Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to the final cues from the Breakfast at Tiffany’s soundtrack and they are so wonderful and such a great example of what a brilliant film composer Henry Mancini was. These cues are a textbook example of what film music is all about and what it’s actually supposed to do, a perfect melding of story, image, performances, and music. And the final cue, where Holly puts Cat out of the car and Peppard and she have their fight and the ensuing ending where the find Cat and kiss in the rain is simply one of the greatest endings in all of film and it never ever fails to move me and everyone else I know and that’s the Mancini magic. It was a dream come true when the actual soundtrack finally made it to CD, that and Days of Wine and Roses and Charade – as most know, the original albums were re-recordings and featured mostly the source music. His famous early TV stuff changed the way TV music sounded and so did his early film scores (not counting his time at Universal). His themes are classics because he had an incredible sense of melody – is there a more evocative opening title theme than Moon River or Days of Wine and Roses? I’ve loved his music forever, most especially since 1960s High Time. His score for Wait Until Dark is one of the greatest of all suspense scores and unlike any other suspense score of that era. His not very well-known score to Me, Natalie is a treasure. Ditto his score for Experiment in Terror, another brilliant suspense score. One of my happiest memories was when we released The Molly Maguires on Bay Cities and getting a call from him – so humble, so lovely, and chatting with him for thirty minutes or so and hearing how grateful he was about us releasing the score was a completely treasurable moment for the likes of me. I wish he’d lived to know we released it complete on Kritzerland, along with the original soundtracks to Married to It and especially Two for the Road. We’re probably never going to have scores like that again, which is truly sad.
Earlier, I did watch a motion picture – I wasn’t quite ready to commit to the three-hour Babylon, so I just found a film on Amazon Prime. I think I at least saw part of it before but I can’t find anything in our archives about watching it so maybe not. The title was Anna (originally Mindscape) and the plot was rather silly, but it was directed well and the actors were mostly fine, especially the young girl in it, Taissa Farmiga, younger sister of Vera. However, the film just goes off the rails at the end and is very confusing then suddenly just ends. It has a decent musical score by a Spanish composer I’ve never heard of before, named Lucas Vidal. I didn’t hate it, even though the ending was terrible.
Yesterday was pretty okay. I got nine hours of really needed sleep, got up, answered e-mails, then got ready and moseyed on over to Marshall Harvey’s abode. Traffic was terrible on the freeway – on a Sunday at 1:30 – I’ll just never understand it, really. Then we viewed his first cut of episode four and I was so pleased with it and so relieved at how well it played from start to finish. It’s thus far the longest of the episodes at fourteen minutes. But it’s not like the others – it’s really comprised of three very short scenes and a quick tag scene – the majority of the episode is a long six-minute scene and then a five-minute song at the end. Sami’s performance in this one is really good, it’s all very funny, and Sal Viviano and Liz Larsen’s son Alessandro did really well as an obnoxious, self-centered blind date for Sami. After we finished, I felt there was a shot missing at the end of the tag scene and indeed Marshall had missed it – we put it in and it buttoned the episode much better – just a single three-second shot. Then we went back to the top and made three or four tiny adjustments and that was that. And that’s what happens when you’ve worked with someone for as long as Marshall and I have worked together – he knows what I like and he has a great sense of comedy and timing and music. So, that’s four done, and he now moves on to episode five, which has a lot of stuff in it – Brad Oscar and Karen Ziemba are the guest stars and Alet Taylor is in it, too.
It only took about an hour to do our little stuff, then I went home. The two Omaha Steaks filet mignons were completely defrosted, so I put on the broiler, seasoned them (including their own seasoning that comes with it), and cooked them to a medium well. I ate both because it was only seven hundred calories for the two and they were very good. Later, I had a tiny sliver of coconut cake I got from somewhere. That was the food for the day, so pretty good, calorie-wise. Then I watched the movie and finished assigning all but two songs.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll send the songs where they need to go, I’ll probably do a bit more new book stuff, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat, and then I can watch, listen, and realx.
And that’s exactly how the rest of the week will go. On Thursday night, I’ll do my shopping for the Christmas Eve Do and get that out of the way, Friday night I’ll make the tuna pasta salad and mince the garlic, chop the onions and mushrooms so that on Saturday all that will be ready for the big pot o’ sauce. Then comes the Do and then comes Christmas Day and a visit from the Darling Daughter.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, send the songs to the singers, do a bit more new book stuff, hopefully pick up packages, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Mancini scores and songs? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy as a clam with episode four.