I liked the podcast on City of Fear. Interesting correlation between Noir and radioactivity. I enjoy hearing all three points of view on both the music and on the film. This is not a film that I've seen, but I'm curious now. Also, I've not heard the music in this film before this podcast. I'm looking forward to hearing future podcasts.
Thanks Joan and (Member) for the feedback! The film, despite being far from great, is well worth checking out for Goldsmith fans. (How could it be a waste of time when his music is so prominently mixed?)
I also highly recommend Intrada's CD release, which is OOP but can be found for around $30 new still (and even less for used).
Just finished this one. Again, what a fun podcast!
With regards to the criticism, I almost have the opposite point of view: as far as I'm concerned, I'm tuning in not just to listen to Goldsmith's music, but to learn about the films themselves.
And when you guys mentioned Congo, my eyes widened, expecting the worst... thankfully you all seem to like it. It's my guiltiest guilty pleasure!
Finally got to listen to BLACK PATCH show. What struck me was that my opinion of the film and score was colored by the b**tleg editions of film and score that brought down both mightily. Even though it still isn't as complex a character study or score as you have concluded, it has gone up a notch or two in my esteem on repeat viewings. Your conversational approach to the show has great advantages along the lines of making your odyssey thorough. The downside is that sometimes it becomes slow and repetitious. Overall I can't encourage you guys enough on this endeavor. I'll get to your CITY OF FEAR soon.
BTW I really can't think of too many composers you can do this with without being tremendously repetitive, as most composers eventually become. Maybe Morricone but (not that I would want anyone to be discouraged doing that) I would probably be dead before they could get half way through his career.
I liked the podcast on City of Fear. Interesting correlation between Noir and radioactivity. I enjoy hearing all three points of view on both the music and on the film. This is not a film that I've seen, but I'm curious now. Also, I've not heard the music in this film before this podcast. I'm looking forward to hearing future podcasts.
If joan hue never heard City of Fear prior to this podcast, then this implies she never bought Intrada's album.
I'm curious about just how many Goldsmith fans did not acquire City of Fear.
I think Intrada deleted City of Fear from their catalogue due to lack of consumer interest ... but the reason(s) for this lack of interest intrigues me. There's likely no shortage of customers for Goldsmith music, yet not enough people bought City of Fear for it to sell out. Indeed, this title appeared to linger around in the catalogue before its eventual deletion.
Is it the mono sound? Is it because the movie was never shown enough for a generation of viewers to be nostalgic about it? Is it because it was recorded in 1958 - a year that elapsed prior to when most of the current soundtrack buyers were born?
I like to hear music in the actual movie before I purchase a CD. I never saw the movie, so I didn't know the music. I don't blind buy scores. After listening to the podcast, I'd like to see the movie. However, the music seemed quite strident and dissonant which I'm sure fit the visuals, but that isn't the type of music I enjoy for stand-alone listening.
Episode 3 - Face of a Fugitive (1959) & Toccata (1958) * Face of a Fugitive starts at 10:30 * http://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/673893-episode-3-face-of-a-fugitive-1959-toccata-1958 In this episode, we take a look at another Goldsmith-scored western: the 1959 Fred MacMurray vehicle Face of a Fugitive. Your humble hosts Jens, Yavar, and Clark discuss the simple pleasures of this conventional yet competent film, and explore some of the highlights of Goldsmith's melodic, entertaining score (including a flexible central motif, a memorably melancholy secondary theme, a delicate love theme, and some thrilling action cues). As a prelude to that discussion, we offer a brief look at the flavorful Toccata for Solo Guitar, the first concert piece of Goldsmith's career. Climb aboard the train and enjoy the ride!
Episode 3 - Face of a Fugitive (1959) & Toccata (1958) * Face of a Fugitive starts at 10:30 * http://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/673893-episode-3-face-of-a-fugitive-1959-toccata-1958 In this episode, we take a look at another Goldsmith-scored western: the 1959 Fred MacMurray vehicle Face of a Fugitive. Your humble hosts Jens, Yavar, and Clark discuss the simple pleasures of this conventional yet competent film, and explore some of the highlights of Goldsmith's melodic, entertaining score (including a flexible central motif, a memorably melancholy secondary theme, a delicate love theme, and some thrilling action cues). As a prelude to that discussion, we offer a brief look at the flavorful Toccata for Solo Guitar, the first concert piece of Goldsmith's career. Climb aboard the train and enjoy the ride!
This show helped me get super fond the score, and desirous to check out the movie. Great balance between music and thoughts guys. Gets better every show!
The reference to the writing a la Alex North is spot on! I enjoy the film, the character and the score. It's a pleasant and adequate escapee-oriented western film about redemption. It's amusing to notice a young James Coburn as a henchman.
(Member) & Wagner Almighty, thanks for the prompt plugging/recommendation of our latest (and my opinion, best) podcast on Face of a Fugitive (with initial bonus discussion of the early Toccata for Solo Guitar). A note about the latter: we acquired the LP -- unreleased on CD -- and transferred the original Almeida performance. I think you will find it to be a revelation if you have only heard Gregg Nestor's rendition (though I am still grateful to him for doing that).
I listened closely to the podcast of City of Fear because the score by Goldsmith was very attractive: the jazz side of Goldsmith. I also watched the film and the score carried the drama all the way.
Now THAT is for sure. I'm intrigued by your labeling the score overall as "the jazz side of Goldsmith" -- I had that initial impression, but on careful re-listen it surprised me just how little jazz was actually in the score; mainly the "Tennis Shoes" theme for Pete. Most of the score is what our own Onyabirri likes to call "nervous angular longhair" -- i.e. more akin to modernist concert hall writing.
Now if you find the jazz side of Goldsmith attractive, we will soon be getting to a score that is just INCREDIBLE and much more jazz heavy: Studs Lonigan!
Joan -- I think you might appreciate the City of Fear score more after seeing the film; I find that is often the case for me with Jerry's more avant-garde efforts, like Planet of the Apes. Jerry's music adds so much. I do think you will love Face of a Fugitive much more, though, and I'm really excited to hear your thoughts on our latest episode!
With regards to the criticism, I almost have the opposite point of view: as far as I'm concerned, I'm tuning in not just to listen to Goldsmith's music, but to learn about the films themselves. And when you guys mentioned Congo, my eyes widened, expecting the worst... thankfully you all seem to like it. It's my guiltiest guilty pleasure!
I have honestly never understood the hate for Congo. It's a fun popcorn flick, very quotable, and doesn't aspire to be any more than that. But of course I've never read the book so maybe if I had, I'd feel the same way about it as I do about Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula"...uurggh. You made Clark's day, Scott, speaking up in support for our film discussion.
Yavar - will you be posting images on those 'official' albums that your podcasts will be reviewing in the future?
You mean, just in this thread? I think on our podcast page we don't have a lot of leeway with including multiple images, but I could be wrong. But in general I think we'll be including the best film poster in our image, rather than the soundtrack album...we will certainly be plugging the best releases of each score in our show, though, and often be providing a link at the bottom of our episode page, particularly if the album is in print. BTW, Zardoz -- are you the user formerly known as ToneRow? Just curious.
Thanks for saying that, WA. I would personally love to follow this up one day with The Bernstein Odyssey, The Rozsa Odyssey, The Alfred Newman Odyssey, etc. I think the other other ones Jens might join me for is possibly The Poledouris Odyssey one day, but I expect after we get through all this Goldsmith we'll be pretty tired.
Finally got to listen to BLACK PATCH show. What struck me was that my opinion of the film and score was colored by the b**tleg editions of film and score that brought down both mightily. Even though it still isn't as complex a character study or score as you have concluded, it has gone up a notch or two in my esteem on repeat viewings. Your conversational approach to the show has great advantages along the lines of making your odyssey thorough. The downside is that sometimes it becomes slow and repetitious. Overall I can't encourage you guys enough on this endeavor. I'll get to your CITY OF FEAR soon.
BTW I really can't think of too many composers you can do this with without being tremendously repetitive, as most composers eventually become. Maybe Morricone but (not that I would want anyone to be discouraged doing that) I would probably be dead before they could get half way through his career.
I agree with you Henry that attempting a comprehensive and chronological survey of his output would be even more ludicrous an endeavor than we are attempting with Goldsmith. However I would definitely tune in if you or someone else decided to try! You well articulated why we felt Goldsmith was an ideal subject for this treatment. So much variety, versatility, and mastery...yet still to me a very unmistakable and brilliant style through it all.
I'm glad your opinion of Black Patch improved. I do think the film is not as deep or complex as it wants to be, but it certainly is unusually so for a B-movie western of the period. I respect its attempt at depth, as well as how it often subverts the expectations of the genre. In this way it is the complete opposite of Face of a Fugitive, perhaps a more slickly-made and more straightforwardly enjoyable film with fewer flaws, but also one which is much more predictable. I think I'm the only one who rated Black Patch (slightly) higher than Face of a Fugitive, but I stand by my assessment even though I still only rated it a 6.5/10.
I'm glad your opinion of Black Patch improved. I do think the film is not as deep or complex as it wants to be, but it certainly is unusually so for a B-movie western of the period. I respect its attempt at depth, as well as how it often subverts the expectations of the genre. In this way it is the complete opposite of Face of a Fugitive, perhaps a more slickly-made and more straightforwardly enjoyable film with fewer flaws, but also one which is much more predictable. I think I'm the only one who rated Black Patch (slightly) higher than Face of a Fugitive, but I stand by my assessment even though I still only rated it a 6.5/10.
Yavar
I'm jumping ahead a bit, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on Rio Conchos (the movie and btw LOVE the Intrada). I liked that movie.
I do actually like the movie -- it's gritty but human -- and LOVE the score. Overall I think the great Michael Mattesino restoration of the complete score for Kritzerland has the best musical flow. But the Intrada LSO recording is by far the best new recording Jerry ever did of one of his scores (plus he included his incredible score for The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint) and I prefer it over the original for certain amazing highlights like Wall of Fire -- hearing the LSO blast through one's speakers on that cue is just incredible. In general the Intrada is the more "epic" feeling recording whereas the original film recording is more intimate. I'm so glad to have both as Rio Conchos is among my favorite Goldsmith western scores.
I do actually like the movie -- it's gritty but human -- and LOVE the score. Overall I think the great Michael Mattesino restoration of the complete score for Kritzerland has the best musical flow. But the Intrada LSO recording is by far the best new recording Jerry ever did of one of his scores (plus he included his incredible score for The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint) and I prefer it over the original for certain amazing highlights like Wall of Fire -- hearing the LSO blast through one's speakers on that cue is just incredible. In general the Intrada is the more "epic" feeling recording whereas the original film recording is more intimate. I'm so glad to have both as Rio Conchos is among my favorite Goldsmith western scores.
I always seem to be one behind in this fascinating series. Just heard CITY OF FEAR, which is appropriate since I will watch it for a second time Sunday on the big screen at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian theater. This is part of TCM’s Eddie Muller’s annual Film Noir series and is appropriately co-billed with Robert Aldrich’s KISS ME DEADLY. But thanks to your program this time I will watch out for what should have been obvious the first time I saw CITY OF FEAR years ago at the New Beverly Cinema. That is, at an hour and twenty it probably was cut down by Columbia for double bills. This explains much of what is unexplainably confusing in the film that I chalked up to bad filmmaking (including the main titles).
I will also be listening for John William’s piano contributions. I watch for the character Pete and listen for his theme. Also the music from the stock footage montage and how it works. Who knew cheese can be made interesting? Thanks for this series.
I always seem to be one behind in this fascinating series. Just heard CITY OF FEAR, which is appropriate since I will watch it for a second time Sunday on the big screen at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian theater. This is part of TCM’s Eddie Muller’s annual Film Noir series and is appropriately co-billed with Robert Aldrich’s KISS ME DEADLY. But thanks to your program this time I will watch out for what should have been obvious the first time I saw CITY OF FEAR years ago at the New Beverly Cinema, at an hour and twenty it probably was cut down by Columbia for double bills. This explains much of what is unexplainably confusing in the film that I chalked up to bad filmmaking, including the main titles.
I will also be listening for John William’s piano contributions, the character Pete and theme and the stock footage montage. Who knew cheese can be made interesting? Thanks for this series.
I found the noir side of the score to be especially delightful! I think CoF qualifies as something any big fan of JG would want.
Well, I can understand when aspects of it aren't particularly appealing to some big Goldsmith fans, like Joan in this very thread. I mean, to some fans like OnyaBirri it's among their very favorite Goldsmith scores, but even among the three of us on the podcast we rated it much lower than the western feature scores written on either side of it. If you're into modern concert hall music with a bit of jazz flavor, then it's right up your alley. If you like more obvious melodies and themes in your scores, it might not be someone's favorite.
But that's what's great about Goldsmith -- so much versatility and variety that there's something for everybody!
Oddly enough, Goldsmith interested me first for his avant garde and modernistic writing from the 1960's and Planet of the Apes (Bartok paired with Stravinsky) represented the first score that allowed me to get into his corpus. Then the jazzistic and rythmic and mod side of Goldsmith attracted me. And much later and finally, his Americana side into the western genre. The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) got all these elements.
