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THE BRAVADOS came first in 1958
Music by Alfred and Lionel Newman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPpd8tfMHg0
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QImyLdZQxg
But didn't Fox back in those days constantly recycle Main Titles and Themes in several pictures?
Perhaps it's more appropriate to say LIBERTY VALANCE Theme by Alfred and Lionel Newman, LIBERTY VALANCE score by Cyril Mockridge.
Isn't the Main Title to the Marilyn Monroe picture HOW TO MARRY A MILLIOINAIRE actually a rehash of Alfred Newman's STREET SCENE?
While the main statement is similar or perhaps even the same, they are very different once that's past. One wonders if that tune is some kind of folk thing.
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Playing the Windex Find the Many Uses Game (for those of us old enough to remember) with Fox Film Scores:
First, let's get HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE out of the way. Before the film proper, as a way to show off Cinemascope/Six Track Stereo Sound, Alfred Newman is shown conducting the Fox musicians in what is clearly labeled his music from STREET SCENE. When it's finished, the maestro and his people go right into the main title music, and the credits are shown, music by Mockridge, with lyrics by Ken Darby after the credits are over and the screen shows a panorama of Manhattan.
This is if memory serves, but it can be easily checked if you bought a copy -- and I hope you did -- of the film's FSM soundtrack CD. FSM also released a BRAVADOS soundtrack, and a quick check of that disc should confirm Newman's authorship of the main title. Again, that's if memory serves.
Beyond that point, of course, I assume Bruce is correct about the LIBERTY VALANCE main title. Over the years, I've noticed that, more often than not, he knows what he's put on the CD's he's produced.
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There are many, many possibilities. The Bravados was written during a strike - who knows, maybe Mockridge ghosted part of the main title. Or, as I said, maybe it's some folk tune thing, but once that part is done, there the similarity ends, IMO.
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Thanks everyone. I've wanted both of these scores forever, so it's a real treat to be able to do them and especially have them sound so nice. I know Donovan's Reef is always knocked by critics and even a surprising number of Ford fans, but it's always been one of my favorite Ford films.
Hi Bruce. Thought I would mentioned that John Ford is my favorite director, BUT, I never cared much for Donovan's Reef! Yikes! 
Lots don't like it at all. I just love the photography and the lightness of it and it has a certain sweetness to it with the kids and I love Wayne and Marvin in it, and Elizabeth Allen is beautiful, funny and terrific. I watched it in advance of doing the liner notes and I found it as delightful as ever. But that's just me and I know this film's fans are the minority.
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Posted: |
Aug 5, 2014 - 2:47 AM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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I LOVE Alfred Newman's work as do most of us.
I've told this story before, but now it's appropriate once again in this thread.
Many decades ago I was talking with Hugo Friedhofer about the Newman-Mockridge connection in which some film (I don't remember which one) was credited to Mockridge, but the main theme was seemingly adapted from one of Newman's. We discussed how well Mockridge integrated his work with Newman's and Hugo said that yes, Mockridge was very attuned to Newman's style.
Then, with a twinkle in his eye he said, "Mockridge sometimes writes Alfred Newman music better than Alfred Newman." I thought this was an odd thing to say so I asked him if he was saying that some of the things we think are Newman's are, in fact, really Mockridge's. Hugo would not go down this road any further, so the conversation ended there.
But I inferred from this that some of the things we've always thought of as being Newman's, particularly in the area of collaborative scores, may actually be Mockridge, stealing from himself. Mockridge may have contributed something to a Newman-credited score, and, eventually he uses it in one of his own scores and WE THINK he's adapted it from Newman, whereas it may actually be his.
I keep waiting for Jon Burlingame's book on the Newmans to sort all of this out, but I'm beginning to think the chances are getting slimmer every year that the book will ever be published.
There are so many never revealed things about the Newman-Mockridge, Newman-Friedhofer, Friedhofer-Lange-Emil Newman, and Lionel Newman collaborations that would be fascinating to discover, I'm sure. Friedhofer once told me that his score for WOMAN OBSESSED (which he is credited with and as I recall, would sometimes refer to as WOMAN POSSESSED!!!) had multiple hands doing the composing.
We'll probably never know, and in fact, it bolsters the idea that filmmaking in those days was a very highly skilled occupation presided over by mostly compatible below-the-line and behind-the-scenes collaborators who, for the most part, didn't have outsized egos racing after screen credits on everything.
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Thanks everyone. I've wanted both of these scores forever, so it's a real treat to be able to do them and especially have them sound so nice. I know Donovan's Reef is always knocked by critics and even a surprising number of Ford fans, but it's always been one of my favorite Ford films.
Hi Bruce. Thought I would mentioned that John Ford is my favorite director, BUT, I never cared much for Donovan's Reef! Yikes!
Lots don't like it at all. I just love the photography and the lightness of it and it has a certain sweetness to it with the kids and I love Wayne and Marvin in it, and Elizabeth Allen is beautiful, funny and terrific. I watched it in advance of doing the liner notes and I found it as delightful as ever. But that's just me and I know this film's fans are the minority.[/endquote
One of the main reasons I love DONAVAN'S REEF, besides everything Bruce mentions above, is all the location shooting on Kaua'i. It's probably the one film I can cite as showing more places that I've been to when I lived there. There are shots of Waimea Canyon, the so-called "Grand Canyon of the Pacific," that are breathtaking. And that great house in the film was the estate of a wealthy man and his partner from the 30's, the grounds of which later became the Kaua'i Botanic Garden. There are even 2 statues in the adjoining garden, which the partners saw at the New York World's Fair of 1939, and had shipped back to Kaua'i. (Enjoy the house in the film; it's the only way you'll ever see it now; sadly, the whole place was washed away by the surge during Hurricane Iniki, in 1992. But those 2 statues still adorn an ormamental pool in the garden....)
I also agree about Elizabeth Allen. I saw her on stage, decades ago, in the Boston tryout of "Sherry!," the musical Laurence Rosenthal wrote, based on "The Man Who Came to Dinner." She was lovely, and heartbreaking, when she sang, "Imagine That." I still remember the melody, and the new recording, sung by Bernadette Peters, is good, but doesn't come close to Ms. Allen's plaintive quality of loss. I wish her well.
Love the score to DONAVAN'S REEF; always have, have always wanted it.
Thank you, Bruce.
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Wonderful release. Bruce, can you comment on the high shipping cost to Canada? I notice this time around that shipping for a single CD is almost $13. I just ordered 5 CDs from one of the other usual suspects and the shipping came to $11.25. Are you perhaps using a shipping service that is charging too much? Not meant as a criticism but because I prefer to order my CDs directly from you, it's disappointing. Wasn't able to do so this time around.
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Re: "Mockridge Writes Newman"
Some of you here may have bought the recent Newman/Mockridge combo from Kritzerland, in which case you'll recall from my liner notes that, decades ago when I first saw/heard THE LUCK OF THE IRISH, it struck me as so Newmanesque that I went so far as to call (from Connecticut) the Fox music department to investigate whether Newman had written any of it. None other than Lionel Newman, bless him, checked the cue sheets and assured me that the score was entirely Mockridge's.
I'm glad that this Mockridge thread has given me the chance to plug this other Kritzerland CD, and so I'll also take the opportunity to ask: Hey, guys -- how did you like Newman's O. HENRY'S FULL HOUSE and Mockridge's THE LUCK OF THE IRISH? I don't think I've ever seen any feedback here on the Board about this release, and frankly, these being dear favorites of mine, I'd love to know that they made somebody else happy!
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Posted: |
Aug 5, 2014 - 10:30 AM
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By: |
PFK
(Member)
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Re: "Mockridge Writes Newman"
Some of you here may have bought the recent Newman/Mockridge combo from Kritzerland, in which case you'll recall from my liner notes that, decades ago when I first saw/heard THE LUCK OF THE IRISH, it struck me as so Newmanesque that I went so far as to call (from Connecticut) the Fox music department to investigate whether Newman had written any of it. None other than Lionel Newman, bless him, checked the cue sheets and assured me that the score was entirely Mockridge's.
I'm glad that this Mockridge thread has given me the chance to plug this other Kritzerland CD, and so I'll also take the opportunity to ask: Hey, guys -- how did you like Newman's O. HENRY'S FULL HOUSE and Mockridge's THE LUCK OF THE IRISH? I don't think I've ever seen any feedback here on the Board about this release, and frankly, these being dear favorites of mine, I'd love to know that they made somebody else happy!
I like it a lot Preston! Wonderful booklet notes too!
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