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GOLDEN BOY – Victor Young
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1938 Columbia Pictures bought the film rights to the play Golden Boy by Clifford Odets for $100,000, intending to showcase their star Jean Arthur with Frank Capra directing. However, when Capra was unavailable, Rouben Mamoulian was tasked with directing, which resulted in cast changes. William Perlberg was assigned production and the team of Lewis Meltzer, Daniel Taradash, Sarah Mason and Victor Heerman wrote the screenplay. Barbara Stanwyck was cast to star in the film as Lorna Moon, with Adolphe Menjou as Tom Moody, Joseph Calleia as Eddie Fuseli, and Lee J. Cobb as Papa Bonaparte. In an audacious decision, Mamoulian decided against studio wishes, to cast the young William Holden (21 years old) in his first acting role as Joe Bonaparte, a decision that ended up launching his career as a young heart throb. Read more…
SOCIETY OF THE SNOW – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In October 1972 a plane carrying a rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, who were on their way to play a game in Santiago, Chile, crashed high in the Andes mountains. 15 of the 45 passengers and crew died on impact but the others – some of whom were badly injured – quickly had to figure out how to survive. During the following 72 days, the survivors suffered extreme hardships, including exposure, starvation, and an avalanche, which led to the deaths of thirteen more passengers; famously, but reluctantly, they were forced to resort to cannibalism to stave off death due to lack of food. Eventually two of the rugby players – Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa – decided to strike out for help. They climbed a 15,000 foot mountain without gear, and then hiked almost 50 miles. It took them almost 10 days, but they finally stumbled into a remote village, where they could obtain help and call for the Chilean Army to rescue the other survivors. This incredible story was turned into a book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, and then into an acclaimed film, Alive, in 1993. This new film – La Sociedad de la Nieve, or Society of the Snow – is the first Spanish-language film version of the story, and is directed by acclaimed filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona. Read more…
STAGECOACH – Richard Hageman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director John Ford came upon a short story, “The Stage to Lordsburg” by Dudley Nichols, which inspired him for his next film project, and whose film rights he purchased for $2,500. Yet he had difficulty securing financial backing as the studios believed “A” western pictures were out of vogue, and they had no confidence that John Wayne could carry the film. Ford was insistent on retaining Wayne and eventually hammered out a deal with independent producer Walter Wanger who would manage production with a $531,374 budget. Ford would direct and Dudley Nichols was hired to write the screenplay. A fine cast was assembled, including Claire Trevor as Dallas, John Wayne as Ringo Kid, Andy Devine as Buck, John Carridine as Hatfield, Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone, Louise Platt as Lucy Mallory, George Bancroft as Marshall Curley Wilcox, Donald Meek as Samuel Peacock, Berton Churchill as Henry Gatewood, and Time Holt as Lieutenant Blanchard. Read more…
Golden Globe Winners 2023
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) have announced the winners of the 81st Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2023.
In the Best Original Score category composer Ludwig Göransson won the award for his score for Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan’s epic drama about the life and work of the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer whose work on the Manhattan Project in the 1940s led to the creation of the world’s first nuclear weapon. This is the first Golden Globe for Göransson, in his fourth nomination – he was previously nominated for Best Score for Black Panther in 2019, and Tenet in 2021, and for Best Song for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 2022. In his acceptance speech, Göransson said:
“Thank you to the HFPA, and thank you to Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas for inviting me on this journey, and for creating this masterpiece. Working with Christopher Nolan has been an incredible experience and I think the way that you use music in your films and your storytelling has inspired a lot of people. I want to also thank Cillian Murphy, I have been watching your face over and over and over again [laughs] – it’s been an incredible experience and thank you for inspiring me. I want thank all the musicians that played on this incredible score… on this score, they made an incredible effort. And I also want to thank my partner in life and partner in music, Serena, for helping me to realize this music. I love you.”
The other nominees were Joscelin Dent-Pooley (Jerskin Fendrix) for Poor Things, Joe Hisaishi for The Boy and the Heron, Mica Levi for The Zone of Interest, Daniel Pemberton for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Robbie Robertson for Killers of the Flower Moon
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for their song “What Was I Made For,” one of three nominees from the smash hit summer blockbuster Barbie.
The other nominees were Jack Black, Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Eric Osmond, and John Spiker for “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros. Movie; Lenny Kravitz for “Road to Freedom” from Rustin; Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt for “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie; Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, Dua Lipa, and Caroline Ailin for “Dance the Night” from Barbie; and Bruce Springsteen for “Addicted to Romance” from She Came to Me.
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