Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

interesting scenes. Hawks took off three years after this distasteful experiment-turnedfailure
project (probably the Egyptian sand in his mouth!) before he did another picture—
this time a highly successful John Wayne movie, Rio Bravo.
Speaking of crocodiles, go to 00:16:30 of the dvd. The cowardly men are thrown
into the pit of crocodiles, denied an afterlife. At 00:16:40 Vashtar (played excellently by
James Robertson Justice, perhaps best known for his role in Guns of Navarone)
comments: “Strange religion to deny the future to one who fails in the present.” Very
astute observation, one that could very easily apply to conservative Christian beliefs that
will condemn a soul to eternal hell if he doesn’t make Jesus his lord & savior! It applies
to reincarnation when Edgar Cayce in trance was asked:
Case 826-8:
Q) If a soul fails to improve itself, what becomes of it?
(A) That's why the reincarnation, why it reincarnates; that it MAY have the opportunity.
The music was composed by Dimitri Tiomkin who had already worked with
Hawks’ films before (and later in Rio Bravo). The composer gave the picture the TTT
(Typical Tiomkin Treatment): bombastic, over-the-top, and showy. There is no particular
cue that stands out for me (unlike, say, Old Man & the Sea, High & the Mighty, Guns of
Navarone, etc.) but nobody could mistake Tiomkin in this movie for anybody else! His
music makes the picture more tolerable (to hear, not to watch!). This movie is simply
shallow. You don’t care for anybody in it except the James Robertson Justice character.
Pharaoh Phufu is a materialistic shit—or is it Khufu? Where’s Yul Brynner when you
need him! At least he would’ve been more dynamic in the role—and no British accent!
But get the dvd (cheaply, mind you) because you will learn from Peter Bogdanovish’s
excellent commentary. At about 1 hour and 38 minutes into the film he mentioned how
he read an unpublished book on the making of the movie by Noel Howard, I believe.
Interesting.
A nice freeze-frame set night scene is located at dvd 00:53:02 when Captain
Treneh (Sydney Chaplin) stands before Nellifer (Joan Collins). I like the composition of
the shot, the rich blues, the shadows, etc. It would’ve fit nicely in all thee great shots later
in Cleopatra.
-The Man Who Knew Too Much (1955) *** [music ***]
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Knew-Too-
Much/dp/B000055Z4M/ref=sr_1_3?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1292902618&sr=1-3
This is a rather weak Hitchcock film but it has its moments. I discussed the score
in various places, including here:
http://www.filmscorerundowns.net/blogs/9.pdf
http://herrmann.uib.no/talking/view.cgi?forum=thGeneral&topic=3318
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