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Posted: |
Dec 29, 2013 - 12:42 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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Gee, I'll have to wait till 2015 to have been a filmscore collector for 50 years. Guess I made a late start. 
pp312, you are just a kid starting out!
Actually I've been a film score fan since the mid 50s. In 1956 my older brother Joe bought the LP to Around the World in 80 Days. I think every family had a copy in 1956!
In 1957 my brother bought Richard Rodgers' Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, a very fine score I still enjoy.
Well pp312, another year and you will be a film score veteran!
You children need to make way for the adult on the thread.....
I can't pin it down as a collector---somewhere between 1945 and 1948---but let's just round it off to 65 years. I was starting my collection when all the Golden Age composers were still alive---even Stothart, Axt, Mendoza, Kopp! (I missed Hugo Riesenfeld, who died in 1939.)
I had the 78rpm album sets of MADAME BOVARY, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE, THE PARADINE CASE, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, GOLDEN EARRINGS, THE HARVEY GIRLS, THE BIG CITY, THE UNFINISHED DANCE, DUEL IN THE SUN, THE SONG OF BERNADETTE, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, SPELLBOUND, and many more. Still do.
Over the years, and not counting cylinders, 78 rpm Edison Diamond Discs, 8-tracks and DATS---I've been through at least 11 formats---78s (10 and 12").....Vitaphone Discs.....Acetates/Glass Base Discs.....16" Transcription Discs.....45s.....33s.....Reel-to-Reel.....Cassettes.....that weird 45rpm Long-Playing batch of DRAGONSLAYER and CHEYENNE AUTUMN.....CDs.....and SACDs.
Talk about double-dipping!!!.....and what have I got to show for all that money spent???:
Only 65+ years of enjoying marvelous movie music---music which not only enhanced the films in which it appeared, but turned out to be the accompanying soundtrack of nearly my whole life.
To me, all the film music I've heard over the years was "definitive" and remembered (usually positively) as either short, or long-term and continuing, memories of a collector's life.
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Posted: |
Dec 29, 2013 - 1:39 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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I continue to believe that the "Golden Age" of film scoring begins with the rise of the full-fledged studio music departments, each settled in a specific grounded geographic location, and each with music artists UNDER CONTRACT including composers, orchestrators/arrangers, and orchestras. That would be in the period from 1929-1932. (Most of the composers who made their marks in the "Golden Age," including Steiner, Newman, Stothart, Friedhofer in the US, and Kaper, Waxman, and others in Europe---would begin in this period---or by the mid-1930s.)
Though from 1929 on, the last-shot and left-over silent films, now released as sound films (like WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS, MR. ROBINSON CRUSOE, CITY LIGHTS, and SUNRISE, and the reissues of THE BIG PARADE and BEN-HUR, among others) received full symphonic scores, the business of supplying full-scores for sound films with dialog really took off in 1932-1933, with improvements in sound recording, and with films like SYMPHONY FOR SIX MILLION (April, 1932), BIRD OF PARADISE (August, 1932), RASPUTIN AND THE EMPRESS (March, 1933), and eventually, KING KONG (April, 1933).
Already in 1933, MGM was recording multi-track stereophonic music tracks, so it's obvious the business was getting serious by this time.
To me, the end of the "Golden Age" runs from the roughly 5-year period between the musician's strike in 1957-58---which began the demise of the contract orchestras, and strong music departments grounded in orchestral music rather than pop music overlays---to the six-month shut-down of 20th Century-Fox's entire production arm in 1962-63 (in the wake of the CLEOPATRA financial debacle) as well as MGM's financial undermining by at least 5 major blockbuster disappointments or failures in that period (THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, BILLY ROSE'S JUMBO, HOW THE WEST WAS WON, THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, and MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY).
Nothing was ever the same after that. In the 1960s the old legends died, retired, WERE retired, or straggled on for another 10 years or so, and were supplanted by the new "young" turks of that day (who are now, themselves, several generations out-of-date if they are not, actually, retired or dead, too!)
But "film", or should I say, "videotape", or should I say, "digital imagery"---and its music--- lives on, albeit in a quite different soundscape.
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Posted: |
Dec 29, 2013 - 1:47 PM
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By: |
RoryR
(Member)
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Well, if you go by FSM's CD releases, at least six films from 1960, FROM THE TERRACE, HOME FROM THE HILL, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, CIMARRON, THE SUBTERRANEANS, and THE TIME MACHINE are from the "Golden Age." But then FSM also calls 1963's TOYS IN THE ATTIC a Golden Age score, as well as 1963's THE LONG SHIPS and 1965's LORD JIM (at least that's what I'm finding on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_Score_Monthly ).
Maybe the Golden Age of film scores and the Golden Age of films themselves are different things?
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Posted: |
Dec 29, 2013 - 7:23 PM
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By: |
PFK
(Member)
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It's just occurred to me, upon re-reading my post on "Golden Age" scores, that the "Golden Age" is defined, for the most part, by the fact that the studios, themselves, enabled this musical creativity---allowing the artists to create, and supporting them (pretty much fully) in their work and in the financing of the all-encompassing on-staff music departments.
Dare I say that it all began to unravel when Directors were put in charge of the music rather than Music Department Heads or creative Producers and the composers were forced to deliver complete packages for a contractual price.
Enjoyed your posts Manderley and agree with them, as always!
I always felt the golden age, in round numbers, was 1930 to 1960. Then 1960 to 1970 was a transitional decade. From 1970 on, a whole new world.
You might find this interesting. I have a friend, Don, who was born in 1932. In 1943 he saw The Song of Bernadette and fell in love with Jennifer Jones. Don also became a life long film fan and film score fan. In 1943 he bought the 78rpm album to Song of Bernadette, then For Whom the Bell Tolls 78s, Duel in the Sun 78s etc. Don is now a collector of film scores (and films) for 70 years!
His favorite composers are Max Steiner, Alfred Newman and Victor Young. I think he has you beat by a few years Manderley. At 81 Don is very sharp and healthy. He still buys golden age DVDs and a few CDs!
My local library now has 742 Hollywood dvds, from the 1920s to 1968. That's fine with me. I just took out 6 dvds today .............. of course I have to bring them back!
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Posted: |
Dec 30, 2013 - 3:25 PM
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By: |
PFK
(Member)
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The power that music has in a film was first demonstrated to me as a young teenager in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. The score by Elmer Bernstein and the special effects, though crude by todays standards,played such an important part in that film's success. Can't wait for its penultimate release in 2014.
Cody, for me too it was The Ten Commandments in 1956 when I first noticed film music in a big way. Like The Ten Commandments I was ten years old!
Maybe we were separated at birth?
PFK, if not separated at birth we were part of an era when music had melody and touched something deep within us. The film is not really that good, but I loved Tiomkin's over the top score for DUEL IN THE SUN. I loved Victor Young's more sentimental score for SHANE. SHANE is my favorite western; followed by RED RIVER. I can remember early television and the showing of the Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials. Who knew at that time the music that was sticking in my mind from one of those serials was actually Franz Lizst,s Les Preludes. And Rossini's William Tell Overture introducing every episode of The Lone Ranger on Thursday nights. Wow ! We were part of the best of times.
Thanks for the comments Cody.
Shane is my favorite western score too! I always liked the sentimental feeling many Victor Young scores had. I can't wait for Kritzerland's forthcoming Victor Young cds. The Magnificent Seven, in 1960, got me into film scores in a big way so I guess that would be my second favorite western score.
If you got into film scores (and films) in the 1950s or earlier you were right time right place. Movie theatres still had real films with real music scores by really educated and talented composers. Boston TV was showing in the 50s Thief of Bagdad, Jungle Book, House of Frankenstein, Casablanca, The Naked City, westerns by Max Steiner, Victor Young, Dimitri Tiomkin etc. We were there to get educated into real and intelligent films with great film scores. For that matter 50s and 60s TV shows often had fine music scores too.
We are so lucky to get the golden age cds (and dvds) with have gotten so far and it looks like Kritzerland (and others?) have more planned for us!
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