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Posted: |
Jul 20, 2009 - 2:05 AM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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A charming film, now much forgotten, with a touching and sentimental performance by Gleason who is excellent under Gene Kelly's direction.
The music is wonderful in its way, I like it and I've always loved the LP, but for myself at least, I've always wondered who actually fully composed it---Gleason with approximately 6 film/TV composer credits in his lifetime and who apparently couldn't read music, or Michel Magne, the wonderful French composer with 80+ credits, who receives in print (via some filmmusic researches and, perhaps even on the French prints themselves) co-credit with Gleason.
Is this score, perhaps, yet another Chaplinesque case of a "hummer" at work coming up with tunes, while someone else does the dirty work of actually composing the score?
I think we've had an extended thread on this film, score, and Gleason's compositional abilities before.
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Posted: |
Jul 20, 2009 - 2:23 AM
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By: |
governor
(Member)
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A charming film, now much forgotten, with a touching and sentimental performance by Gleason who is excellent under Gene Kelly's direction.
The music is wonderful in its way, I like it and I've always loved the LP, but for myself at least, I've always wondered who actually fully composed it---Gleason with approximately 6 film/TV composer credits in his lifetime and who apparently couldn't read music, or Michel Magne, the wonderful French composer with 80+ credits, who receives in print (via some filmmusic researches and, perhaps even on the French prints themselves) co-credit with Gleason.
Is this score, perhaps, yet another Chaplinesque case of a "hummer" at work coming up with tunes, while someone else does the dirty work of actually composing the score?
I think we've had an extended thread on this film, score, and Gleason's compositional abilities before.
Hello
here's a "quick" translation of Magne's comments from his book "L'Amour de Vivre"
In October 1961 Gene Kelly asked me to score Gigot, starring Jackie Gleason.
Most of the melodies were already composed by Jackie Gleason who, in the states, was considered as a great melodist.
I was first enrolled as an orchestrator when they started filming. Step by step (...) I was asked to compose transition music, then main cues.
(...) the scoring sessions lasted two months, with a big orchestra. I discovered the american way of working...
The marvellous Jackie Gleason came to every scoring sessions. I have orchestrated for him numerous tracks for a LP which credits "Jackie Gleason Orchestra".
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Posted: |
Jul 20, 2009 - 3:31 AM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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.....Hello
here's a "quick" translation of Magne's comments from his book "L'Amour de Vivre"
In October 1961 Gene Kelly asked me to score Gigot, starring Jackie Gleason.
Most of the melodies were already composed by Jackie Gleason who, in the states, was considered as a great melodist.
I was first enrolled as an orchestrator when they started filming. Step by step (...) I was asked to compose transition music, then main cues.
(...) the scoring sessions lasted two months, with a big orchestra. I discovered the american way of working...
The marvellous Jackie Gleason came to every scoring sessions. I have orchestrated for him numerous tracks for a LP which credits "Jackie Gleason Orchestra".....
Thank you for that, governor!
I don't think, in the end, this takes away from Gleason's abilities as a tunesmith, but it does clarify in more detail his limited orchestral compositional abilities---and the considerable assistance and contributions provided to this score by Magne.
Printed credits on the main titles of movies never quite delineate the contributions of others behind the scenes who are often in less powerful contractual positions.
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Posted: |
Jul 22, 2009 - 8:19 AM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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yeesh try June 11, 1998:
Certain songs, scores, orchestrations…whatever…have a way of sending you back to a certain era. We’ve already discussed M. Steiner’s “Theme from A Summer Place,” e.g. and that’s one guidepost from my earliest youthful past. The Mancini ‘sound’ is another of these instant time portals, exemplified by the magical arrangement utilizing harmonica and small chorus in “Moon River.”
Another form of this distinct sound came in the form of Jackie Gleason, a/k/a Ralph Kramden, Reginald, the Poor Soul, etc. Jackie’s name graced several albums, what, in the late 50s and early 60s. The Great One decided to shelve his loud boisterous image on the small and silver screens in favor of the title character in a 1962 effort filmed in France and directed by Gene Kelly, Gigot. Gigot is a homeless mute with a heart of gold. The role, which earned Gleason the critical gamut from high praise to severe scorn, is a virtual tour de force dramatically, comically and ‘pantomimically’ and it became his most personally coveted in terms of what he hoped would be the apex of his screen-acting career.
Gleason is also credited as composer of the multiple themes within the film’s score, in addition to having conducted the LP’s orchestra. The liner notes to this old Capitol album Jackie Gleason Presents His Music To GIGOT take great pains to explain his creative processes and they ballyhoo the fact that the music was completed before the picture was shot. Now I’ve heard tell that this score, as well as others he had his name placed over, was in fact ghost-written.
Anyway, I come not to bury Gleason but to praise the soul of the man in ‘his’ music. My favorite tracks are “Gigot,”,“Collette,” “Au Revoir,” “Un Jour,” and the rousing opener, “Allo, Allo, Allo.” Arrangements/Orchestrations include hearty waltzes, accordions (what else—it’s Paris) and lovely ballads. And strings, lots of strings. They say Gleason infuriated the producers by hiring a huge symphonic orchestra the moment all first set foot on French soil! But that’s Gleason, all right. He wanted the best. He loved good music.
The album is set up in a manner similar to the RCA Breakfast At Tiffany’s LP, something along the order of pop-style format. I found this setup far less annoying in the case of Gigot vs. Tiffany’s in terms of a perceived failure to capture the spirit of the actual film underscoring. A straight cue however, that I badly wish were included is a brief one occurring underneath a touching scene when the little waif girl, whom Gigot draws out from her shell, tenderly kisses him on the cheek.
But there is plenty of chase music, dance music, bright and bouncy music, and above all, that bluesy lush orchestral music I think of when I think of the Gleason sound. And every time I hear that sound, I’m back in a kinder, gentler, and distinctly special era.
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I haven't seen GIGOT since a tv airing when I was in junior high. It was entertaining enough, overly sentimental in a Chaplinesque sort of way but engrossing . This was back in Gleason's HUSTLER/SOLDIER IN THE RAIN/GIGOT/PAPA'S DELICATE CONDITION era. Personally, I think the man was a comic genius, probably more from television than any other medium ("Mmmmmmmmm, Boy, are you fat!"  ) , and I do like the music he "wrote", like this, the theme for the classic 39 HONEYMOONERS, and of course, THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW.
It would not break my heart to see GIGOT's score released on cd.
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