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Looking forward to April's 10 disc set compilation.
I'm a little slow sometimes Peter...are you joking here, or is there actually an official Michael J. Lewis box set about to come out?
Yavar
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One film that seems to have escaped any Video / DVD release is RUNNING SCARED with Robert Powell and Directed by David Hemmings. I would really love to hear that score before I pop this mortal coil - well it would be too late afterwards wouldn't it!!
I would be really grateful if anyone has come across this movie anywhere
Do you mean you haven't seen it, or that you haven't found it commercially released?
I saw it only once on TV years ago. Robert Powell and Gail Hunnicutt. It's a very intense movie about suicide and people caught up in it. A melodrama with a very dramatic ending.
I can't recall the music, nor does it seem to be available.
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Posted: |
Feb 3, 2018 - 8:00 PM
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By: |
bobbengan
(Member)
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Looking forward to April's 10 disc set compilation.
I'm a little slow sometimes Peter...are you joking here, or is there actually an official Michael J. Lewis box set about to come out?
Yavar
Count me in on either being overly naive or also very, very curious. The "April" thing definitely seems to be a hint, but still...
Anyway = I'm shocked that aside from MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT and YES, GIORGIO (which included only one cut from Lewis' wonderful score), it would appear absolutely none of his music received commercial releases outside of his promos. That's actually genuinely shocking to me - Not even studio efforts like THE PASSAGE, SPHINX or NORTH SEA HIJACK, or the cult hit THEATRE OF BLOOD at the original time of the film's release. Nothing. Thank goodness he kept tapes of all his or most of his music, otherwise this stuff would probably be lost to the ages today.
It's a shame that it seems most people only know him for THEATER OF BLOOD and MEDUSA TOUCH, as the later is his personal least-favorite score (if numerous interviews are any indication) and so many of his lesser-known works are so rich: THE PASSAGE's militaristic main title is one of the most exhilarating openers ever, and the emotional theme that develops later in the score and then closes it with soaring majesty is stunningly beautiful, his sweeping love theme from HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES is completely breathtaking, especially in the redemptive and adulatory closing cue; YES, GIORGIO score is a gorgeous romantic score that Delerue would be proud to call his own (what an infectious, disarming main theme!), the incredibly lyrical "Overture" from JULIUS CEASAR is a marvel for the ear, his Respighi-like UPON THIS ROCK a towering symphonic juggernaut - and so on and so forth...
An incredible melodist this man is/was. I'd be fascinated to hear what he could do today, at age 79, if he were presented with total creative freedom and ample musical resources - Has his voice changed? Was his best music ahead of him when his career petered out, or a la Horner, did he says his most interesting things early on and would his music today just feel like an uninspired re-tread...?
I suspect we'll never know. Just another enigma surrounding this man's bizarre career.
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I'm hoping it's a massive, inexpensive set personally... 
Yavar
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If he is, as reported here, living in rural Missouri, he even missed the canoe on scoring Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Seriously, I'm a MJL fan. When that 2 CD promo set came out in the mid-nineties I was amazed how good it was and also how I had somehow missed all of this music through the seventies and beyond. I agree with the previous poster of Madwoman of Chaillot; it is a marvel of a score.
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As a lifelong Missourian, though not a rural Missourian, I will say that there are worse places to get it together and find your muse. In the 1930s in Kansas City swing music erupted at the corner of 12th and Vine, and the world heard Count Basie, Bennie Moten, Lester Young, and eventually Charlie Parker and Pat Metheny. On the other side of the state the blues made its way up the Mississippi and landed in St. Louis and W.C. Handy immortalized this in song. Later on Miles Davis, Grant Green, and Chuck Berry played the St. Louis clubs on both sides of the river. In the great middle of the state and up in the rolling hills, folk and bluegrass flourishes, and the great jazz bassist Charlie Haden never could shake his Ozark roots.
So wherever you are, Michael J Lewis, I hope you find peace in the Show Me State, and to paraphrase one of your former collaborators, Anthony Burgess, may you also find a good piano and knock out some tunes.
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Posted: |
Apr 2, 2018 - 8:59 AM
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By: |
bobbengan
(Member)
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As a lifelong Missourian, though not a rural Missourian, I will say that there are worse places to get it together and find your muse. In the 1930s in Kansas City swing music erupted at the corner of 12th and Vine, and the world heard Count Basie, Bennie Moten, Lester Young, and eventually Charlie Parker and Pat Metheny. On the other side of the state the blues made its way up the Mississippi and landed in St. Louis and W.C. Handy immortalized this in song. Later on Miles Davis, Grant Green, and Chuck Berry played the St. Louis clubs on both sides of the river. In the great middle of the state and up in the rolling hills, folk and bluegrass flourishes, and the great jazz bassist Charlie Haden never could shake his Ozark roots.
So wherever you are, Michael J Lewis, I hope you find peace in the Show Me State, and to paraphrase one of your former collaborators, Anthony Burgess, may you also find a good piano and knock out some tunes.
Hey, I'm not knocking Missouri. It's just completely bizarre to me that a Welshman whose film scoring career in London began with high-profile British films ended up in LA, where his feature career almost immediately ended, then moved to Texas (where it appear he worked in advertising), and then, later in life, moved to De Soto National Forest in Missouri. Not exactly a typical career progression for a film composer, per se!
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I didn't think you were knocking Missouri; I was just playing up the musical contributions of my home state.
By the way, there is a Desoto National Forest in Mississippi, but I'm not aware of one in Missouri. Perhaps Michael J Lewis is in Clarksdale, soaking up the local blues.
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Two days ago I was watching a doc on the life of former UK prime minister Edward Heath, "Sir Edward Heath; a Life Beyond Politics" (2000) produced and directed by Bryan Forbes with his actress-wife, Nanette Newman as the interviewer.
The film has little music, but is scored for classical guitar. Why do I mention this? It was composed by Michael J. Lewis. If you go the 53:10 mark you will hear the end title music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhCG0COfFKE
Amazing find. And nothing about it on IMDB.
Such a beautiful theme. In the context of this thread it sounds almost like an elegy to his career.
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