Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

Check out this website for the movie:
http://monstermoviemusic.blogspot.com/2008/06/black-scorpion-amex-productions-
1957.html
I researched the written score of The Black Scorpion (music by Paul Sawtell) at
UCLA about 15 years ago—maybe 20 years ago. No full score was available, simply a
four-stave reduced score—in effect a Conductor score. I believe Bert Schefter was the
orchestrator but since I did not have access to the full score I can not verify this directly.
Here’s the OAC description of the Sawtell Collection:
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft738nb31z;query=;style=oac4;doc.view=entire_te
xt
I fondly remember this monster movie when I was a kid, an impressionable
seven-year-old. It had a scary atmosphere about it, especially the night scenes. They used
Them! high sound effects originally meant for monster ants, not monster scorpions! The
monster stop motion effects were by King Kong special effects master, Willis O’Brien.
He gave an edgy quality to the effects and scenes—some rather unsavory and brutal!
The movie opens abruptly with the explosions of Paricutin in Mexico (in part
using old stock footage). The narrator (Bob Johnson, who takes on several roles in this
movie!) off-screen gives an ominous assessment (“evil onslaught”) of the situation in the
remote countryside. Perhaps one of the black predictions would be black giant scorpions!
Obviously this is assumed because immediately after the narrator ends his Cassandric
forecast, The Black Scorpion titles erupts onscreen like a volcano.
As was customary for many monster movies of this era, there was a fairly long
and often “talky” setup before you get to see the It (the creature) clearly. As discussed
above, this occurred in The Giant Behemoth, although that setup took about an hour.
Here, in The Black Scorpion, it took about half that duration (32 minutes). I like setups
like these if done suspensefully enough (as in Them!), and I liked the setup here in this
movie. Once the “action” starts in terms of the monster special effects, you become
satisfied with the payoff, especially since you later include the exotic locale of a huge
underground cavern full of scorpions, giant worms and even a pretty big spider (that
unfortunately did not catch and eat that annoying little kid in the movie, Juanito). Even
when I was a kid when I first saw the movie, I disliked that irritating kid, and wanted to
slap him silly! Maybe if this gratuitous character wore a red uniform as in the Star Trek
series, he would’ve been effectively silenced one way or another—but, alas, this was a
black & white movie!
I do not believe I had the Main Title music available but I’ll recheck later when I
can find my complete notes….[No, my rundown sheet of cues I had available did not
indicate a Main Title] Cue M-11 “Volcanic Terrain” in � time starts on the dvd at
00:02:27 immediately after the Main Title music. The top staff shows the pont effect
25