Lost In the Shuffle VIII

This week’s “Lost In the Shuffle” offers yet another eclectic mix, from classics to catastrophes.

CAREFUL, HE MIGHT HEAR YOU (1983) – Mr. Hood and Vanessa Arrive At Lila’s House

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When CAREFUL, HE MIGHT HEAR YOU premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 1983, it rode the first crest of the Australian New Wave that began in the late 1970’s. Based on Sumner Locke Elliott’s autobiographical novel, the film takes place in Depression-era Australia as a ten-year-old boy gets caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between one mentally unstable, wealthy aunt and the poor aunt who has brought him up. Australian composer Ray Cook was brought on board for the first of only two feature film scores (including 1985’s REBEL). Cook had moved from Australia to London in 1960 and made a name for himself as a pianist, conductor and arranger, working on more than forty West End musicals. The film won eight Australian Film Institute awards (that country’s equivalent of the Oscars), including Best Picture, though Cook lost the Best Original Music Score award to Bruce Rowland for PHAR LAP. When I wrote the liner notes for the Varese Sarabande release, I got to know the score well, though I haven’t listened to it since. (I tend to burn out on a score after I’ve spent so much time with it.) In this track you’ll hear the four-note motif in the violin duet which is taken from the main theme, heard here in a minor key.

HOME FROM THE HILL (1960) – Pain

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Bronislau Kaper is one of my favorite composers, yet I haven’t seen many of the films he has scored. HOME FROM THE HILL contains one of Kaper’s most sweeping main themes. This brief, dark cue only contains the first four notes of that theme. The track is too short to give you an idea of the breadth of Kaper’s music, but I highly recommend the score.

THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) – The Creation of the Monster

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The Charles Gerhardt series of Classic Film Scores recordings for RCA in the 1970s was responsible for my introduction–and love of–Golden Age film music. My favorite album of the series was dedicated to the score of Franz Waxman. In addition to suites from such great scores as SUNSET BOULEVARD and A PLACE IN THE SUN, the album contained music from Waxman’s breakthrough score–THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. I’m not a big horror fan, so everything I know of BRIDE I learned from YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. Fans of Waxman will recognize chord progressions and thematic elements reminiscent of later Gothic films such as REBECCA and MY COUSIN RACHEL. It’s hard to get that three-note motif out of your head, especially when played on the theremin. The timpani keeps a steady rhythm through the track bringing the cue to a thrilling close.

STAR WARS (1977) – Princess Leia’s Theme

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For over 30 years, this is one track that has not–and probably never will be–lost in the shuffle. I don’t think you guys need me to detail the joys of this particular film or John Williams‘s music. Sure, it’s a concert suite arrangement of the theme, but this is one of those tracks that turn me into a quivering 15-year-old newbie film score nerd every time I hear it. If the opening flute and oboe descending lines and the French horn melody don’t touch off a twinge of nostalgia, then nothing I write here would mean much anyway.

THE CASSANDRA CROSSING (1976) – I Can’t Go

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Disaster films were all the rage in the 70s. Throw in a bunch of has-been movie stars and you had a sure-fire recipe for box office gold. I tried to watch this Italian entry about a virus let loose on a train from Geneva to Stockholm, but POSEIDON ADVENTURE it’s not. Not surprisingly, Jerry Goldsmith‘s score is the standout element of the film. Late last year, Prometheus Records released an expanded 2-CD of the score. The first disc contained the previously unreleased complete score. In this track you’ll hear Goldsmith’s particular talent at ratcheting up the tension through short percussion riffs, ascending cluster chords, and electronics for the virus. The track closes with a brief reprise of the main theme in the strings and French horns. This version of the cue is taken from the LP tracks, which comprised the second disc.

Did you discover any scores that got lost in the shuffle this week?