Music In April

Due to the oddities of the Blogger program I use, my most recent post on music is dated April 3. This is because I started working on this post on April 3 but left it as a draft until today when I finished and posted it. Since I need to update it, and since I didn't want the update to be buried also I am adding a new post for just five Music CD's.

I've been working on soundtracks, mostly musicals but with a few movie soundtracks thrown in. I have a classical musicians prejudice against movie music since except for the theme song most of the time people only notice movie music when its bad. For example last night I happened to catch a bit of the 2006 Kirsten Dunst version of Marie Antoinette while channel surfing. It was a party scene and something about it seemed off. The sets and costuming were right but it looked like a frat party. Then it hit me the background music was disco-rock music. I heard the music and saw modern people in costume, I lost the illusion the director was trying to create.

However the more I researched movie music the more of it I remembered. I caught myself saying 'Oh yeah, that's right.' King Kong, for example, was a major innovation in the use of soundtrack music to create the mood. So after digging around I found recordings with the music of Alfred Newman 9 Academy Awards with 45 nominations, John Williams 5 and 40, Max Steiner with 3 and 25, Miklos Rozsa 3 and 16, Dimitri Tiomkin with 3 and 14. Bernard Herrmann did the music for Psycho, and seven Orson Welles movies as well as numerous Alfred Hitchcock films. There's Adolph Deuch, FranzWaxman, Wolfgang Korngold, Gerry Goldsmith, Victor Young and Even Aaron Copeland. You may not have heard the names but I promise you you've heard the music.

Anyway five more CD's I bought were:

John Williams Greatest Hits 1969 - 1999 John Williams did Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and a host of others.
Round Up - Dimitri Tiomkin's High Noon, and Alfred Newman's How the West Was Won, among others.
Goldsmith: Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora! - Who can forget the Music from Patton?
Rozsa: QuoVadis, Ben Hur - Miklos Rozsa won an Oscar for Ben Hur and was nominated for Quo Vadis.
Film Music Classics: Newman - Alfred Newman was nominated for an astounding 45 Oscars. Here are two of them All About Eve and the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

April DVD's

I'm always scanning movie lists looking for the best Actors, Directors, top ten scenes, the best 100 films, and so on. I have to be careful about the criteria people use for these lists since most people tend to pick movies for their 'best' list based on what generation they're from. Sometimes I can tell the age of the person or the target market of the publication (or website) by what they pick as the best movie and what they leave off the list. Schindler's List and Raging Bull are two movies that show up on lists compiled by a certain generation of Baby Boomers-Gen Xers. Both films are awesome pieces of art, true masterpieces, but I wouldn't rank either one in my top ten simply because neither one of these movies had a broad impact on American culture like so many other films have. ("Rosebud", "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn," "I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling going on here!")

Of course I just showed my own bias. I look at film's with an impact on AMERICAN culture, so I sometimes miss good films from outside this limited scope. The Lions share of this month's DVD buy was from a list of the fifty best English Films. Of course we already owned a lot of them, such as Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge Over the River Kwai There are always there are some customer requests, and a lot of the DVD's are romances I missed earlier when I was working on a Valentines Day themed collection. As always I have several of those How-Could-I-have-Missed-This-One DVDs.

April's DVD's

Remains of the Day - A Merchant Ivory production with Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and James Fox, for those who loved Upstairs Downstairs.
Howard's End - The best of the Merchant-Ivory productions, with Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, and Helena Bonham Carter in a film based on an E. M. Forster novel. A multiple Oscar winner.
Alice Faye Collection - Alice was a dynamo of a singer-actress. She's largely forgotten today but her movies generated almost twice as many number one hit singles than either Judy Garland, Betty Grable, or Doris Day.
Smoke Signals. Made by and starring Native Americans this is a don't miss comedy.
Third Man - The classic noir with Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, and Trevor Howard and based on a Graham Greene novel. (It's on my list of the 100 best films ever made.)
Thirty-nine Steps - the 1939 Alfred Hitchcock original.
Kind Hearts and Coronets - Alec Guinness plays EIGHT different roles.
Don't Look Now - Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland in a steamy occult thriller.
Trainspotting - A raw look at the drug culture in Scotland starring Ewan McGregor.
If - 1968 British boarding school revolt staring Malcom Mcdowell.
Ladykillers - Top notch British comedy with Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom, and Peter Sellers as dimwitted criminals defeated by a sweet little old lady.
Gregory's Girl - A winning British comedy of high school love.
Alfie - Michael Caine and Shelly Winters in a screen version of the Bill Naughton play of a cockney playboy.
Italian Job - Michael Caine, Noel Coward, and Benny Hill in a British caper movie (the Re-make was good too.)
Commitments - The rise and fall of a Dublin soul band sheer comedy from start to finish.
Ryan's Daughter - Robert Mitchum, Sara Miles, Trevor Howard simple love story done in gargantuan proportions with awe inspiring cinematography.
Secret of Roan Inish - Gentle fantasy of the secrets and myths effecting a family in a small Irish fishing community.
Flashdance - Rock video with something like a plot.
Lady Jane - Historical drama about a queen for nine days with Helena Bonham Carter and Patrick Stewart.
Twice in a Lifetime - All star cast i a movie about a middle aged man falling in love with a younger woman. Gene Hackman, Ann Margret, Ellen Burstyn, Amy Madigen, Ally Sheedy, and Brian Dennehy.
Something Wild - Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith, and Ray Liotta. Meek Jeff Daniels gets taken for a ride.
Cousins - American re-make of the French Classic with Ted Danson Isbella Rossellini, Sean Young, William Petersen and Lloyd Bridges.
Untamed Heart - Christian Slater and Marissa Tormei in a modern tearjerker.
Before Sunrise. Ethen Hawke and Julie Delpy, talkie but romantic.
Leaving Las Vegas - Hard brutal look at two losers, an alcoholic and a prostitute in Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue.
Walk in the Clouds - Corny but compelling Romance with Keanu Reeves, Aitana Sanchez Gijon and Anthony Quinn.
Horse Whisperer - Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas Scarlett Johanson and Sam Neil in an excellent rendition of the Nicolas Evans novel.
Lavender Hill Mob - Alec Guinness in an Academy Award winning comedy from England.
Leave Her to Heaven - Gene Tierney, Cornell Wilde, Jeanne Crain, and Vincent Price is a Slick trashy melodrama.
Dam Busters - Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave in an exciting and intelligent WWII war movie.
Jane Eyre - Orson Welles and Joan Fontain light up the screen in this classic version of the Charlotte Bronte novel.
As Good as It Gets Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Greg Kinnear in a comedy-drama with Hunt and Nicholson both winning Oscars.
Get Carter - Michael and Britt Ekland in a brutal crime drama about a hit man investigating the death of his brother.
Somewhere in Time - Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymore, Christopher Plummer, and William H. Macy, a classic poorly rated but highly popular tearjerker. It won't go away.
Servant - Dirk Bogart, James Fox, and Sarah Miles insidious story of moral degradation in the British upper classes.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Albert Finney as an angry young man changing the lives of people around him.
Madness of King George - Nigel Hawthorne, Ian Holm, and Amanda Donohou Historical drama of the Madness of King George the fifth.
I'm all right Jack - Terry Thomas Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough in a fabulous British comedy.
My Beautiful Laundrette - Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke in an entertaining look at working class race relations in England.
Man in the White Suit - Alec Guinness is the inventor of a material that won't wear out.
Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - Engrossing story of a rebellious young man chosen to run in a track meet.
Cruel Sea - Jack Hawkins and Stanley Baker aboard a British warship in WWII.
Sunday Sunday Bloody - A very adult script with Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch.
Mona Lisa - Bob Hoskins Cathy Tyson and Michael Caine. Hoskins is a small time hood driving a high class prostitute that slowly realizes how seamy and depraved his job is.
Day of the Jackal - Edward Fox is the international assassin hired to kill De Gaulle. Taut thriller from the Frederick Forsyth Novel.
Garbo Silents Collection: Garbo, any actor known just by their last name has to be collected.
Alace Adams - A Katherine Hepburn classic based on a Booth Tatkington Pulitzer Prize winning novel.
Love Affair - Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer in an often remade comedy drama.
Here comes Mr. Jordan - Claude Raines and Robert Montgomery, Hollywood film making at its best.
Heaven Can Wait - Gene Tireney Don Ameche and Charles Coburn another classic Hollywood comedy fantasy.
Clock - Judy Garland Robert Walker James Gleason, and Keenon Wynn in a charming little love story.
Heiress - William Wyler directs Olivia DeHavilland Montgomery Cliff and Ralph Richardson in a multiple Academy Award Winning classic.
Pat and Mike - Katharine Hepburn and Spenser Tracy with Aldo Ray, Jim Backus, Chuck Connors, and Charles Bronson.
Niagara - Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotton, Jean peters, and Casey Adams along with murder and romance.
Three Coins in the Fountain - Clifton Webb Jean Peters, and Louis Jourdan in a splashy romantic fantasy.

Soundtracks

What I enjoy most about my job is building collections. I love learning new things and being a librarian is kind of like being a perpetual student except I get paid for it. So I've been working on the soundtrack collection and really enjoying it. I've always known that Hollywood loved chart topping musicians. I remember running across a hokey B-western that I almost bought for the library just because it had Bob Wills and his Texas Cowboys doing country swing from the flatbed of a supposedly moving train, but great musicians always have a habit of showing up in movies. There is a wonderful scene in the movie Ball of Fire of Gene Krupa doing a boogie riff in a club with wooden matchsticks and a matchbox. Of course Broadway was a huge source of talent for Hollywood, and there were several major stars that were singers first, (Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley in particular used movies to introduce and promote his music. I just recently bought a DVD collection of Alice Faye DVD's. I had never heard of Alice Faye so I was surprised to learn her movies generated 24 number one hits.

The music in this order falls into four broad categories, movie soundtracks, musical soundtracks, original cast Broadway recordings, and great soundtrack composers. Generally I tried to get original Broadway cast recordings of musicals since we probably own most of the great Hollywood musicals on either DVD or VHS but there were several cases where the motion picture soundtrack is either better in quality or has the performers people remember best.

The CD's

Show Boat
42nd Street
Annie Get Your Gun
Big Chill - A MoTown sampler with Aretha, Three Dog Night, and Procol Harum thrown in.
Blues Brothers - Jake and Elwood with Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, and James Brown.
Pulp Fiction - An amazing collection of hits from the Del Tones to the Statler Brothers.
Best of Bond - Carly Simon, Duran Duran, Tom Jones, Gladys Knight, Paul McCartney, Sheena Eason, Cheryl Crow, and more. Just wow.
Kiss me Kate
Guys and Dolls
Kismet
Oklahoma!
Carousel
King and I
South Pacific
West Side Story
Mary Poppins
My Fair Lady
Sound Of Music
Oliver
Funny Girl
Hello Dolly
Fiddler on the Roof (motion picture version, Issac Stern plays the violin part!)
Man of La Mancha
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Grease (the movie soundtrack.)
Fame - The movie soundtrack just may live forever.
Annie
Footloose - Another 80's hit generator with, among others, Kenny Loggins, Shalamar, Quiet Riot, Sammy Hagar and Foreigner.
A Chorus Line
Little Shop of Horrors
Dirty Dancing - Another 80's hit machine with an amazing collection of classics.
Captain Blood and Other Swashbucklers - the four composers on this album, Eric Wolfgang Korngold, Victor Young, Max Steiner, and Miklos Rozsa were nominated for 61 Academy Awards and won 9.
King Kong: Complete 1933 film score. Max Steiner's ground breaking music changed soundtracks for all time. (Yep. King Kong changed music!)
Adventures of Mark Twain - Max Steiner wrote one of the greatest film scores ever written for a movie nobody remembers.
Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (Good, the Bad, The Ugly) One of the most unforgettable western theme songs ever written.
Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith - Jerry Goldsmith was nominated for 17 Academy Awards and wrote music for the Blue Max, Patton, and Legend among others.
Brigadoon
Bernard Herrmann: The Film Scores - Won one Academy Award and was nominated for 5, his distinctive style including Psycho and North by Northwest.
Bye Bye Birdie
Unsinkable Molly Brown
Nashville
Music in Film - Another Oscar studded cast share the stage with Aaron Copeland, Sergey Prokofiev, and Leonard Bernstein.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Tommy - I like the Who, but I've always liked Tina Turner's version of the Acid Queen better.