Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

Earth a year earlier thanks to Technicolor and an even stranger story). However, in Beast
from 20,000 Fathoms, the lead female role was play by Paula Raymond. I always thought
she was hot! I thought she was sexy in that movie, albeit in an understated manner. I felt
that Paul Christian and her had good chemistry between them. Tobey and Domergue had
no chemistry, although Tobey’s character was trying to do his best in his pushy way.
Domergue tends to come across as rather pouty. My wife commented in the restaurant
scene (about 31 or 32 minutes into the film) that her ear-rings were way too big! Paula
Raymond comes across classy with strong feminine allure (in a quiet or under-stated
way). I guess I’m saying I would’ve liked this movie better with Faith Domergue.
Besides, then you can have two stars from the previous Harryhausen movie in this one!
Donald Curtis in that restaurant scene was humorless. There was definitely no chemistry
between him and Faith. In fact, he probably was a Vulcan in disguise on a time-travel trip
to 1955 to investigate the giant octopus. His responses were so logical and matter-of-fact.
This movie would’ve been a perfect candidate for mocking treatment on Mystery Science
Theatre 3000.
You have to wait 27 minutes before you see the monster (attacking the ship).
There are a few nice so-called freeze-frame moments in that short sequences (such as
00:28:31 and 00:28:40)—especially in the colorized version. The matte painting long
distance shot at 1:08:18 is also a very nice freeze-frame shot (despite the blacked out
circle of the binoculars).
The special features Disc Two quite nice to have, especially Schecter’s music
analysis. You can skip Tim Burton sitting down to Harryhausen! I’m sure he is a far
better director than an interviewer! But David’s treatment of the music is impressively
done. I like the occasional shots of the written music such as 1:33 into the documentary
(the “Mister Monster” title page cue) and at 6:39 showing the “Lab” cue from Earth vs.
The Flying Saucers. Schecter has a dry wit about him (sometimes a bit snarky) that
works well here when making comments about various movies and about the music used
(such as in the “totally believable” film, The Three Stooges Go To Mars (or is it Have
Rocket Will Travel??). Schecter discusses the habit of Mischa to use four-note and twonote
monster themes over and over again in the early Columbia Harryhausen films and
others (such as the Three Stooges film). He also authoritatively discusses the source
music for the lab love scene music used in It Came From Beneath the Sea (I believe
“Love By The Sea” that starts at 00:46:58). I never researched it so I learned some
interesting facts there from this special feature. The music used was from Heymann’s
1948 score for “The Mating of Millie” (of course Columbia was the studio). Another cue
by him from that film was used in 20 Million Miles To Earth (considered the best of the
three early B/W Columbia-Harryhausen collaborations). Schecter then discusses how
M.B. had compiled 95 separate cues in that movie. He shows an example at 11:49 of the
“Substance” cue (Reel 2/A) that M.B. composed. 49 of them came from him directly for
this movie. There were 18 composers’ works used in that film (including Max Steiner
and Miklos Rozsa). Then he discusses the “Trial and Escape” cue from the 1942 film,
Talk of the Town. Schecter forgot to mention the composer’s name (Hollander) but he
emphasized how that long cue was a workhorse for Columbia music editors to track
music into various other movies. It was used in two of the early Harryhausen movies. He
used 15 seconds of it for the Main Title of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. And M.B. used
186