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Much great music, assuredly, but I think my favorite number, visually and aurally, is "Night of My Nghts."
The great thing about the Rhino KISMET is that, with all the underscoring in addition to the songs, the whole gestalt is like one long, glorious unbroken composition, a Borodin oratorio.
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Posted: |
Apr 16, 2015 - 1:23 PM
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By: |
SoundScope
(Member)
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Right, (Hand raised) present and accounted for.
Yep. I love musicals... and thank my stars daily for all the Rhico (and other) releases that showcase these incredibly arranged, orchestrated and conducted gems.
I've always loved the KISMET scoring, but sadly cannot extend anything good to say about the film. Beautiful, but lays there like a dead fish. THANK GOD for Andre Previn's scoring!!!!
It is this score, his style, his conducting, that makes me cry for a release of the PORGY AND BESS score (and the movie, damnit!) for that is breathtaking.
GIGI has always had its place in my collection of those I'm most fond of. It is simply scintillating !
. . . and oh, so many others. 
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Posted: |
Apr 16, 2015 - 6:52 PM
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By: |
CH-CD
(Member)
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Right, (Hand raised) present and accounted for.
Yep. I love musicals... and thank my stars daily for all the Rhico (and other) releases that showcase these incredibly arranged, orchestrated and conducted gems.
I've always loved the KISMET scoring, but sadly cannot extend anything good to say about the film. Beautiful, but lays there like a dead fish. THANK GOD for Andre Previn's scoring!!!!
It is this score, his style, his conducting, that makes me cry for a release of the PORGY AND BESS score (and the movie, damnit!) for that is breathtaking.
GIGI has always had its place in my collection of those I'm most fond of. It is simply scintillating !
. . . and oh, so many others.
Sadly, in spite of the many great movies he made, Vincente Minnelli made his fair share of clinkers.
Despite a great score and a good cast,“Kismet” is stiff and airless.
The same problem applies to “The Pirate” and “Brigadoon” too.
Is it the claustrophobic sets, or what?
“7 Brides for 7 Brothers” had the same sort of sets, but that turned out to be one of the greatest, most entertaining and vibrant movie musicals of all time.
So, what’s the answer? Why are the three Minnelli musicals SO dull and lifeless ??
By the way, Mr Preview also did a fantastic job with “Irma La Douce”. A musical which lost 99% of it’s songs on the journey from Broadway to Hollywood.
Luckily for us, Andre saved them and turned them into a scintillating, funny & wonderful score.
And, in the process, winning himself yet another Oscar for Best Adapted Score.
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Sadly, in spite of the many great movies he made, Vincente Minnelli made his fair share of clinkers.
Despite a great score and a good cast,“Kismet” is stiff and airless.
The same problem applies to “The Pirate” and “Brigadoon” too.
Is it the claustrophobic sets, or what?
“7 Brides for 7 Brothers” had the same sort of sets, but that turned out to be one of the greatest, most entertaining and vibrant movie musicals of all time.
So, what’s the answer? Why are the three Minnelli musicals SO dull and lifeless ??
Gotta differ with you about "The Pirate." I can acknowledge it's not one of Cole Porter's greatest scores, but Gene Kelly certainly had fun with the numbers, and took full advantage of the rare opportunity to dance with the brilliant Nicholas brothers. Director and star both seemed thrilled with the chance to do a piece which owed so much of its style to blatant, unashamed theatricality. There's a portion of the "Pirate Ballet" which was deemed too intense for preview audiences and got cut. Did it ever turn up anywhere else?
"Brigadoon" and "Kismet" were both assignments which forced Minnelli to try to recapture the success of someone else's pre-existing stage smashes. For economic rather than artistic reasons it was decided to shoot them in the new widescreen process. So both the Scottish highlands and the Arabian desert were recreated indoors, or on the backlot, then filmed in exquisite detail in the new format, which threatened to expose every artificiality. With "Brigadoon" the casting forced the property to become more of a dancing show rather than the near-operatic singing show it had been originally.
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Kelly and Minnelli both fought hard to film BRIGADOON in Scotland, but the bean counters prevailed, which certainly dampened whatever enthusiasm the director and star might have otherwise brought to the project. KISMET was a movie Minnelli flat out didn't want to make, pure and simple, and it shows. As mentioned above, I do like the look of just one number, "Night of My Nights," with its magical lighting effect, but everything else betrays the colors of the songs with flat, unimaginative sets and lighting. It may be wide screen, but it looks like Fifties television. (Like Howard, I caught it again just the other day on TCM.) Think of the wondrous look of Korda's THIEF OF BAGDAD, many of whose settings were studio interiors, and you have some idea of the Arabian Nights feeling which Metro surprisingly failed to capture in this version of KISMET.
THE PIRATE is miles above KISMET, and a wonderfully entertaining movie, IMHO. I've seen it in theaters, and the audience always has a ball.
Incidentally, I think it takes nothing away from the brilliance of Andre Previn's work on so many classic film musicals to remember that a lot of what is great in their scoring is the work of some of the greatest Hollywood arrangers and orchestrators.
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Posted: |
Apr 20, 2015 - 6:41 PM
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By: |
CH-CD
(Member)
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Incidentally, I think it takes nothing away from the brilliance of Andre Previn's work on so many classic film musicals to remember that a lot of what is great in their scoring is the work of some of the greatest Hollywood arrangers and orchestrators.
That is true, but, at the end of the day, it’s Previn’s signature style that instantly identifies a score as his. Just as a score by : Newman,Rozsa,Steiner,Tiomkin,Bernstein,Barry,etc does.
You recognise Andre’s Horns right away.
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Posted: |
Jul 23, 2015 - 6:27 PM
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By: |
allanfisch
(Member)
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SoundScope:
The "Deep In My Heart" laser disc (as part of the MGM Composers Collection laser set) utilized the stereo elements and presented the visuals in wide screen.
The stereo track is superb! I hope, however, that the distortion in the upper register of Jane Powell's voice is a problem with my speakers rather than the transfer! She's one of my all time vocal greats and I would hate to have this the only problem with an otherwise excellent audio transfer. She does not sound like that! (The other "Deep" laser disc that I have, which is not in stereo, does not have her voice distorted in the higher register perhaps due to the audio mono elements used.)
How's this for a delayed response. I am listening, right now, to Jane and Vics recording of "Will You Remember", directly digitally transferred from the 3 channel, plus vocal music mags. I do not hear any distortion in her vocal. I think what you are hearing is "more" than you've heard before. I supervised the creation of the stereo track for this film. I can email you an MP3 of this selection if you give me your email address. If you're not hearing something in the mono track, it's because the frequency response is more limited.
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This thread is too good not to re-bump it a little more than one year later.
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