Archive
A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Franz Waxman
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
MGM Studios decided that they wanted to bring the 1843 novella “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens to the big screen. They secured the film rights and assigned Joseph L. Mankiewicz to production. Hugo Butler was hired to adapt the novel and write the screenplay, however, the studio insisted that the final product be a “Family Film” as was its historic practice with literary adaptations. As such, much of the grimmest, and scariest elements of Dicken’s tale was excised, which robbed the film of much of its potent social commentary. Edwin L. Marin was tasked with directing and after recasting the lead actor role, a great cast was assembled, including Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge, Gene Lockhart as Bob Cratchit, Kathleen Lockhart as Mrs. Cratchit, Terry Kilburn as Tiny Tim Cratchit and Barry MacKay as Fred. Read more…
STREET ANGEL – Luting He
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director-Actor-Screenplay writer Yuan Mushi was seeking to direct the second film of his career. As part of his vision, he wrote a screenplay in support of China’s “Left Wing Movement” in cinema, which sought reveal the harsh struggle and bitter life of the poor urban underclass. Filmed during tumultuous times against the backdrop of the Second Sino-Japanese war, the film proved to be trendsetting by its innovative use of thematic music, singing, and choreographed art. Yuan secured financial backing and distribution support from the Mingxing Film Company. Yuan would also direct the film, and brought in a fine cast, including Zhou Xuan as Xiao Hong, Zhao Huishen as Xiao Yun, Zhao Dan as Chen Shaoping, and Wei Heling as Wang. The film would be the company’s last as it was shut down by the war. Read more…
WIND – Basil Poledouris
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the years immediately prior to his death in 2006, composer Basil Poledouris essentially retired from scoring and moved from the Los Angeles area to Vashon Island, off the coast of Seattle, Washington, where he indulged in his second greatest passion after music: sailing. Many composers are well known for their non-film music endeavors. Alan Silvestri owns a vineyard and makes his own wine, for example, and James Horner famously (and tragically) loved flying vintage planes. Once in a while the two passions are able to intersect, and for Poledouris that happened with the only score he wrote in 1992 – Wind. The film is a romantic adventure set in the world of America’s Cup yachting, which stars Matthew Modine and Jennifer Grey, and was directed by Carroll Ballard. The film is mostly forgotten today, but film music fans would be remiss if they forgot Poledouris’s score for it, because it allowed him to fully embrace the emotional rush that sailing provided for him, and inspired him to write one of his most personal scores. Read more…
ANOTHER DAWN – Erich Wolfgang Korngold
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1935 Warner Brothers Studio executive Jack L. Warner decided that the 1919 play “Caesar’s Wife” by W. Somerset Maugham offered opportunity for a big screen adaptation. He purchased the film rights, provided a budget of $552,000, and would personally join Harry Joe Brown and Hal B. Wallis in producing the film. William Dieterle was tasked with directing and sought to capitalize on rising star Errol Flynn by casting him as Captain Denny Roark. Bette Davis was originally cast to play Julia Ashton Wister but her suspension by the studio resulted in Kay Francis winning that role; they were joined by Ian Hunter as Colonel John Wister. Read more…
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD – Rachel Portman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Where Angels Fear to Tread was one of several cinematic adaptations of novels by the British writer E. M. Forster in the 1980s and early 1990s, the others being A Passage to India, A Room With a View, and Howard’s End. Like all of Forster’s work it is a scathing examination of the British class system, its rigid mores and morals, and how those formal rules butt up against the passions bubbling underneath the proverbial stiff upper lips. This film adaptation is directed by Charles Sturridge and stars Helen Mirren as Lilia, a recent widow who travels from London to Tuscany in 1905 with her young companion Caroline (Helena Bonham-Carter). Shockingly, Lilia falls in love with a handsome and roguish Italian named Gino (Giovanni Guidelli), marries him, and falls pregnant, much to the dismay of her conservative and status-obsessed siblings (Rupert Graves and Judy Davis) back in England. As the two halves of the family fight over Lilia’s perceived unsuitable relationship, especially as it relates to the future of her unborn child, the disagreements quickly turn to tragedy for all involved. The title comes from the famous line in Alexander Pope’s 1711 poem ‘An Essay on Criticism’: for fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Read more…
THE BATMAN – Michael Giacchino
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
When Warner Brothers announced that there was going to be yet another Batman reboot movie, with a sixth actor donning the famous black cowl, I admit I initially rolled my eyes. How many more different versions of this story do we need? How could they possibly differentiate it from the character portrayals by Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, and most recently Ben Affleck, among all the others? I was getting bat fatigue, and went into this with somewhat low expectations, despite the caliber of the actors and filmmakers involved. Well, I’m very happy to eat my words because Matt Reeves’s The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson and Zoe Kravitz, is excellent: the caped crusader re-imagined as a film noir antihero. It’s important to remember that the media behemoth we know now as DC actually began as Detective Comics, and that the character was originally that – the world’s greatest detective. The Batman is very much a return to those roots, pitting the character as an ally to the Gotham City police, helping to solve the murders of several local politicians and public figures in increasingly disturbing ways. Read more…
FIRE OVER ENGLAND – Richard Addinsell
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1936 producer Alexander Korda came across the novel Fire Over England by A. E. W. Mason and believed it could be successfully brought to the big screen as a historical drama set in the Elizabethan era. He purchased the film rights and joined with Erich Pommer to manage production. Clemence Dane and Sergei Nolbandov collaborated on writing the screenplay and William K. Howard took the reins for directing. A fine cast was assembled including; Flora Robson as Queen Elizabeth I, Raymond Massey as King Philip II of Spain, Leslie Banks as Robin, Earl of Leicester, Laurence Olivier as Michael Ingolby, Vivien Leigh as Cynthia and James Mason as Hillary Vane. Read more…
CAT BURGLAR – Christopher Willis
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A new project from the mind of the British satirist and filmmaker Charlie Brooker – whose anthology series Black Mirror received general critical acclaim – Cat Burglar is something very, very different. Do you remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books when you were a kid? Actually, probably not, if you were born at any point after 1990, but they were basically novels where, at certain points in the story, you were asked to make a decision about what the hero did next. Walk through Door A? Turn to page 28. Walk through Door B? Turn to page 23. And so on and so on… and depending on what you chose, the hero lived or died or got the girl. Cat Burglar is something like that, except it’s animated and on Netflix. The story follows a cartoon cat named Rowdy who is trying to steal valuable artwork from a museum which is being protected by a security guard dog named Peanut. The viewer uses their remote control to answer a series of trivia questions in order to advance the story, with the animation having different outcomes depending on how the viewer answers. It’s a clever idea that combines interactive video games with classic cartoon animation, and it will be interesting to see whether the concept takes off or becomes a one-off novelty. Read more…
DIÊN BIÊN PHÚ – Georges Delerue
THROWBACK THIRTY
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The city of Diên Biên Phú is located in the north-west of Vietnam, and was the site of the decisive battle of the First Indochina War in 1954. The conflict climaxed with 55 days of intense combat in which the French colonial army fought against local Vietnamese forces for the fate of the region. It was a terrible and bloody battle, with thousands killed as a result of anti-aircraft batteries, tank warfare, and ground assaults; the eventual result was a humiliating loss for the French, and victory for the Chinese and Russian-backed Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. In the immediate aftermath of the battle the Geneva Accords were signed, ending the war; France withdrew all its forces from its regional colonies in French Indochina, and the independent countries of North Vietnam and South Vietnam were created, although that would not be the end of the conflict, as less than a year later in 1955 the two sides then began battling each other for control of the entire country. The resulting Second Indochina War – known in the United States as the Vietnam War – would then rage on for twenty more years. Read more…
KIMI – Cliff Martinez
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I was initially disappointed to learn that Kimi is not a biopic of the Formula 1 driver Kimi Räikkönen, but is instead a new techno-thriller from director Steven Soderbergh. It’s essentially a new spin on the trope of someone witnessing an apparent crime from afar, but when the witness tries to report the crime they are met with disbelief from the authorities. The whole thing began with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window back in 1954, and has seen a resurgence of late through films such as Disturbia, Gone Girl, and last year’s The Woman in the Window. Zoe Kravitz stars as Angela, a tech expert with agoraphobia who works for a company that makes ‘Kimi,’ a smart home appliance similar to Siri and Alexa. Part of Angela’s job is to monitor the voice commands given to Kimi by its users, ostensibly to improve the device’s search algorithm; however, when Angela apparently discovers recorded evidence of the murder of a Kimi user, she tries to report it to her superiors – and quickly finds her own life in danger as a result. Read more…
MODERN TIMES – Charles Chaplin
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Charlie Chaplin’s inspiration for the film Modern Times arose from the deplorable social and economic conditions that he found in Europe in the aftermath of the Great Depression. A personal conversation with Mahatma Gandhi about the negative effects of modern technology on people’s lives was also instrumental. In 1934 he began conceiving the film’s story, which would serve as his first ‘talkie’ film. However, he abandoned this and instead chose to make his last silent film with the Tramp character as he felt the universal appeal of him would be lost with dialogue. Once again he would oversee production, direct, write the screenplay, compose the music, and star in the film. Joining him would be Paulette Goddard as Ellen Petersen, Henry Bergman as the café proprietor, Stanley “Tiny” Sanford as Big Bill and Chester Conklin as the Mechanic. Read more…
ENCANTO – Germaine Franco, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Original Review by Christopher Garner
Disney’s 60th animated feature film, Encanto, had a unique path to popularity. Its one-month theatrical run was profitable by pandemic standards, but far less successful than these films usually are. After being released on Disney+, however, it has become a huge hit. It tells the story of the Familia Madrigal, a multi-generational Colombian family with magical powers that live in a sentient house they call Casita. The main character, Mirabel (voiced by Brooklyn 99’s Stephanie Beatriz) is the only descendent of the family matriarch, Abuela, who does not have a “gift.” She discovers something to be wrong with the family’s magic and takes it upon herself to discover the cause of the problem and find a solution. As of this writing, the film has already won the Golden Globe for best animated picture, and has also been nominated for an Academy Award. Read more…
MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN – Shirley Walker
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A comedy thriller with a science fiction twist, Memoirs of an Invisible Man is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it is one of the few films directed by John Carpenter where he was essentially a ‘director for hire’ as opposed to being an integral part of its production; the film was originally supposed to be an Ivan Reitman project until he clashed with star Chevy Chase. The whole thing was a Chase vanity project intended to usher him into more serious leading man roles; he plays mild-mannered stockbroker Nick Halloway, who is rendered invisible following an accident at a hi tech laboratory, and spends the rest of the movie evading a corrupt CIA operative who wants to either recruit him to be a spy, or kill him to stop Nick from exposing his corruption. The film co-stars Daryl Hannah and Sam Neill, but unfortunately was something of a critical and commercial flop. Read more…
DEATH ON THE NILE – Patrick Doyle
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Kenneth Branagh has seemingly moved from adapting works by William Shakespeare to adapting works by Agatha Christie, and I for one am delighted. Death on the Nile is the second major cinematic adaptation of Christie’s classic whodunit, after the John Guillermin-Peter Ustinov version from 1978, and is the second of Branagh’s Christie adaptations after Murder on the Orient Express in 2017. Branagh himself plays the brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who gets drawn into a mystery while travelling in Egypt; a wealthy heiress is murdered by an unknown assailant during a cruise down the Nile on a luxury steamer, and many of the guests on the boat have grudges against her, to the extent that any of them could reasonably have been the murderer. It is up to Poirot to unmask the killer before the boat returns to Cairo. The film is a wonderfully old-fashioned thriller, handsomely staged with sweeping vistas and gorgeous period production design. It also has a tremendous supporting cast, which includes Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, Emma Mackie, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Sophie Okonedo, Letitia Wright, and Russell Brand. Read more…
THE THREE MUSKETEERS – Max Steiner
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
RKO Studios like its competitors of the day was seeking to remake classic films of the Silent Age. In 1934 they secured the film rights for “The Three Musketeers”, which previously had starred Douglas Fairbanks Jr in 1921. Cliff Reid was assigned production with a $512,000 budget. The film would again draw upon the famous novel 1844 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, with Rowland V. Lee and Dudley Nichols writing the screenplay. Lee was also tasked with directing and brought in a fine cast, which included Walter Abel as D’Artagnan, Ian Keith as Count de Rochefort, Margot Grahame as Milady de Winter, Paul Lucas as Athos, Moroni Olsen as Porthos, and Onslow Stevens as Aramis. Read more…
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