission work of people’s private pets, etc. Art Naturally is the place. The website is www.lindseyfoggett.com. Wildlife artist.

Anyway, we parked in the lot at the end of the road to the actual Forest Falls nature site, and trekked a quarter mile or so to it. Very nice! It’s been about 15 years since we’ve been there last. I highly recommend it. We ate at a Soup Plantation in Rancho Cucamonga. I got off 15 north to 66 (Foothill). I should’ve kept on 10 further west to Vineyard. It was odd how they had a new big mall after each half mile or so! But I liked going north on the 15 off the 10 on the way to 66 because of the vast expanse of the distant plains rolling up to the San Bernardino Mountains. It had a very appealing look to it.

Ok. I spent both Thursday and Friday at UCLA to continue my research on Rózsa’s DEAD MEN score. First, however, on Thursday I looked at two boxes of the Harry Lubin Collection. Box 14 had two episodes of some show (perhaps the Loretta Young Show, but I rather doubt it). The episodes I worked on included "Hollywood Story" (production 21). One cue was called "That's the Day I Remember" and another was "Producer's Office" and also "Back To Amateur Players" and "Fanfares." Appears like very nice, competent work (albeit a bit simple). Good and readable penmanship, clean and organized music cues per folder (sketch, Part, and full score). Another episode of this series was "New York Story" (Prod 22). The first cue was "P.T.A. Meeting", and then "Serenade of the City" and "In A Cab" and "Sophisticated." In Box 7, there was “Love Story." Another episode was apparently "Thanksgiving at Bever Run" or "Beaver Run" (hard to read). The first cue was "The Story of the Ginger Bread Man" Next was "Hold Up & Get Away." If I had that out-of-print Gianakos book of the reference set “Television Drama Series Programming” I would be able to find the precise show. So if I go back to UCLA on Monday, then I’ll go to the Young Library and check their copy. I also ordered all four boxes of the ED POWELL Collection but unfortunately they hadn't arrived yet (I would have to wait until 3 pm when the SRLF man normally shows up).

So I continued my work on DEAD MEN by Rózsa. Great score. The four Powell boxes finally showed up and I immediately unwrapped them. I already posted information on the Collection’s contents in Talking Herrmann Thursday night, but here goes anyway:

BOX ONE:
-"April in Paris" two copies of the conductor scores.
-"Night & Day" Conductor score
-GARDEN OF EVIL (Herrmann). This is a "Stock Annex" conductor score bound, "recorded 5-1-52; checked 6-29-54." The full score is at UCSB, but if you don't want to go up there and look at the microfilm (they won't allow you to look at the autograph scores if microfilm is available), then go to UCLA Special Collections Room B-425.
-"A Night With Pan" by Joseph Achron. It was dedicated to Powell dated July 27, 1935 in Hollywood with the words, "To my dear Eddy Powell with many thanks for his {??? Unreadable] and cooperation."

BOX TWO:
-"Song of Bernadette" full score cue Reel 3/1 (part II of Grotto Scene). It's 18 pages and 72 bars. I'll definitely want to work on that one.
-"Song of Bernadette" 63 pages Conductor book that includes "Prelude: Scherzo & Pastorale (Wood Gathering)"
-"The King & I" (Yul Bryner pic). There's the full score cue to the very long "Ballet" scene. It is 72 pages, 314 bars. It starts with "And honorable guest" and in Bar 3 it has written, "I beg to put before you 'Small House of Uncle Thomas.'"
-MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD "Overture of 26 pages, 151 bars. This one is a priority cue to work on!

BOX THREE:
-"Twelve O'Clock High" (just the timing sheets for the actual movie).
- "Twelve O'Clock High" (TV series). It's a big folder of Frontiere's music including "Scotch Countryside" and "Montage & Fairy Tale" etc.
-Sketches of cues by Powell (Powell as composer this time). Normally they are set in three lines or staves. One is very funny! It was dated Nov 26, 1960, a cue he titled "Who Gives a Shit" !
-Legal notes and personal notes. I have yet to study these but apparently circa 1974-75 he was involved in a bankruptcy situation or something. Some of these papers spill over in Box #4.

BOX FOUR:
-TORN CURTAIN. No, this is not the Herrmann score! However, it is still of great interest because it is the full score Main Title that John Addison composed of 89 bars. I'll definitely look at that one.
-Raksin's SYLVIA (Powell's arrangement of the Main theme). sketches.
-"Lulu" Prolog by Alan Berg. '63 sketch.
-Britten's "War Requiem" sketch of I.
-Vaughn Williams Symphony in F "Scherzo"
-Bela Bartok "Music for String Instruments, Percussion, and Celeste" four staves sketch.
-other miscellaneous "other composers" pieces.
-Conductor scores of John Green's "Valse Syncopee" and "Valse Francaise."
Someone replied on the Herrmann site that the score is actually fully there at UCLA in the Stanley Kramer Papers collection, indicated in the UNION CATALOG OF MOTION PICTURE MUSIC. I checked and found that they are in Boxes 313-321. So I plan to get the dvd and then eventually work on the full score.

On Friday, I phoned Bob at Paramount to see if indeed I can get in to study Herrmann’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. Unfortunately there wouldn’t be anybody in the Music Library today, so it’ll have to wait. As a backup plan, I of course returned to UCLA (my wife accompanied me). I finished my notes on Rózsa’s score, and then started on the Ed Powell Collection. Of course I started on the Overture to Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

After 5 pm closing time (wrap up!), I walked back to Lot 3 and Susan was there waiting for me in the car. She actually had slept in there peacefully for a few hours. Before that we had lunch together at the cafeteria. Usually I like to have salad or something, but the pizza looked good, so I had that! Susan had a pesto shrimp pasta dish. I don’t like pest(o) sauce! So we went on Sunset (a nice curvy road) down to Brentwood. We parked next to Peet’s Coffee and walked down the street looking for a bar or restaurant that had a tv where we can watch the Presidential debate (2nd of the three debates). Just several minutes before the show started, we found Hamburger Hamlet and had a Happy Hour meal and drink at the bar section right next to the tv! Susan really enjoyed her “Voodoo Wings”!

Monday morning I may indeed phone Paramount to see if I can get in (but probably it’ll be closed due to the Columbus holiday). UCLA, however, will be open so I may decide to go there and continue my research. Not sure yet. Tuesday I plan to go nowhere on my last day of my vacation. I need to rest my note-taking hand! Also I am very tired of fitting the freeway and Tuesday will be bad (Monday may be ok due to the holiday). I need to finish these blogs to send to Sarah by, oh, Monday night or Tuesday during the day. So the FSR site (including now the new blog feature) will be updated by the end of the week, I suppose.

I haven’t decided on my next descriptive cue rundown. After working on Rózsa’s score, I could logically opt for that one since it is fresh research (such as what occurred with Williams’ Harry Potter), but I was originally thinking of doing Herrmann’s Wrong Man. Now that there is a dvd release of that movie, I probably will go for Herrmann (my usual choice over Rózsa anyway!). I could do Herrmann’s Ghost & Mrs. Muir since there’s going to be a Scarecrow Press Film Score Guide release analyzing that score. I heard that Cooper is doing that one also (not verified). He did the VERTIGO book. Originally I heard that the editor(s) of the series originally wanted to a different composer for each book, but apparently changed their mind(s). I would like to prepare more for a future possible rundown on Tiomkin’s The High & the Mighty before it is released in the spring. However, that would entail a great deal of work since the full score is not available. I would need to reconstruct or re-assemble each full cue of interest from the Parts. That’s a lot of work, especially for a Tiomkin-orchestrated score! Herrmann is far, far easier to work with in terms of scores than Tiomkin. I need to contact the Wayne estate and find out if indeed they have the full score. I’m curious since, as given below in an earlier blog, the full score is not available either in Warner Bros Archives or the Tiomkin Collection.
Tomorrow is a free day so I can spend some time reading all the xeroxes I did of books when I was at USC. Or maybe I’ll take a very brief vacation from my film music avocation! I may do astrology or visit Dvd Planet or read the new Seth books or be spontaneous in some other fashion.
By the way, I received the TIMELINE new cd release of Goldsmith’s rejected score. I need to listen to it again, but there was not a single cue I was immediately taken with—unlike, say, STAR TREK and FINAL CONFLICT and several other scores in the past. It’s a fine score, but I preferred HOLLOW MAN as a recent score. It’s best, however, to listen to a score two or three times before making a final judgment. Still, I think first impressions can be highly important, instinctively or emotionally speaking. The movie itself is a bomb. I am shocked Goldsmith did a score for that tired, deflated, un-entertaining movie. FINAL CONFLICT is a classic compared to that one! Certainly his score for the former is far superior to TIMELINE, I feel. He will probably be best known for his STAR TREK music. I wish I had the full score to that one.

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