I know there has been talk here about this before, and an FSM print article, but can someone give a quick summary of the story again please?
What exactly was David Rose's involvement in FORBIDDEN PLANET? I'd read before that he wrote the Title Music (only?), which was rejected but heard in the trailers. The trailers I've seen have music by André Previn. Are there other trailers with the Rose score (assuming he wrote any)?
What's that old David Rose single, with Robby the Robot on the front - "David Rose Plays His (?) Theme From FORBIDDEN PLANET" (?) - I think the B side had a Rose arrangement (how sweet) of Kaper's THE SWAN (?), or was it THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY?
Sorry if I'm going over old ground, but the stuff I've seen has been from loads of different sources, and I thought it would be nice if some of you erudite folks could come up with a succinct answer.
Thanks! That's the one I was thinking about... I think it turned up later on a couple of other compilations. So, was that actually the music Rose wrote for the film? There seems to be a more than a few Barronesque chirps and burps mixed in. I suppose it was "doctored with" after the fact, but something still doesn't ring quite true here. I do so love a mystery!
Thanks! That's the one I was thinking about... I think it turned up later on a couple of other compilations. So, was that actually the music Rose wrote for the film? There seems to be a more than a few Barronesque chirps and burps mixed in. I suppose it was "doctored with" after the fact, but something still doesn't ring quite true here. I do so love a mystery!
I agree with you Graham.
I have the compilation LP that this David Rose piece was on, but unfortunately it's tucked away somewhere not easy to get to. I haven't listened to it in probably 3 decades.
I'm happy that Sigerson posted the 45rpm edition so we could hear it again. But in doing so I absolutely do not remember that the extensive electronic sounds attached to this 45rpm version occurred on the LP track---particularly in the introduction. It seems to me that the mix on the old LP was done to reflect more the "easy listening" aspects of the piece, sans electronics, and more in keeping with the orchestral easy-listening thrust of the album itself.
And that brings up another curiosity for me. Listening to it again, beyond the electronics, the melody and orchestration sound for all the world like a tropical Les Baxter-ish kind of tune that would be right at home in an old Dorothy Lamour South Seas Technicolor adventure. It doesn't remind me of a sci-fi adventure at all.
Beyond the "Inspired by" credit which has always accompanied this piece, I wonder where the information that Rose was scheduled to score FORBIDDEN PLANET---and that this was one of his themes---actually originates. I can't recall ever hearing about this or seeing it mentioned in print---at any time in the 1956 period. Is it possible that this music, with the added "inspired by" credit, was a much later assumption by someone which eventually found its way into legend?
During this '50s period Rose was under contract to MGM records, I believe, and this may have simply been a melody written for one of the albums that Jesse Kaye pulled out, added electronic sounds to, and released as a 45 to promote the film.
The other, more far out and extreme conjecture on my part, is GREEN MANSIONS. In the 1954-1955 period MGM was trying to make GREEN MANSIONS (several years before the Tony Perkins/Audrey Hepburn version)---and this earlier film attempt, which had some pre-production already started, was to star Edmund Purdom and Pier Angeli, and, I think, announced direction by Minnelli. Is it possible that this tropical-like melody by Rose was actually a demo for a possible David Rose score for this aborted GREEN MANSIONS version???
We'll probably never know the full answers about this piece of music's origins, but listening to it again, I have to wonder why Rose, or anyone, felt it might have been used for PLANET. It seems so wrong-headed an approach, however pretty it is.
Someone posted the following on Wikipedia, all without attribution:
"MGM declined to publish a soundtrack album at the same time that Forbidden Planet was released. However, film composer and conductor David Rose later published a 7" (18 cm) single of his original main title theme that he had recorded at the MGM Studios in Culver City during March 1956. His main title theme had been discarded when Rose, who had originally been hired to compose the musical score in 1955, was discharged from the project by Dore Schary sometime between Christmas 1955 and New Year’s Day. The film's original theatrical trailer contains snippets of Rose's score, the tapes of which Rose reportedly later destroyed."
Thanks Bob - I'm always very wary of what I read on Wiki, but it might lead us to something - or send us on a wild goose chase.
And thank you manderley, for that info and the observations. I wonder if it's the "Very Best of David Rose" LP from 1963 that you have stored away? I see that cinemel mentions a different LP. If that album was recorded in that year, Rose may have done away with the "imposed" (?) bleeps and chirps which were present in the 1956 "original 78 rpm" version which Sigerson linked to. Just guessing.
Fascinating that you venture the idea that the piece just might have been composed originally for GREEN MANSIONS. As you know, Bronislau Kaper ended up co-writing that score, and coincidentally the B Side of the '56 release was Rose's cover of Kaper's THE SWAN.
Yes, green mansions amidst exotic tropical surroundings (sitting by the pool, or in the... lounge) - that's Les Baxter territory. And I always felt that David Rose's "Holiday for Strings" (you all know it from The Red Skelton Show) was VERY like Les Baxter. It could even be like for one of the more light-hearted travelogue scenes from MASTER OF THE WORLD.
ADDED TWO MINUTES LATER - Bob, I think that the trailer music is by Previn. BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK? It was mentioned in the old thread from nine years ago (!)
ADDED TWO MINUTES LATER - Bob, I think that the trailer music is by Previn. BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK? It was mentioned in the old thread from nine years ago (!)
You are correct--that film and others. I just found that thread.
Someone posted the following on Wikipedia, all without attribution:
"MGM declined to publish a soundtrack album at the same time that Forbidden Planet was released. However, film composer and conductor David Rose later published a 7" (18 cm) single of his original main title theme that he had recorded at the MGM Studios in Culver City during March 1956. His main title theme had been discarded when Rose, who had originally been hired to compose the musical score in 1955, was discharged from the project by Dore Schary sometime between Christmas 1955 and New Year’s Day. The film's original theatrical trailer contains snippets of Rose's score, the tapes of which Rose reportedly later destroyed."
This sounds an awful lot like the original author's commentary in the FSM article about PLANET, most of which we've debunked already.
And WHY is Rose purportedly recording "his theme" from PLANET at MGM in March, 1956, when he's already been fired from the project at the end of 1955?
....."The film's original theatrical trailer contains snippets of Rose's score, the tapes of which Rose reportedly later destroyed".....
In 1956, the "tapes" of a film score would be on magnetic 35mm fullcoat film stock, not tape, and under the control of the sound department manager to permanently vault as the studio's paid for and assessed property. The composer is an agent-for-hire, not the owner of the material. The person writing this information is not aware of how the a studio operated in those days---the kinds of errors evidenced in the original FSM article.
But, to make the story more fantastic and exciting, let's say Rose staged a raid on the sound department vaults one night and lifted the film stock, then burned the reels on the asphalt drive near the foley stage! He'd need help, of course, since there'd be many heavy reels, and he couldn't get them out all at once but in numerous trips.
My guess? Lots of talk about a Rose score, but no listenable Rose score, and no actual recording.
If you go to their Archives, you'll find lots and lots of absolutely wonderfully fascinating Historical Newsletters. "Unfortunately" there doesn't appear to be anything from after 1950, but the '40s stuff is incredible - sort of like what Lukas Kendall would have been compiling decades before he was born.
I only put "unfortunately" in inverted commas because it can't help us with the FORBIDDEN PLANET story, but do the later publications exist on paper and in the vaults? Or any similar trade papers from that era?
Actually Justin, your "rejected scores" site is interesting and you give good back-up info on a lot of the scores mentioned (ie, not much "According to the Internet..."). So what's the big secret about FORBIDDEN PLANET? I suppose you can't tell us, because it's secret. But it's also a bit baffling, to say the least.
The version of David Rose's "Forbidden Planet" track on my MGM LP does indeed have the bloops and bleeps. I am still unclear if this was originally intended for the track, if David Rose chose to add them, or if the label did it.
It is my understanding that he destroyed the written scores for the film he'd completed before he was sacked, and that it was nothing was recorded. (Except for the theme).
Graham, I agree with you that it does not sound at all outer space, but it does not sound like Les Baxter exotica either, to my ears at least. It would have made just as lousy a theme for "Green Mansions" as it would have for "Forbidden Planet."
Well, I wish I could say more. I'm going to have to e-mail the person and find out if it;s clear yet.
I do what I can with my site, but its is nearly 900 titles, and then another 800 to investigate, too, that are unsolved. That's a lot as you can imagine.
He'd need help, of course, since there'd be many heavy reels, and he couldn't get them out all at once but in numerous trips. 
