FAHRENHEIT 451 - Film Score Rundowns

he had to be the messenger between Truffaut and Herrmann. T. would tell Tom that he disliked the
xylophones Herrmann employed, and that he was to go over to Herrmann and tell him that! So he does, and
Herrmann gruffly says, "Go back and ask him why!" So Tom goes back to Truffaut, and T. says "Because it
sounds comical. Tell him that." So Tom sheepishly goes back to Herrmann to tell him, and Herrmann
states, "They didn't laugh at Ravel." So Tom tells Truffaut that, and T. says, "Tell Herrmann that he's not
Ravel" (but smartly, Tom never relied that exact sentiment!). So it appears that Truffaut was being a bit of
an ass there, hypercritical. Trauffaut also edited the music very heavily in the final print, and did it even far
more drastically in his later collaboration with Herrmann on "The Bride Wore Black."
Smith comes on to make a very good point about how the music in certain sequences was like nursery
game music because after all these futuristic characters were rather two-dimensional and childlike in a
repressed way.
In the feature commentary, Smith comes on briefly in several locations. He first speaks in Chapter 5
at about 4:20, and then in Chapter 8 at 3:25, the start of Chapter 12, Chapter 14 at 4:30 (book burning
sequence) etc. A few of the others also discuss the music as well very briefly. Tom Noble talks about the
music in Chapter 12 I believe, about how Herrmann was a crotchety person, and it was a stark contrast of
how that man (outer difficult persona) could write such beautiful romantic music. Overall the multiple
commentary contributors was okay, but I preferred the more interesting in-depth commentary track (of four
people) in "Ghost & Mrs. Muir."
The Making Of documentary is educational. It was Julie Christie signing on that really clinched the
movie and got the financial backing it needed. However, Bradbury objected to having Julie playing both
roles (middle-aged Linda, and Clarisse). Clarisse was supposed to be a 16 year old, innocent, and so forth.
Also Taruffaut really wanted to film the movie in black and white, but Universal was adamant about having
it in color. It would be odd to me to film it in B/W especially with the pivotal fire scenes. No red/blue
flames, no red fire engine,etc.
In my opinion, "Ghost & Mrs. Muir was a better film, but I liked the score to Fah 451 better. As a
movie, Fah 451 had many admirable qualities, but it also had many flaws. I preferred the book over the
radically changed movie script. As given in my Fah 451 cue rundown on Film Score Rundowns, I thought
the ending chapter ("The Book People") was ridiculous (although the music is excellent). I commented on
how I hope the book people don't suffer from Alzheimer's soon or choose Aristotle as an author (Greek
writers back then had the habit of dragging one sentence into a whole, long paragraph)!
At any rate, I would recommend buying this dvd.”
[Written Sunday, November 9, 2003:]
I will expand a bit on the “missing” cues or cue fragments I had already discussed
below (written over two years ago). Herrmann apparently made scissors-work on several
cues, probably for his Phase Four re-recordings several years after the original release of
the motion picture. Bars 16-22 of “Fire Alarm” I believe is from Bars 9-15 of “Fire
Station” (when the xylophone makes its familiar appearance). This page )or rather half
of the original page) has that xylophone written in but that xylophone line is not played in
the “Fire Alarm” cue later on. The page is physically and radically scissored up. This
perhaps means that this page section was used here in the latter cue (“Fire Alarm”) but
the other half of that page from “Fire Station” was not.
Another example is the “Bedtime” cue VII (end of Chapter 3 on the new dvd).
Only about the first six bars were used (of the 12 bars in the first Moderato section).
Then at :28 ½, we come to the Allegro Con Brio “Fire Station” music again (this time
with the marimba, not the xylophone). But once again that section of the bottom of the
page was put to the scissors (page 14) abd then page 15 is missing, and then the
concluding bars of that Fire Station music (half of the top of page 16) was also cut out,
coming to the :58 ½ point in the new or next Lento section. Of course in the movie/dvd,
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