Fave b'way/ movie score/ soundtrack?

[Bighuey]

wow, you're going back.............I remember Medic, there were numerous doctor shows then...was that the one w/Chad Everett?.....also dr. Marcus Welby.....do you remember the music from Dragnet?
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Victor Young did a few great soundtracks. Samson and Delilah, Around The World In 80 Days, Shane, Greatest Show On Earth, the super cool Stella By Starlight from the Uninvited. One he did that was on the charts back around 1954 or 55 was the theme from the TV series Medic.

I remember that show with Chad Everett. Wasnt it called University Medical or something like that? Great show, I dont think we ever missed an episode. Medic was the one with Richard Boone. Dum-De-Dum-Dum. Good old Dragnet.

[Nathrad Sheare]

The silent "The Phantom of the Opera" with Lon Chaney is my absolute favorite silent film. The Switchblade Symphony played awesomely throughout, and I don't think I've ever seen the Phantom so creepily portrayed. A great, GREAT movie... I also liked the Charlie Chaplin movies, but who doesn't need a little slapstick every now and then?

[PashaRu]

The silent "The Phantom of the Opera" with Lon Chaney is my absolute favorite silent film. The Switchblade Symphony played awesomely throughout, and I don't think I've ever seen the Phantom so creepily portrayed. A great, GREAT movie... I also liked the Charlie Chaplin movies, but who doesn't need a little slapstick every now and then?

Great movie! It's even better if you can see it with the original technicolor sequences restored. I've seen it many times, but the most memorable was in a large sold-out concert hall with a full symphony orchestra playing the score. It was spectacular, and gave a small taste of what it must have been like to see these films in the 1920s in the huge movie theatre palaces of those days. (The concert hall happened to be built in the 1920s for the purpose of showing silent films.)

By the way, this is the best version IMO. Better than the 1943 Universal Claude Rains version and the 1962 Hammer Herbert Lom version. Chaney's performance still holds up after 90 years.

[Nathrad Sheare]

No kidding! Chaney was an amazing actor. All the other performances of the role blackened in the shadow of his.

It's awesome that you got to see the movie in a concert hall! I love that stuff! Wish I could have been there... There's nothing like concert music, and it's always best when heard live... A full symphony... Wonderful! I'm getting all excited just imagining it! I didn't think the movie would be all that great when I first saw it, but I thought I'd try it because it was the first... And now I don't think there was a film version of the original story that was any better! Every time I see it, I get all happy! Ha, ha!

[NateHyphen]

The End written and performed by Jim Morrison, to begin Apocalypse Now. The
song had been written in 1965, well in advanced of the widespread disaffection for the War that followed in 1968 after Tet. Morrison was either expressing his contempt
for what he perceived as The West's excess(or approach to the enormous tasks they
undertook) or his generally bleak assessment of life. Morrison had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide. There were lots of people(Vietnam veterans for one) who attended his concerts to do him bodily harm. The older Morrison got, the more he reviled America. He became obsessive. He had found his schtick. And was going to beat it to death. None of this presents itself in the short time The End introduces
AN to the audience. The first time I watched AN, I sat bolt upright in my seat when
the familiar sounds of The End began. Coppolla had chosen exactly the right symphony to herald AN's approach. Later, I heard Coppola describe this magnificent
moment. "My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam." Morrison's annoying habit of
emphasizing the salient points of his agenda by resorting to a bag of tricks that wouldn't entertain a pet dog, never materialized. Instead, the tree line erupted with
the orange flames of napalm hurled at it by carrier based Tomcats. It had begun.
Willard stared at the blades of ceiling fan. And said he was waiting on a mission.
Zeen loi, Daiwhee!

[Bighuey]

A lot of those old silent movies were destroyed when sound came in. I heard of one instance where the studios used the old silent reels for bonfires at their parties. Too bad, some of them were awesome.

[PashaRu]

A lot of those old silent movies were destroyed when sound came in. I heard of one instance where the studios used the old silent reels for bonfires at their parties. Too bad, some of them were awesome.

Sadly, it's estimated that up to 90% of silent films have been lost or destroyed. Many were gone even before the sound era. In those days, there was no thought of film preservation. No one considered that it was important to save the films for future generations. Add to that the fact that many projectionists in those days were not careful with the films. And nitrate film stock was used up until the 50s. It's highly flammable and decays if not kept in a climate-controlled environment.

[Nathrad Sheare]

PashaRu and Bighuey:

What misfortune!!! When the industry says, "Out with the old, in with the new," it's not just reciting some American folk tune, is it?

NateHyphen:

I was never a big Jim Morrison fan, but there are a few songs of his I'll let play every now and then. I'm glad you chose him for his art and not for his private life. Many people choose to ignore or criticize artists because of things they did, said, or experimented with on and off the stage. The music is what matters, right? It's everything that remains of a songwriter, composer, singer, player, when he or she has passed on.

[PashaRu]

PashaRu and Bighuey:

What misfortune!!! When the industry says, "Out with the old, in with the new," it's not just reciting some American folk tune, is it? .

It is indeed a misfortune. So much history and art have been lost. And it's a race against time to preserve the existing films. The vast majority have yet to be transferred to safety film or digitally preserved, and nitrate is unstable. Every year sees more of these films gone forever as they continue to decay. And it's a very painstaking, expensive process to preserve a film, and usually has to be funded by grants and non-profit organizations.

[Nathrad Sheare]

Ridiculous... just ridiculous... What's your favorite classic film of all time, PashaRu?

[PashaRu]

Ridiculous... just ridiculous... What's your favorite classic film of all time, PashaRu?

Boy, that's just impossible to answer! If I name one, I'll feel like I'm doing an injustice to so many others! As you can probably tell, I love silent films. They are undervalued and underappreciated in this day and age. Directors like Clarence Brown, D.W. Griffith, F.W. Murnau, C.B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, Sergei Eisenstein, Chaplin, Tod Browning, Josef Von Sternberg, produced some important and beautiful work, and in the space of about 20 years revolutionized the industry. (I'm sure I'm forgetting a few!)

But others, such as Otto Preminger, David Lean, George Cukor, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Frank Capra, Hitchcock, are among my favorite directors in the sound era.

Some genres I like: silent, film noir of the 40s and 50s, horror films of the 30's & 40s, sci-fi of the 50s, a lot of the sci-fi beginning with Star Wars, musicals of the 50's and 60's, Astair/Rogers films, Superhero movies, etc., etc., lolol

I can mention a few of my favorite (sound era) films: Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Casablanca, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, King Kong (1933, although the 2005 version was terrific), Double Indemnity, The Sweet Smell of Success, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Sound of Music, The Third Man, and I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a few!!!

[Nathrad Sheare]

I'm glad you mentioned Jurassic Park, Alfred Hitchcock, King Kong, and film noir. They're kind of sentimental to me. My first classic movie was Bette Davis'"The Nanny." Her diversity was astounding. "Double Indemnity" was a fantastic Barbara Stanwyck movie. One of the best, I think. My list of favorite classics is quite a bit longer than my list of favorite modern movies, for sure. Mostly I like the dramatic ones, though there are some comedies I think are great. Charlie Chaplin is one of my FAVORITE comedians. I laughed myself half to death the first time I saw a clip of his work. Now I can't contain myself whenever I see him waddling into view.

[suzy1124]

Many a career went down the toilet when the " talkies " came in, due to squeaky / mickey mouse type voices of major very masculine matinee idols of the silent screen...

There was one very big star whose career came to a screeching halt, ( forgot his name )...

I bet you'd know P.R. ?...

btw, what'd you think of "The Artist?"..............it won the OSCAR but put me to sleep...

[PashaRu]

lol yes, I'd know. I have more than an entire shelf full of books about silent film. And yes, I've read them all lol

There certainly were some careers that ended with the advent of sound. One that immediately comes to mind is John Gilbert. There wasn't really anything wrong with his voice, but audiences found that it didn't match the persona they had created in their minds. There were, of course, other reasons why his career started to decline. He was heavy into alcohol and died of a heart attack in 1936 at 38 years of age. Others had very strong accents, such as Pola Negri, Emil Jannings, and Ramon Novarro. But the public is fickle, and other stars with accents, such as Garbo and Paul Muni, made the transition successfully. Chaplin refused to make the transition to sound for awhile, feeling that the Tramp shouldn't speak (I agree). So he made City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936), both silent "with sound effects" and featuring the Tramp. His first sound film was The Great Dictator (1940), a satire of Hitler with a version of the Tramp in a somewhat darker role (as Hitler!)

Probably more than you wanted to know. lol

Yes, I saw The Artist and liked it. I was happy that in this day and age, not only did someone have the b*lls to make a silent b&w film, but it even won an Oscar.

[thsavage2]

For Broadway, I'd have to say Wicked, especially "For Good," "Defying Gravity," and "Dancing Through Life." For movie soundtracks, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Star Wars are my favorites. The Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice soundtrack is also good, but the other three are much more epic-sounding. Great to write or run to.