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I'm still going through the special, but I just wanted to say I hope all these demos he did for films, can wind up as the original records on some kind of odds and ends compilation.
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Start times for the demos:
6:48 in ("Heroic 1"; not heard in full)
1:27:10 ("Andromeda"; not heard in full)
1:28:43 ("Persius Growing Up"; not heard in full)
1:30:49 ("Scorpion"; not heard in full).
At the end of the podcast the host suggested going to Facebook to mention rejected scores worth noting. So, anybody that uses Facebook, feel free to point him my way:
http://www.rejectedfilmscores.125mb.com/list.html
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Start times for the demos:
6:48 in ("Heroic 1"; not heard in full)
1:27:10 ("Andromeda"; not heard in full)
1:28:43 ("Persius Growing Up"; not heard in full)
1:30:49 ("Scorpion"; not heard in full).
At the end of the podcast the host suggested going to Facebook to mention rejected scores worth noting. So, anybody that uses Facebook, feel free to point him my way:
http://www.rejectedfilmscores.125mb.com/list.html
Thanks so much for posting the times!! I have to admit the Barry cues were all I wanted to hear, saved me 90 mins wasted on the rest of it.
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It's not a total waste; other things heard: comparing a cue to a classical piece that film was tempted with, spending a good deal of time talking to one of the sessions layers on Rosenthal's score.
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As a massive fan of the best music for the Harryhausen films - the Herrmann scores are almost solely responsible for my interest in the medium from a very young age - I can honestly say that I feel that Barry, who I do admire very much, was most definitely wrong for this film. I remember thinking at their time of release his scores for Kong and The Black Hole, while good and which I enjoyed on record away from the films, were borderline too.
I was glad to hear what the presenters said on this matter because I'm in total agreement. The Black Hole was way too languid.
To be fair, I also think that the last two Harryhausen scores from Rosenthal and Roy Budd were much more generic than the soundtracks for the peak of the series. The ones from 7th Voyage of Sinbad to Golden Voyage are all much more distinctive. In particular for me Herrmann, Laurie Johnson and Mario Nascimbene produced extremely evocative music that fit the films like a glove.
But this has been a very fascinating thread. Always wanted to hear what this music was like. Thanks very much.
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There was a teaser trailer for CLASH OF THE TITANS back in 1981, accompanied by music that I don’t remember in the Rosenthal score. A heroic orchestral theme. Since at that time Barry was listed as the film’s composer, I always wondered if he had written it.
Since then, that trailer turns up here and there, on TCM, and it may even be included on video releases.
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Paul, it was Rozsa not Rosenthal.
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oops - corrected a mention that didn't need correcting.
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Successful film music is about good casting.
We would have all thought John Barry was bad casting for THE BLACK HOLE if we were discussing it in the early part of 1979, because at the time we all thought such film scores had to sound like STAR WARS. John Barry defied convention and expectation and in the end it was a marvellous score that we mostly loved.
Was this 1961, we would have even thought John Barry would have been bad casting for the upcoming James Bond film, because at the time we thought such films had to sound like Hitchcock films.
John Barry, until he became convention, defied convention, and mostly it worked.
I tend to think that if it had come to fruition, John Barry's score for CLASH OF THE TITANS might have defied our expectations in a good way, like THE BLACK HOLE did.
I have no doubt it would have been a great score—BUT it would have been contemporary sounding.
And the thing is, it would have been contemporary sounding on a film that the makers wanted to be a throwback experience, a throwback to the golden age of 1950s fantasy films.
Ergo, while I think his score could have been great, and we can't really judge how it might have fleshed out, he was bad casting considering the effect the film makers wanted to create.
I watched ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE on the big screen yesterday. I'm seeing the new STAR WARS film today. I have been thinking on how John Barry would have been bad casting for STAR WARS, but conversely the John Williams sound would have totally not worked on those 1960s Bond films.
It's all about casting the right composer, and some times, no matter how brilliant you are, you're not the right casting.
Cheers
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No offence Loverozsa, but I think Stephen's assessment is a little more rationally thought out. Yours is more something you might have said down the pub after a few pints. And I should know 'cause it's the kind of thing I might say after a few pints!
I do actually like both King Kong and The Black Hole. But the Barry of the earlier Bonds seems more adept at catching the action feel than he was later, when the slower paced sounds we love for such as Out of Africa and Dances With Loves came along.
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I just think by that point Barry had become so predictable. I knew exactly what those demos for Clash of the Titans were gonna sound like before I even played them. And I was right - when I listened I was literally humming along with them even though I never heard them before.
I only get about 60 - 70% of his score for The Black Hole. The "Black Hole" theme itself was interesting (if overused), but that march is out of place and embarrassing as a piece of music (IMO). It sounds like something I would have banged out at the piano when I was a kid, a 12 year old's idea of what a heroic march should sound like. Harmonically, rhythmically and melodically it was amateur hour. The moody stuff in the score is much more successful.
With the march I think we can cut Barry some slack, as I'm sure it was required in his contract that he write one for the movie whether it was appropriate for the film or not. Having just watched this movie the other day for the first time in decades, it just seems so out of place and tonally wrong for the film. And it comes blasting in on the soundtrack all heroic even when bad shit is going down. The movie is also much worse than I remembered - flat (and almost completely looped!) performances, a meandering plot that has characters just standing around and talking about nothing in particular, and one of the stupidest lines in memory:
"Their mission was the same as ours - to search for habitable life."
Habitable life...!?!?!? Were the crews of the Palomino and the Cygnus leeches and ticks?
That said, I love all of Barry's scores for the Bond films and take the point about "properly casting" a composer. And I also love Rosenthal's score for Clash of the Titans.
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