I love Rózsa, but I happen to love noir Rózsa best of all.
Me too! Especially his 40s scores. Red House is probably my favorite. I don’t remember the film well enough to know if it’s noir. It’s that style of his from that decade and total perfection.
I love Rózsa, but I happen to love noir Rózsa best of all.
Me too! Especially his 40s scores. Red House is probably my favorite. I don’t remember the film well enough to know if it’s noir. It’s that style of his from that decade and total perfection.
My favorite too. Love the re-recording. Noir mystery I guess. I wonder where it was filmed. Love the scenery, pond etc.
It's good to have this score in such a complete form (a quick comparison with the Prometheus CD reveals much better sound and more widely spaced stereo). Intrada basically close the book on the score with the addition of numerous alternatives such as the Finale and End Credits for example. I enjoyed all the many source cues as well - Rozsa in 'Nic Tomay' style is always entertaining to listen to! As Frank DeWald says in his notes in the attractively designed booklet, the score is not, as often stated, simply a return to Rozsa in his films noir mode. It is very much a strong meld of late Rozsa together with elements of his earlier scores. It reminded me especially of "The Private Files of J Edgar Hoover" which, like "Dead Men" makes extensive use of suspense motifs, sometimes resolving, sometimes not, together with an atmospheric mood, evocative of the time period.
It's not a movie or an album (that curious undated Prometheus) that I know very well. The music is most familiar to me in the Elmer Bernstein recording of the end credits, where the lyrical theme -- is this really a “love” story? -- shines with a genuine ardor. It reminds me of The V.I.P.s – an elemental Rozsa lyric outpouring without the trappings of ethnicity or historical period that characterize so many of his other love themes. The movie itself is ingenious and technically accomplished, but ultimately a one-joke curiosity that wears out its welcome. It certainly posed interesting challenges for a composer not afraid to go in new directions in his seventh decade.
I have to agree with Frank DeWald that the music doesn’t precisely sound like the Rozsa of the noir/psychosis period. I know that was the intention, but in the words of Heraclitus, you cannot step into the same river twice. It’s partly a matter of sound. The old scores come down to us in dead-sounding audio, played by smallish orchestras. What a pleasure to hear the music now in a burnished modern dress. The orchestra is full of familiar figures. Violinists Endre Granat, Manual and Anatol Compinsky all played Rozsa’s chamber music. Dorothy Wade performed the Violin Concerto. Eleanor Slatkin needs no introduction. The booklet list is deceptive, however. Six horns? Seven trombones? Some of these players likely dropped in for only one of the several recording sessions. How often to we consider that we are listening to different musicians in portions of a single score?
Besides the pleasing sound and Frank’s informative notes I enjoyed the curious “Transformation” (not in the film). It’s a comic moment that steps outside Rozsa’s usual practice. “Memories” is an interesting nod to Ravel. I guess I’ll have to see the movie again to figure out what some of the music is all about. Note how Rozsa slips into Last Embrace a couple of times in tracks 23 and 24. I wonder what the entire four minutes of the deleted “Mistaken Identity” (track 24) were meant to accompany. It’s one of the heaviest musical episodes in the entire score.
Yes, there’s much to discuss here. Like most “soundtrack” albums this one does not make a coherent listening program. Even the great composers were repetitive and fragmentary in many scores. But I look forward to following up on some of the interesting details mentioned in the notes.
Question: when l listen to track 3 of CD #2, The Brentwood Club, it sounds funny like it stops too abruptly. Is that how it sounds to others? Maybe a problem from ripping to my laptop. Thanks.
