We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
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We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
Best POSTERS entries 40-21 in your North video are in my opinion (1) The Racers [aka Such Men are Dangerous] (2) FL for Pocket Money – note the compromise Towering Inferno type billing – (3) Willard (4) The Outrage [remake of the classic Rashomon starring Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo of Teahouse of the August Moon fame] (5) FL for Stage Struck (6) Pony Soldier [aka MacDonald of the Canadian Mounted] (7) both for Bruce and 4 Queens (8) Man with the Gun [aka The Trouble Shooter over here] (9) 13th letter (10) FL for Cheyenne Autumn (11) 2 stunning ones for Dragonslayer and (12) Desiree.
Several critics poked fun at Hollywood’s No 1 mumbler because he pronounced Desiree as Daisy Ray. However against that Lord Olivier said in a TV interview that Brando’s “Boney” was one of the all-time “most underrated performances of a historical character”.
Desiree was the film that Hirsch assured us NOBODY went to see. When you think of it though that was strictly speaking a hyperbolic contradiction in terms as Hirsch himself presumably saw it to review it. However he was anyway talking through his hat because Desiree was 9th among Marlon’s greatest box office hits, with Hirsch’s own pupil crediting it with an adjusted domestic gross of a whopping $250 million on Brando’s page on this site. [Joel seems to have been more clueless about box office stats than even YOU – and The Master could have done to take lessons from his pupil in that respect !]
Best POSTERS 1-20 (1) Rainmaker (2) FL Agony & Extasy (3) 2nd one for Cleo (4) Death of a Salesman (5) Rose Tattoo (6) 2 for I’ll Cry Tomorrow (7) The Bad Seed (8) The Dead – Huston’s last directorial project (9) FL for Misfits (10) 2 for Viva Zapata [Ty Power was 1st choice for that role] and (11) 2 for Spartacus.
Once again you have picked a film musician who is very popular with the pollsters. In 5 separate current polls of the perceived greatest movie musicians that I have checked out Alex North is ranked 3rd, 4th, 12th, 13th and 14th – an excellent average of around 9th over the 5 polls.
16 movies for which Alex composed and which I have seen immediately come to mind. He seems to have been fond of Mr Mumbles as he did the music for at least 3 of The Great Mumbler’s flicks – Streetcar, Viva Zapata and Desiree. Apparently Alex’s music for Streetcar was one of the very first jazz-based film scores.
Alex was the first composer to receive an honorary Academy Award but sadly never won a competitive Oscar despite 14 noms for Hollywood’s most prestigious acting prize. Overall IMDB credits Alex with 7 awards and 27 nominations for film music.
I gauged your North video a high 98.5% in my ratings and the following and Part 2 illustrate why.
Best STILLS [all entries] (1) Lee & Paul (2) Big Bob with singer/actress Julie London (3) Nappy! (4) Candice I presume? (5) Liz as Cleo (6) The Children’s Hour aka The Loudest Whisper (7) Prizzi’s Honour (8) MM, King Gable and Monty (9) Zapata! (10) Virginia Woolf (11) “When will you make an end to it Buonarroti?”***and lastly (12) in the opinion of some fashion icons “the sexiest T shirt ever worn on screen.”
***Bit of a Dan-like link here – another of Michelangelo’s most famous works was a sculpture of Moses!
Hi Bob, thanks for the comment, posts, review, generous rating, info and trivia, always appreciated.
Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
I was surprised Alex North didn’t win an Oscar for his scores, I know how respected he was. Jerry Goldsmith was a close friend.
An interesting story about Alex North and 2001 A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick had temp-tracked his sci-fi opus with classical music. North was hired to compose the score for the film.
After composing about an hours worth of music, Kubrick told a disappointed North he was going to go with the classical music soundtrack instead, and the rest is (movie) history. North’s 2001 music was later released separately on CD, conducted by Goldsmith.
Three Alex North films scored 10 out of 10 – Spartacus, Viva Zapata and A Streetcar Named Desire.
Five more scored 9 out of 10 – I’ll Cry Tomorrow, Virginia Woolf, The Rose Tattoo, Death of a Salesman and Prizzi’s Honor.
hmm looking at my files… the next composer’s films are nearly all in B/W… which should please Flora… oh and Hitchcock is in the top 5…. 😉
HI STEVE
Thanks for the feedback including that very interesting 2001 story.
Good to see ole Mumbles getting two 10 out of 10 scored movies. I was a bit surprised at Zapata making the cut though. I wonder how many people Hirsch thought went to see that one and Streetcar?
I was also surprised at your suggestion that Flora is a BW fan as I have never picked that up before. I would have thought that as especially The World in His Arms, David and Bathsheba, Duel in the Sun and Capt Horatio Hornblower were beautifully colored and as the young Greg looked very dashing generally in colored movies Flora would have had a lot of time for movies that were in color.
Anyway take care.
Hi, Bob.
I’m guessing that Steve means that I am a fan of classic Hollywood when a lot of movies were still made in black and white. Thus, I will have likely seen a lot of this next composer’s movies. I do indeed watch a lot of color movies, but they tend to be made prior to 1970. Glad to hear that there will be a Hitchcock film in the top 10. 🙂
HI FLORA
Thanks for the explanation. I do agree that many of those classic era film noir movies would have been much less effective if shot in color – the BW made them more atmospheric in my opinion and I thought that Hitch’s Psycho worked best in BW.
I thought you were a B/W film fan too Bob! 🙂
Some of my all time favorites are in monochrome – King Kong, Casablanca, Bride of Frankenstein, Rebecca, Night of the Demon, Day the Earth Stood Still, Psycho… and on and on….
What I was implying was that by saying that nearly all the films are B/W on the next video there’s less chance of modern movies getting a look in which would, I think, please Flora plenty.
ooh Flora has already replied and I was more or less correct… 🙂
HI STEVE
Please see my reply to Flora.
I should add that lots of the old BW Hollywood classics from even the 30s seem to have kept well over the years and are still a treat to watch whereas I have seen prints of many Brit films from even as late as the 1960s which are of such poor quality [probably as a consequence of very low budgets] that they can be a strain on the eyes.
STEVE
Still no editing button so please excuse my calling Double Indemnity Double Identity in my last post.
Hope you are having a good weekend.
POSTERS entries 1-20 (1) 1st for Asphalt Jungle (2) FL The Killers (3) both for Quo Vadis (4) King of Kings (5) Martha Ivers (6) 2 for Criss Cross with young Burton in iconic form (7) 1st one for Spellbound back in the days when my Greg had to take 2nd billing – those days didn’t last long! (8) Lust for Life (9) FL for El Cid (10) both for Thief of Baghdad (11) 1st one for Double identity (12) very original one for Ben Hur sporting an iconic Chuck and (13) The 4 Feathers.
No 13 was a marvellous film but I have mixed feeling when I recollect it. I saw it one Boxing night in 1952 or 53 and halfway through the showing I developed a massive toothache and of course the dentists would all be closed for the Xmas holidays.
A fine run of STILLS and my faves from the entire 40 movie entries are (1) Valley of the Kings (2) Stew and Ava (3) Ava with the Cowboy of the Century (4) beautiful if grisly lobby card for Golden Voyage of Sinbad (5) lobby card [I think?] for Eye of the Needle (6) Quo Vadis (7) The Cid! (8) Adam’s Rib (9) Burt’s turn to pose with the lovely Ava (10) iconic Fred and Babs (11) 2 stunners from Ben Hur and (12) from my perspective the most iconic and beautiful of them all –
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Joel, not to praise him.”
STEVE All of the movie musicians whom you have profiled so far have done well in polls that I have seen which attempt to rank the greatest of all time in that field. Miklos is no exception and in terms of averages he ranks 19th out of 30 entries throughout each of 5 polls that I have come across. IMDB credits him overall with 12 awards and 28 nominations.
There is a lot of magical artwork in this video mandating a 98% rating overall. Miklos seems to have been a great fan of Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger
Best POSTERS 40-21. FL=Foreign Language (1) Valley of the Kings (2) FL Green Fire (3) Sodom and Gomorrah (4) FL for The Bribe (5) both for Golden Voyage of Sinbad (6) FL for Knight without Armour (7) both for Jungle Book (8) stylish one for Madame Bovary (9) Lady Hamilton (10) Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid and (11) Knights of the Round Table –
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling through the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in His mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.” [Alfred Lord Tennyson]
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info, trivia, quote and song lyrics, much appreciated. Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Rozsa has always been a favorite of mine thanks to his memorable scores for historical epics like Ben-Hur, El Cid and King of Kings. I have his soundtracks on various LPs and CDs. Several on Ben-Hur, one 2-CD set contains a 56 page booklet, another set has 5-CDs, 366mins of music and a 28 page booklet.
His music for Hitchcock’s Spellbound gave him his first Oscar. According to IMDB ‘Gregory Peck liked the score so much, that in his last years, he used it in his one-man touring lecture show, “An Evening with Gregory Peck.”
Ten Miklos Rozsa films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources –
Ben-Hur
Double Indemnity
Asphalt Jungle ,The
Julius Caesar
Killers ,The
Thief of Bagdad ,The
Adam’s Rib
Lost Weekend ,The
El Cid
Four Feathers ,The
Seven more scored 9 out of 10.
Three more composers this week and I’ll give this series a break.
Thanks for the feedback and additional information especially that about my Greg.
You must have quite a collection of film music which I am sure helps you weed out the movies to choose for your composers series. I look for to the final 3 for now.