Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

Page Cook (his real name was Charles Boyer!) gave Bernstein’s score a top rating
in his Films in Review column, Soundtrack. I have to concur that it is excellent, rousing
music, and I was fortunate to be able study the full score at UCLA in the CBS Collection
(Box 928). Incidentally, the mention of the name “Page Cook” brought up many a
discussion about him (especially in the old Filmus-L discussion board), including how he
was a “mystery man,” a perpetuator of hoaxes, and so forth. But he was one of the very
first reviewers of film music that many people became acquainted with, introducing film
music positively to many. So that was a gain in the life of Page Cook—the other stuff
discussed was the “loss” portion of his existence on this perturbed planet. There will
always be a Plus and Minus side of the karmic book of reckoning! Hopefully for any one
life there will be far more of the positive side of the book than the negative side!
http://www.filmscorerundowns.net/bernstein/bigjake.pdf
-My Fair Lady (1964) **** 1/2 [music **** �]
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00011D1OA/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=48
6539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-
1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=630522577X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=15YN
PZ202F1ZKWNNKGQ0
What a pleasant, delightful musical, one of the very best out there. It’s definitely a
classic but not quite a solid masterpiece (gets slow and heavy towards the end). Sure,
Audrey Hepburn’s singing voice was dubbed; Rex Harrison’s “singing” was not dubbed
(if you call that singing) but so what? The music is terrific. I felt the same way about the
excellence of Calamity Jane (and the voices were not dubbed as far as I could tell), one
of my Top Five selections for filmed musicals that provided sheer enjoyment to me. I
already did a long 104-page rundown analysis of the score here:
http://www.filmscorerundowns.net/other/my_fair_lady.pdf
-Jack the Giant Killer (1962) *** [music *** �]
http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Giant-Killer-Kerwin-Mathews/dp/B0001BKBFC
This is a fun stop-motion feature starring Kerwin Mathews as the hero (just as in
7 th Voyage of Sinbad), Torin Thatcher as the evil villain (just as in 7 th Voyage of Sinbad),
and directed by Nathan Juran (just as in 7 th Voyage of Sinbad). The only thing is, it’s not
as good as (you guessed it!) 7 th Voyage of Sinbad. Still, it’s a delightful movie in its own
right. The animation is quite crude compared to Harryhausen, but the music by Paul
Sawtell & Bert Shefter is really good—not top-drawer as Herrmann’s score for that other
film!—but nevertheless quite tuneful. In fact I studied the conductor score at UCLA long
ago. I just now tried to find my hand-copied notes but cannot right now (hope I did not
lose them!). I was planning no to delineate a few of the cues. Oh, well!
Apparently there is going to be a remake out next year:
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