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September 26, 2013:

I HEART HERRMANN

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, when I was a wee tad of a lad of a twig of a sprig of a youth I loved motion pictures and I loved motion picture music.  Those who’ve read the Kritzer books know this, of course.  From my very first movie memories I remember specifically loving certain motion picture scores – one of the first I remember falling in love with was back in the year 1954 when I went to the Village Theater in Westwood and saw The High and the Mighty.  That theme I went crazy for, but it was more than that – it was the whole way the music functioned in the film.  I used to get the old 45s from the jukeboxes in my father’s restaurants and bars, and one of the ones I got was Dimitri Tiomkin doing his theme from The High and the Mighty, complete with the whistling of Muzzy Marcellino.  I just about played that to death.

In 1956, when I saw Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, I fell so in love with the music that I actually took note of the composer’s name the second time I saw it – Bernard Herrmann.  And that was the beginning of my love affair with the music of Bernard Herrmann.  I loved other music, certainly, but no music “got” to me like Herrmann’s.  Every time I’d go to a film and the music would begin, I would know instantly if it was Herrmann.  That happened from the first chords of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, it happened from the first notes of Vertigo and Journey to the Center of the Earth.  It happened with North by Northwest and it happened with Psycho.  While many other composers seemed to get soundtrack albums, Herrmann was not so fortunate – so, while I did get Vertigo and Sinbad, there was nothing for Journey or North by Northwest of Psycho.  I saw North by Northwest, I don’t know, thirty times in the three months it played around LA.  I actually followed it from theater to theater – starting at the Wiltern on its opening week, and then wherever else it played during its subsequent neighborhood runs.  I could not get enough of that movie, and one of the reasons was Herrmann’s score.  I hummed the main title theme day and night (and it’s not an easy theme to hum) and then while praying that I’d find something for the music in the big Schwann music catalog at Wallich’s Music City I found a listing for the Love Theme from North by Northwest played by Russ Conway and his Orchestra.  I was beside myself (no mean feat).  I searched all of Wallich’s to no avail.  I ordered it there and I ordered it at my local record shop, also to no avail – they could never get a copy. I also heard much great Herrmann on television, including his easily identifiable music for Have Gun, Will Travel and The Twilight Zone.

That 45 eluded me for years and it wasn’t until the mid-1970s when I was rummaging in some used record store that I finally found it.  After Psycho, I would literally go see any film that had a score by Herrmann.  And I discovered on TV a lot of older films that had brilliant scores by Herrmann – none disappointed, and they included Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Snows of Kilimanjaro, Jane Eyre, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Wrong Man, The Trouble With Harry, and others.  In the 1960s, I fell in love with his scores for his three other Ray Harryhausen films, 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island andJason and the Argonauts, Marnie (no album), Fahrenheit 451 (no album), The Bride Wore Black (only an incredibly rare EP from France – I eventually got it in the 1970s), and then suddenly there weren’t many Herrmann scores at all.  I, like other fans, wondered why Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain had a score by John Addison rather than Herrmann – we only found out much later that Hitchcock and Herrmann had had their famous rift and thus ended one of the greatest director/composer relationships in film history.  From there it was only sporadic – Twisted Nerve, Endless Night, but nothing like his former output.  But we did start getting some wonderful recordings, including his classic album of Hitchcock music and his other album of his classic film themes.  And his opera of Wuthering Heights, which I adored and which, in parts, reminded me of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (no album, although we got one eventually). And finally, we got his brilliant score to De Palma’s Obsession along with his brilliant score to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, an incredible one-two punch.  And then, at his final scoring session for Taxi Driver on December 23,1975, Mr. Herrmann made sure the score was completed and then he went home and died, and the world lost one of film music’s greatest and most unique voices.

All that by way of saying last night I watched a new Japanese Blu and Ray of Brian De Palma’s film, Sisters.  Thank goodness for de Palma and Scorsese using Herrmann (Herrmann did a few other interesting things like It’s Alive) – at least, film buffs that they were, they went after the best (and at that time certainly not the most popular) and their films are richer for it.  Sisters remains an interesting de Palma film – very low budget, but you can see him trying to do what Hitchcock did – not as subtly, and certainly not as well.  We get a little Psycho and a good deal of Rear Window, but I’ve always enjoyed the film.  I saw it when it came out, of course, and loved the score immediately.  We got the most violent scene early on and then, as in Psycho, because of that we were on the edge of our seat waiting for the next one, which doesn’t really happen until the very end and even then it’s mild compared to the first.  De Palma does his usual split-screen stuff, but this is the only film in which he does it where I felt it actually worked.  The plot about separated Siamese Twins is okay – it’s not hard to figure out everything within the first ten minutes, especially if you’ve seen Psycho, but it sustains interest throughout its ninety-three minute running time.  Some scenes are laughably bad with terrible writing, but De Palma is clearly stretching his Hitchcock muscles and doing a reasonable job of it.  But the score is something else – it’s Herrmann doing what he did better than anyone – mood, suspense, and violence, and just the overall haunted quality of the underscore.  Thankfully, we did get albums on Sisters, Obsession and Taxi Driver.  One wonders had Mr. Herrmann lived what other young turks would have hired him to do their films?  In any case, I heart Herrmann and happily he is extremely well represented on CD.  Over the years, we’ve finally gotten most of the Fox scores complete, and a complete and beautiful-sounding North by Northwest.  Of the two scores I’d really love to have, Marnie (well, I actually do have it in gorgeous stereo) and Fahrenheit 451, Marnie, I’m told, will be coming.

Yesterday was a day in which I didn’t really do much of anything and yet I did.  I got up at nine, answered e-mails, had a couple of telephonic conversations, and then I went and had a quesadilla for lunch.  After that, I picked up a few packages, then came home and did stuff on the computer.  I know I did other things but I really can’t remember what they were.  Oh, yeah, I heard from Sally Mayes, who got some film thing where the schedule changed and so she had to drop out of the Kritzerland show.  I spent an hour finding a replacement and happily we got the perfect person – the wonderful Heather Lee, so disaster averted.  I immediately sent her two of her three numbers and she had something she liked to do as the third, so I got her that music, too.  Then I did a three-mile jog, planked and did forty sit-ups (yes, Virginia, I went up another five).  Then I watched Sisters – the transfer is pretty decent – it looks just like a release print of that era should look, which isn’t great.  Again, very low-budget, with some low-light scenes that are grainy as they should be, many opticals (all the split-screen stuff and lots of others), but it’s pretty accurate and the color is just right.  Not sure what the source was or if it could actually look better or even what the authoring was like – it’s going to be coming out in the UK next year and it will be interesting to see if that transfer is the same or improves on this one.

After the movie, I went to Gelson’s and got small things of slaw and mac-and-cheese, came home, and ate them whilst doing some work on the computer and listening to the CD of Herrmann’s Sisters.

Today, I have a noon work session with John Boswell, then at one I have to be somewhere for a lunch meeting with two singers.  After that, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, then I’ll do a jog, and then relax until my eight-thirty meeting in the evening.  And yes, there will be garlic cheese bread so I will eat VERY lightly at the lunch meeting.

Tomorrow, I’m not sure what’s happening, Saturday night I’m seeing Little Shop of Horrors and Sunday I hope to relax, because then we’re into the big Kritzerland rehearsal week.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, have a work session, have a lunch meeting, hopefully pick up packages, and have an evening meeting.  Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Bernard Herrmann scores, and who was the first film composer you actually took note of and what was the first soundtrack album you bought?  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where my dreams shall be accompanied by the dreamy music of Bernard Herrmann.

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