Halle Berry gets into catfights in her CATWOMAN threads.
© Warner Bros.
Herrmann Noir
By: Randall D. LarsonDate: Thursday, December 18, 2003
THIS WEEK'S RECOMMENDATIONS
FSM's Golden Age Classics' release for December (the label's 81st CD release in five years!) is the landmark Bernard Herrmann score for Nicholas Ray's 1952 film noir thriller, ON DANGEROUS GROUND (FSM Vol 6 No 18). The film was Herrmann's only effort in this genre, and the result is a solid orchestral suspense thriller score. The music is bold and strident, expressing Robert Ryan's hard-boiled cop character through a driving, rhythmic music. The always instrumentally-inventive Herrmann adds a steel plate to the percussion section, which provides a unique texture, while eight virtuoso horns emblazon the climactic cue, "Death Hunt." This stalwart material is balanced and counterpointed by a series of heartfelt, lyrical solos on a viola d'amore, an unusual type of viola (Herrmann went on to use the same instrument most effectively in his TWILIGHT ZONE episode score, "Little Girl Lost").
Not surprisingly (knowing Herrmann), there are many moments throughout the driving action music of ON DANGEROUS GROUND which will sound familiar to the astute Herrmannologist segments of that would be reprised in later Herrmann scores the repeated five chords in the opening cue are recalled in 1962's MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, a prominent passage in "Pastorale" was later used as a major theme in NORTH BY NORTHWEST in fact you could refer to this score as a black-and-white NORTH BY NORTHWEST and not be far from the truth. Herrmann had a rare knack for recycling musical motifs and progressions, but he did it with such rich musical clarity and verve, and the music was so outright effective that most listeners accept the later reprisings without complaint. The CD contains two unusual bonus tracks an alternate take of the Prelude and a two-minute collection of recording session outtakes which reveal the irascible Herrmann interacting with the orchestra on several false starts.
The unfortunate thing about this release is that the only available source materials for this score were the acetate playback discs, which are of inconsistent quality. FSM is up front about this on the CD back cover and in the CD notes book (a very thorough job examining both the film and its music in great detail, by the way kudos to writer Christopher Husted for this), with both Producer Lukas Kendall and recording engineer Doug Schwartz preferring apologies that they couldn't make the source material sound any better. The CD track list even indicates which tracks are marred by defective sound quality (6 out of 21). That means there is some surface noise and audio anomalies which detract somewhat from a pristine listening experience, but these are really only noticeable in a new places (tracks 2 and 8, for example) while the bulk of the recording, while not rich in modern stereophonic sound, is more than acceptable. But that was the trade off required to present the music at all, and I agree with them that having the complete soundtrack music, presented in chronological order, is worth the occasional distraction of an audio hiss here and there. The score remains a brilliant composition and one of the composer's finest unreleased efforts. For a better listening experience, we do have a newly-recorded if abbreviated 10:37 suite on Silva Screen's Classic Film Music of Bernard Herrmann (City of Prague Philharmonic/Paul Bateman, 10:37) and a nicely performed excerpt of one 2:23 cue ("The Death Hunt") on RCA's Classic Film Scores or Bernard Herrmann (Royal Philharmonic/Charles Gerhardt), but the elusive composition in its complete form has remained in the shadows until now.
SOUNDTRACK & FILM MUSIC NEWS
Add one XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS - VOLUME SIX © 2001 Varese Sarabande
On January 27th, Varese Sarabande will issue a newly remastered edition of the classic Basil Poledouris score for ROBOCOP, updating their original (and long out of print) 1987 CD release with new packing and notes, and the promise if a few brief bonus tracks. In the meantime, though, the label has released this week James Newton Howard's sumptuously adventurous score for PETER PAN, as well as SCARY MOVIE 3, featuring a collection of songs from the film plus selections from the original score by James L. Venable. John Powell's potent score for John Woo's PAYCHECK will hit the stores on January 13th.
As reported in a news release distributed by The Film Music Network (www.filmmusicmag.com), the US Copyright Office has awarded composer Daniel Kolton copyright registration for hundreds of music cues he "ghost-wrote" for the syndicated HERCULES and XENA television series. Daniel Kolton has now sued Universal Studios and others for copyright infringement citing unauthorized usage of his copyrighted music in a lawsuit filed December 4 in US Federal Court Los Angeles. Halle Berry gets into catfights in her CATWOMAN threads. © Warner Bros.
The case involves the highly controversial practice of film and television composers hiring "ghostwriters" lesser known composers who are paid to secretly write music for film and television projects but who are denied authorship of the music while another composer, usually the "name" composer who is officially hired to score the projects, takes credit for authorship of the music on official production company documents including royalty cue sheets which direct the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars of music performing rights royalties collected and paid by royalty organizations ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.
According to Kolton's lawyer, 
According to Kolton the music, written during 1995-2000, was composed at the request of composer Joseph Lo Duca, who Kolton says is listed as the author of Kolton's music on the shows' music cue sheets (which direct who performing rights royalties are to be paid to). Lo Duca, who ASCAP has awarded twice as a top earning composer over these same years, is listed in industry references and on-screen as the music composer for the shows, HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS, XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS, and YOUNG HERCULES. The shows are currently in syndication worldwide.
Attorney Brian Lee Corber said that, "This case is about respecting the copyright of musical works. Despite Dan Kolton proving he is the author of this music to the satisfaction of the US Copyright Office who conducted a lengthy investigation before registering the copyrights to Kolton for his originally created music, it appears that's not good enough for Universal Studios and the networks, who continue to broadcast my client's music without permission. While Universal's record division through the RIAA continues to sue little old ladies and teenagers for copyright violations involving internet downloads, Universal's television distribution division continues to violate copyright and profits on a worldwide basis by using my client's music without permission. To me, that seems rather inconsistent."
Film Music Network founder Mark Northam noted that "If Kolton's allegations are true, this case highlights one of the most exploitative practices our industry faces today: composers using and abusing lesser known composers while keeping it a dirty little secret from the studios. The name composers get all the credit and most of the money, but only because they and the performing rights organizations are willing to look the other way while uncredited and underpaid ghostwriters secretly do much of the work and are duped into giving up a lifetime of royalties for a few bucks. As a leading industry organization representing composers, we've taken a very strong stand against this kind of abuse, and I hope other organizations will follow."
FILM MUSIC ON DVD
This month's DVD release from Milestone of the 1925 Lon Chaney classic, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA ("The Ultimate Edition," ID0209MLSDVD), not only presents the silent classic in its finest home-video glory yet (preserving both the original 1925 feature version, and a restoral of its 1929 reissue, with preserved Technicolor and Handschiegl color sequences plus selections of dialog sequences from the 1930 sound re-release). It also exhibits the restored version of the film with a splendid orchestral score by British composer Carl Davis (one of several silent movie restoration scores he composed and conducted for England's Channel 4 Silents series a few years back). Davis' new score gives the old film a heightened power and a rich musical depth, not unlike James Bernard's new score for NOSFERATU released earlier this year by Kino both of those scores, by the way, were released on CD by Silva Screen in 1997). Surpassing the 1995 Kino/Blackhawk DVD release, the Milestone edition also includes commentary and an audio-only interview with cinematographer Charles Van Enger.
I recently came across Philip Cook's latest DVD at Blockbuster. The film is called DESPISER, and it's a curious little horror film about a power struggle in purgatory. This is a neat little independent film, produced with barely a budget and lots of initially cheesy digital effects, but the creativity of the filmmakers and cast shines through, and I found this to be quite enjoyable once I accepted the appearance of the effects. The film is almost entirely [IMG4R]filmed with digital effects providing all the backgrounds and sets. The CGI effects are video-game quality, lacking the kind of realism we are used to in big budget films like LOTR and the lot, but they actually add to the film's fun and sense of unreality, as the protagonist joins a band of freedom fighters struggling to survive in purgatory. It's made on a home computer with off-the-shelf digital effects software, but it works. Giving the film's style the same suspension of disbelief you give to its fantastic storyline will result in an enjoyable experience. The film is also nicely scored, with at atmospheric electronic ambience, although none is given credit, so when I had the chance to talk to writer-producer-director Cook I asked him about his film's music. "The music score is stock that I licensed from Firestorm," he told me, referring to one of several stock music licensing firms that provide library music to films like Cook's. "I went through their whjole Hollywood Film Music library and culled the tracks that had the right mood and were stylistically similar. The ones I liked tended to be created by the same guy, Robert Walsh. Considering that DESPISER is basically wall-to-wall music, is was the only economic solution."
Soundtrack sources:
Soundtrax is our weekly Movie Soundtrack column.
For questions or comments, contact the author at Soundtrax@cinescape.com.
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