Archive
MAN OF CONQUEST – Victor Young
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1935, Herbert Yates reorganized Republic Pictures and began a multi-year program upgrading the quality of the films. He also steadily improved Republic’s infrastructure and recruited talented technical people, writers and directors. In 1939 he decided to further expand by taking on a grand historical epic. He believed he found his vehicle with Marquis James’s 1929 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Sam Houston, “The Raven” and purchased the film rights. Sol C. Siegel was placed in charge of production with a $750,000 budget, George Nicholls would direct, and the team of Harold Shumate, Wells Root, Jan Isbell Fortune, and Edward E. Paramore Jr. would adapt the novel and write the screenplay. For the cast, Richard Dix would star as Sam Houston, joined by Gail Patrick as Margaret Lea, Edward Ellis as Andrew Jackson, Joan Fontaine as Eliza Allen, Victor Jory as William B. Travis, Robert Barrat as David Crockett, Ralph Morgan as Stephen F. Austin, Robert Armstrong as Jim Bowie, and C. Henry Gordon as Generalissimo Santa Anna. Read more…
SLEEPERS – John Williams
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Sleepers is a dark crime drama directed by Barry Levinson, adapted by Levinson from Lorenzo Carcaterra’s controversial 1995 book of the same name. Set initially in 1960s Hell’s Kitchen, New York, the story follows four inseparable boys whose lives are destroyed after a foolish prank involving a stolen hot-dog cart ends with a man being badly injured. Sent to the Wilkinson Home for Boys, they are subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse by several guards, led by the sadistic Sean Nokes. Years later, two of the boys – now hardened criminals – unexpectedly encounter Nokes and kill him, setting in motion an elaborate scheme involving their childhood friends to manipulate the subsequent murder trial and finally exact revenge on the men who tormented them. Read more…
MICHAEL COLLINS – Elliot Goldenthal
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Michael Collins is director Neil Jordan’s sweeping historical drama about one of the most important and controversial figures in the Irish struggle for independence. Liam Neeson plays Collins, who emerged from the failed Easter Rising of 1916 to become one of the principal architects of the Irish revolutionary movement, eventually serving as Minister for Finance in the underground Dáil government and as Director of Intelligence for what would eventually become the Irish Republican Army. Collins was a key strategist in the guerrilla campaign against British rule, but he later became one of the principal negotiators of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, which established the Irish Free State while leaving Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. The treaty split the republican movement, led directly to the Irish Civil War, and ultimately placed Collins in opposition to many of his former comrades; he was eventually killed in an ambush in County Cork in August 1922. Read more…
THE FIRST WIVES CLUB – Marc Shaiman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The First Wives Club is a comedy-drama film directed by Hugh Wilson, adapted by Robert Harling from Olivia Goldsmith’s bestselling novel. It stars Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton as Brenda, Elise, and Annie, three college friends reunited by the death of a fourth member of their old circle, Cynthia. Each has reached middle age only to discover that the husband she helped support has left her, betrayed her, or traded her in for someone younger. Their grief and anger become a plan: expose the men’s hypocrisies, hit them where it hurts, and reclaim the confidence they have lost. The film has an astonishing supporting cast, including Stockard Channing and Maggie Smith, Dan Hedaya, Victor Garber, and Stephen Collins as the philandering husbands, and Sarah Jessica Parker and Elizabeth Berkley as two of the younger women the husbands leave their wives for, plus Marcia Gay Harden, Rob Reiner, a young Timothy Olyphant, and various real-life New York feminist icons and socialites playing themselves. Read more…
EMMA – Rachel Portman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The mid-1990s were an extraordinary time for Jane Austen on screen. Within a remarkably short period audiences were treated to Roger Michell’s Persuasion, Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, Andrew Davies’s enormously popular BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth, Amy Heckerling’s contemporary Emma reworking, Clueless, and finally this more traditional version of Emma, released theatrically in the summer of 1996. The film was written and directed by Douglas McGrath, who was making his feature directing debut after having earned an Academy Award nomination for co-writing Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway in 1994. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma Woodhouse, a wealthy, intelligent, confident young woman living in the English village of Highbury who has convinced herself that she possesses an exceptional talent for matchmaking. Unfortunately, Emma understands almost everyone’s romantic feelings except her own. Read more…
WINTERSET – Nathaniel Shilkret
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Playwright Maxwell Anderson was profoundly disturbed by the highly controversial execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in 1927. He drew inspiration from the event and wrote Winterset in 1935 as a poetic and dramatic exploration of the aftermath of a similar injustice. A 1935 stage production was a massive hit, winning the very first New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Given its success, RKO Pictures bought the screen rights to capitalize on its prestige with a film version. Pandro S. Berman was assigned as producer with a budget of $400,000, Alfred Santell was tasked with directing, and Anthony Veiller would write the screenplay. RKO decided to recruit most of the Broadway cast for the film. Burgess Meredith would star as Mio Romagna, joined by Margo as Miriamne Esdras, Eduardo Cianelli as Trock Estrella, John Carradine as Bartolomeo Romagna, Paul Guilfoyle as Garth Esdras, Maurice Moscovitch as Papa Esdras, and Edward Ellis as Judge Gaunt. Read more…
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME – Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz
THROWBACK THIRTY
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’m going to make a statement here that might be controversial, but here goes. I think that the score for The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz is the greatest piece of music ever written for a Disney animated feature, going all the way back to 1937 and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Yes, that includes Pinocchio and “When You Wish Upon a Star,” that includes The Jungle Book and “The Bare Necessities,” that includes The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas, and all the others. It is, for me, the most sophisticated, the most dramatically intelligent, the best orchestrated, the darkest, and the most mature of all the Disney scores, and the fact that it isn’t better loved, or better respected, by fans of the genre is, in my opinion, a huge oversight. Read more…
THE GENERAL DIED AT DAWN – Werner Janssen
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1936 Paramount Pictures came upon an unpublished manuscript by novelist Charles G. Booth inspired by the real-life exploits of Morris “Two-Gun” Cohen. Cohen was a colorful, British-born Jewish adventurer who traveled to China and became a general in the National Revolutionary Army. He served as the personal bodyguard to Sun Yat-sen, leader of the 1911 revolution that toppled the Qing Dynasty. The studio was impressed, purchased the film rights, and signed Booth to a multi-film writing deal. William LeBaron was assigned to the production, Oscar-winning director Lewis Milestone was recruited, and Booth would collaborate with Clifford Odets to write the screenplay. The studio wanted marquee star power for the film, so Gary Cooper would star as O’Hara, joined by Madeleine Carroll as Judy Pierre, Akim Tamiroff as General Yang, Dudley Digges as Mr. Wu, Porter Hall as Peter Pierre, and Philip Ahn as Oxford. Read more…
AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER – Hugo Friedhofer
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In 1952, 20th Century Fox studio executives decided that they wanted to remake one of the most popular romantic films of all time – 1939’s “Love Affair,” which starred Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl were initially assigned to star in the remake, but the project stalled and did not regain traction until 1956, when Leo McCarey and Jerry Wald took over production with a $2.1 million budget. They chose to use the same screenplay as the 1939 film by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart. McCarey would also direct the film and brought in a splendid cast, including Cary Grant as Nicolo Ferrante, Deborah Kerr as Terry McKay, and Richard Denning as Kenneth Bradley. Read more…
BOY ON A DOLPHIN – Hugo Friedhofer
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
20th Century Fox executives made the decision to bring writer David Divine’s 1955 novel Boy on a Dolphin to the big screen, purchasing the film rights prior to publication. Sam Engel was assigned as producer with a $2.8 million budget, Ivan Moffat and Dwight Taylor were hired to write the screenplay, and Jean Negulesco was tasked with directing. Casting proved problematic, with Cary Grant dropping out at the last minute to comfort his ailing wife; Robert Mitchum then declined, and Alan Ladd was ultimately cast as Dr. James Calder. His co-star, Sophia Loren, who played Phaedra, was two inches taller than the diminutive Ladd and was forced to walk in a trench or have Ladd stand on a box to ensure she did not dwarf him. Joining them were Clifton Webb as Victor Parmelee, Jorge Mistral as Rhif, Laurence Naismith as Dr. Hawkins, and Piero Giagnoni as Nikko. Read more…
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL – Hugo Friedhofer
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
20th Century Fox studio executives made the decision to bring Francis Gwaltney’s popular WWII novel The Day the Century Ended (1955) to the big screen re-titled Between Heaven and Hell. They hired playwright Rod Serling, who served as a paratrooper in the Philippines during the war, to write the screenplay, several years before he would create pop culture history with his groundbreaking TV series The Twilight Zone. His voluminous script, which would have resulted in a nine-hour film, was rejected. Additional writers were brought in, with Harry Brown eventually crafting the final version. David Weisbart was assigned as producer with a $1.52 million budget, and Richard Fleischer was tasked with directing. The cast would include Robert Wagner as Private Sam Gifford, Terry Moore as Jenny Gifford, Broderick Crawford as Captain “Waco” Grimes, and Buddy Ebsen as Corporal Willie Crawford. Read more…
THE EMPEROR WALTZ – Victor Young
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
In the late 1940s Billy Wilder was Paramount Pictures premier director, and Bing Crosby was the studio’s leading star. Wilder had always wanted to do a musical with Crosby, and found a story, which drew from an actual historical event, which eventually became this film: The Emperor Waltz. Valdemar Poulsen was a Danish inventor who demonstrated his magnetic recording device to Emperor Franz Joseph I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in an audacious effort to secure financing for his invention. Charles Brackett was assigned production with a $3.8 million budget, Wilder would direct and Brackett and Wilder would write the screenplay. Bing Cosby would star as Virgil Smith, joined by Joan Fontaine as Countess Johanna Augusta Franziska, with Richard Haydn as Emperor Franz Josef, Roland Culver as Baron Holenia, and Sig Ruman as Dr. Zwieback. Read more…
FLYING TIGERS – Victor Young
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
By 1942 the United States was fully engaged in WWII and Republic Pictures management decided making a propaganda film to support the war effort would be both patriotic, and profitable. They decided to tell the tale of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), American civilian pilots who shipped out to China for the purpose of flying American P-40F fighter aircraft to aid Chinese allies fighting Japanese aggression. Edmund Grainger was placed in charge of production with a $900,000 budget, David Miller would direct, and Kenneth Gamet and Barry Trivers would write the screenplay. A fine cast was assembled, with John Wayne starring as Captain Jim Gordon, joined by John Carroll as “Woody” Jason, Anna Lee as Brooke Elliot, Paul Kelly as “Hap” Davis, Gordon Jones as “Alabama” Smith, Edmund MacDonsald as Blackie Bales and Mae Clarke as Verna Bales. Read more…
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER – Jonny Greenwood
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the most popular and critically acclaimed movies of 2025, One Battle After Another is a black comedy action-thriller written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, a former left-wing political revolutionary from an underground militant group called the French 75. Early in the film, the French 75 carry out a bold operation at the Mexico–US border, freeing apprehended immigrants and sparking conflict with ruthless military officer Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who has a bizarre sexual obsession with Bob’s partner Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). After Perfidia is arrested for murder, Lockjaw arranges for her to avoid prison in exchange for ratting out her comrades, forcing Bob to flee. Sixteen years later, Bob is living off-grid, paranoid, and raising his teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) far from the revolution. Things change for Bob when a still-obsessed Lockjaw discovers his location, and he and Willa are separated. Desperately trying to rescue his daughter, Bob is forced to get back in touch with his old French 75 compatriots – including Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), a martial arts instructor who also runs underground support networks – before Lockjaw finds her. Read more…
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