By Steve Vertlieb: Elmer Bernstein once commented that, in his considered opinion, Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa were the two greatest practitioners of symphonic motion picture composition in the long history of the genre. The centennial of Herrmann’s birth was celebrated in 2011, and so we thought it appropriate, then, to commemorate his enormous contribution to the art of cinema by applauding some of his more outstanding works. While choosing merely ten scores by the composer to discuss is a daunting task, it is nevertheless the assignment for which we were chosen. For my own singular collection of titles, I have decided to include those Herrmann scores which have had the most profound emotional influence, and impact upon me. My reasons, as you will read, are purely personal, reflecting an unabashed affection for both the composer and his incomparable artistic legacy.
THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (20th Century Fox, 1947) – Among the most searingly romantic, and deeply sensitive scores ever composed for a motion picture, Herrmann’s outward bravado, as Elmer Bernstein tellingly observed in the documentary, Bernard Herrmann: Music For The Movies, was belied by the musical expression of his secret soul. For the timeless story of star crossed lovers, whose depth of passion for one another transcended mortal barriers, finding resolution at last, beyond the ethereal veil of eternal sleep, Bernard Herrmann composed, perhaps, his most profoundly beautiful score…a haunting, emotional masterpiece on wings of lyrical romanticism. The score, like the film that sired it, remains a gloriously tender rhapsody of idealized love and eternal devotion.
VERTIGO (Paramount, 1958) – Perhaps Herrmann’s masterpiece, as well as Hitchcock’s, this unforgettable film and score remain as arresting and fresh as when first released. Herrmann reached the zenith of his artistry with this heart breaking, Wagnerian score, filled with near operatic aspirations and tonality. Once again, idealized love is frustrated to the point of madness as the woman of James Stewart’s dreams is lost to him, an apparent victim of suicide. Obsession drives him literally to the brink and back again, realizing the living specter of his dead love embodied in another woman. Herrmann’s music rises achingly to levels of exquisite torment as Stewart fights to recover both the woman he lost, and his own sanity.
FAHRENHEIT 451 (Paramount, 1966) – Ray Bradbury, an American treasure, lent his genius to the motion picture screen when Francois Truffaut filmed the visionary science fiction classic. A tale of intellectual and emotional repression, Bernard Herrmann masterfully captured and conveyed the longing of souls yearning for freedom with his beautiful score, particularly expressed in the hauntingly eloquent final track, “The Road,” in which the chords of melancholy transition, from ashes to rebirth rise, as a phoenix of hope, in the rustling winds.
OBSESSION (Columbia, 1976) – Brian DePalma, who unashamedly found his own cinematic voice while emulating Alfred Hitchcock, filmed his own singular masterpiece in tribute to the Master’s Vertigo. A ghostly apparition of the earlier film, Obsession is, nonetheless, a stunningly erotic tale of romantic love lost, as Cliff Robertson (channeling James Stewart) finds his dead wife once more, seemingly reincarnated as a young Italian girl he meets at an art gallery. Consumed with her uncanny likeness to his deceased bride, he blindly and selfishly works to recreate the past and restore her to his personal happiness. Herrmann, having lost none of his sentimental heart, fills the soundtrack with one of his most deeply felt and passionate scores for this hauntingly psychotic story of love and betrayal. Reportedly, Herrmann wept openly when viewing the finished picture. It would be, sadly, his next to last work for the screen.
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (MGM, 1959) – Bernard Herrmann was one of a gifted hand full of screen composers equipped to write a truly exciting main title sequence. The overture for this Hitchcock classic is as remarkable an achievement musically, as was Hitchcock’s stunning, accompanying visual text. David Raksin remarked that only “Benny” Herrmann could get away with using a Fandango for a theme. However one describes it, Herrmann’s opening title music for North By Northwest is an exhilarating roller coaster ride through a cinematic amusement park that sparks the flame for one of the most entertaining thrillers ever conceived, either by director or composer. The main titles set the uncertain stage and, like the fragile instability of exposure to an earthquake, we remain off center and on tilt for the remainder of the film. The exuberance and sheer vitality of the score weaves a dizzying maze from which neither Cary Grant nor the audience will soon recover.
GARDEN OF EVIL (20th Century Fox, 1954) – Herrmann proved himself as adept at writing period scores as he was at home with contemporary music. This Gary Cooper vehicle, despite its western setting, contained all of the elements of great drama…survival, greed, heroism, and lust. Bernard Herrmann obliged the studio by writing richly expressive, full bodied and expansive themes, filling his musical landscape with one of his most colorful scores. So visual was his thematic material that 20th Century Fox chose to use elements of this score, along with his comparable music for Five Fingers, as the basis for its stock music library, in trailers advertising the studio’s products for years to come.
PSYCHO (Paramount, 1960) – This is, unquestionably, among the most influential motion pictures scores since sound transformed the movies. Herrmann’s music for Hitchcock’s most grizzly, and infamous production, haunted both showers and bathroom tile for decades, foreshadowing countless succeeding scores, and contemporary composer’s inspiration. In the absence of Herrmann’s unforgettable presence, Psycho remains an excellent film. With the addition of his haunting main title music, and searingly abrasive accompaniment to murderous thrusts of a blade most “foul,” the picture becomes at once a masterwork of terror and, ultimately, poignant depravity. It is a testament to Herrmann’s power and inspiration that the score for Alfred Hitchcock’s most notorious motion picture is continually performed today by orchestras around the world.
FIVE FINGERS (20th Century Fox, 1952) – Written and Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and based upon the book Operation Cicero, this wartime thriller focused on the exploits of a renowned British spy. James Mason tendered his usual finely tuned, cultured, and dapper performance as the spy in the employ of the British Consulate, while Bernard Herrmann contributed the superb and thrilling themes that would add immeasurably to the suspense, and eventual undoing of the greedy, albeit brilliant, valet. As noted earlier, the generous thematic musical materials were used often in subsequent trailers, and television series produced by Twentieth Century Fox.
THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO (20th Century Fox, 1952) – Based quite loosely upon the story by Ernest Hemingway, this stirring production directed by Henry King became a thoughtful, poetic, heart breaking romantic melodrama centered upon the tragic consequences of indulgence, war and remembrance. For the main titles Herrmann composed one of the most thrilling preludes, perhaps, in the history of cinema. His opening theme is a startling revelation, pulsing with dramatic urgency, compelling the listener to follow in rapt, spellbinding attention. Herrmann’s raging overture is among the most exciting pieces of music in his career, or any other. Rarely has the screen produced so ravenous and intense a musical salutation.
JANE EYRE (20th Century Fox, 1944) – Charlotte Bronte’s sweeping novel offered the composer the groundwork for one of his most profoundly passionate and romantic scores. Alternately somber and rhapsodic, the tragic tale of a lonely heroine accepting a position as a governess at a Victorian mansion, lorded over by a dark, brooding widower, was the stuff of classic love, and legendary devotion. Beautifully directed by Robert Stevenson, and performed by Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine, the heroic grandeur of Bronte’s haunting adventure gave Bernard Herrmann wondrous license to explore the full breadth, and limitless horizons of his fierce, artistic palette. Herrmann’s lush, deeply sensitive translation of Bronte’s stormy romantic fantasy, awakened memories of love’s awesome power and beauty, expressed so eloquently by his tortured, yet exquisite musical tapestry.
Bernard Herrmann was a legendary force in Hollywood, contributing some of the most singularly remarkable music in motion picture history. Over a period of thirty five years, he composed the symphonic accompaniment and inspiration for our most treasured dreams and aspirations. If music is the light by which cinematic imagery is emotionally defined and illuminated, then Bernard Herrmann was the flame that danced atop the candle. Dominating the expressive, new art form, Herrmann’s massive contributions forever changed the way we listen to movies, turning a largely polite, arid background into a psychologically complex, meaningful exploration of character and definition. Herrmann was prolific in the concert hall, as well as related media. For television, he wrote the ethereal background music for Rod Serling’s bittersweet tale of childhood’s wonder lost in “Walking Distance” for The Twilight Zone. It was a memorable achievement in a rich lifetime of memorable achievements. On this, the one hundredth anniversary of his birth…we celebrate his life.
Review by Steve Vertlieb: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny began production in 2021 and had been scheduled by Disney and Paramount to have been released during June 2022. As the hills were alive with the sound of money last Summer, the studio decided to wait an additional year before releasing the film, fearing that it might become lost amidst of a slate of blockbusters waiting to take off that season. Additionally, its star, Harrison Ford, had been injured during the filming, delaying the picture’s completion still further. A year of anticipation and waiting both baffled and irritated organized fandom, while a social media backlash had already begun building months before the picture’s re-scheduled release date. Rumors abounded with stories of scripting problems, and ill-conceived structures and concepts. Frustration had only grown over the ensuing months, and speculation festered in the minds and hearts of jaded movie goers that this final film in the “Indiana Jones” franchise would be a catastrophe, either worse than, or on a par with the disastrously received Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008. The sad reality of the beloved series was that there hadn’t been a universally well received entry in the saga since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in Spring, 1989. Not only had the public grown weary of Indy’s most recent exploits, but the film’s director, Steven Spielberg, had seemingly run out of ideas and inspiration. Both the director and his star appeared aged and tired in the fourth and seemingly final entry in the series. Indeed, when the fifth and definitively final film in the forty-year-old franchise was initially announced, with Harrison Ford once again starring, but with a new director, James Mangold at the helm, the trepidation among the film’s targeted audience was palpable.
When the film premiered in Spring 2023, reviews were decidedly mixed, with critical reaction either lukewarm, or openly hostile. Decades of expectation had seemingly ruined the picture for audiences yet to come, while preview critiques had deemed the film a failure, sadly derivative, tired, and bereft of inspiration. The long, hopelessly frustrating wait seemed to indicate that the film, despite its whispered lofty ambitions, would be dead on arrival at the box office when it opened finally on June 30th. Happily, and perhaps beyond reasonable expectations, this last entry in the “Indiana Jones” series is anything but a failure.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a joyous throwback to another time, a happily full-blooded adventure thriller that harkens memories of the most memorable moments from the original series, as well as the Thirties Universal, Mascot, and Republic serials that first inspired them. James Mangold, whose impressive credits include directing Logan, thereby reinventing the “Wolverine” franchise, as well as the delightfully charming time travel romance, Kate and Leopold, has breathed new life into the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg “cliff hangers” with a fresh new take on the reality of time, age, and psychological expiration. Henry Jones no longer looks forward to another adventure, but has succumbed to the relative boredom of complacency, and almost numbing retirement. His lectures to his final group of students have become boring, forgetful, and strictly by the numbers, causing infectious slumber within the now torturous confines of his once exhilarating classroom. When subjected to a decidedly half-hearted retirement party, attended by only a small handful of colleagues, his resignation to, and acceptance of, the end, rather than the beginning, is one of involuntary inevitability. He is tired … tired of teaching, and tired of living a life that has become both stagnant and routine.
Mads Mikkelsen, Harrison Ford, James Mangold, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge at opening.
The boredom of his present reality is made all the more excruciating by memories of his younger self, a bold adventurer whose intoxicating exploits are brought wonderfully to life once more in the opening sequence of the film, a thrilling joy ride aboard a roaring train, a “Hurricane Express” on which a younger adventurer races atop precarious cars and engines to salvage a precious artifact, rescued from antiquity, from the Nazis amidst the Second World War. Indy is a hero for the ages, a daring archaeological champion risking everything to save history. Versatile character actor Toby Jones is his delightfully goofy colleague, feigning innocence when arbitrarily captured by the marauding enemy. Visually, the controversial de-aging photographic process is stunning, returning star Harrison Ford to his comparative youth four decades earlier, while the journey is joyfully reminiscent of the young “Indiana Jones” sequence aboard a speeding train that begins Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
When Indy’s goddaughter unexpectedly appears late in his life, seductively enticing him back into the promise of new adventures and intrigue, his decidedly world-weary traveler is at first reluctant to respond to the alluring call of the wild. Helena, as imagined by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is a feisty feminist adventurer whose motives are vague and subject to question. However, the lure of just one more adventure is simply too much for an embittered octogenarian to resist, as the proverbial fountain of youth beckons Indiana Jones yet again to go out in a final blaze of glory before his candle burns out, consigning him to his own assortment of molding antiquities.
Returning to the wonderful Wizardry and land of Oz, Indy must rescue the legendary “Dial of Destiny,” a mystical treasure invented by Archimedes, capable of transporting its user through precarious portals in time. Mads Mikkelsen as Doctor Voller is a worthy adversary for Indiana, a NASA scientist and former Nazi, whose relentless quest for the magical artifact would transport him back through the decades to win the Second World War, restoring Nazism to its ultimate glory, to overpower and dominate civilization. Mikkelsen is a venomous villain, chewing the scenery to sinister delight.
John Rhys-Davies returns all too briefly as Sallah, Indy’s former companion in intrigue, to bid him a final glorious adieu, while Antonio Banderas enlivens the scenario with a deep sea diving expedition reminiscent of previous explorations, while recalling Indy’s desperate hatred for snakes. There’s barely a quiet interlude in this frenetic fable in which both Harrison Ford and his beloved alter ego aren’t thrown headlong into a miraculous restoration of energy, exultation, and youth. It’s a thrill ride for the ages, a sweet recollection of a time gone by when knighthood was in flower, and the world was young. The final sequence of the film in which both Indy and his nemesis reach the inevitable conclusion of their journey, while criticized by some as presenting entirely too fanciful a finale, is in truth no less, yet no more imaginative, than the mystical resolution beneath the tombs and destruction of ancient caves from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which the unbelievable becomes believable, and time is itself a relic of antiquity. Those elder youngsters and “fans” whose cynical criticisms have sadly eroded the magic of this masterwork of wonder and imagination have, indeed, grown up … yet forgotten how to grow “down.”
Steven Spielberg at opening.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a joyous return to those “thrilling days of yesteryear” when time was gloriously embellished with valiance and heroism, and swashbucklers reigned triumphant over villainy, rescuing their ladies fair from the jaws of treachery. This is, at last, the “Indiana Jones” film that we’ve waited for these endless decades. Following Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, this final adventure must be counted among this classic character’s most wondrous exploits. Harrison Ford is remarkably youthful in his final performance as this iconic hero whose astonishing exuberance and vitality remain an inspiration to all those who have allowed themselves to grow old before their time. Karen Allen as Marian Ravenwood, Indy’s first love, returns during the age defining moments concluding Indy’s melancholy journeys through time and space, recalling tender romance and adoration that refuse the restrictive boundaries of physicality and age.
John Williams and Steve Vertlieb
Composer John Williams whose intrepid themes and motifs have wondrously illustrated these journeys and adventures for the past four decades has returned for one final compositional triumph and recording session, filled with breathtaking thrills and heart rendering interludes, richly textured and worthy of Indiana Jones’ truly last crusade. Cinematically, it’s an exhilarating finale and salutation to the exhaustive careers of both this legendary film composer, and remarkable fictional characterization. Look for them only on film, for they represent a world of irresistible fantasy … sadly “gone with the wind.”
By Steve Vertlieb: In 1988, producers Bruce Crawford and Bob Coate set about creating a definitive radio documentary honoring the life and career of one of the cinema’s most revered motion picture composers, Bernard Herrmann. The broadcast, which aired over KIOS FM Radio in 1988, has become a lasting recorded tribute to a beloved figure whose legend and persona have often overshadowed his enormous musical legacy.
Bernard Herrmann was a colorful, flamboyant, larger than life musician whose incalculable contributions to the art of film music helped to elevate the genre to an authentic art form. While Herrmann’s public ambitions aspired to little more than conducting the works of his personal musical influences and heroes, his own unique and sensitive scoring would form the basis for much of the most influential and original film music of the twentieth century. Bernard Herrmann, along with friend and fellow screen composer Miklos Rozsa, was at the forefront of musicians attempting to bring classical music sensibilities and importance to the sound of films. Neither Herrmann nor Rozsa recognized any difference between the integrity of music written for the screen and music composed for the concert stage. They reasoned that there were only two kinds of serious music…either good or bad, and that legitimate symphonic music had as much a significant place in the world of film, as it did upon the concert stage. His legacy is, indeed, a testament to the beauty and power of original music created for the screen. Herrmann’s legendary collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Ray Harryhausen, Francois Truffaut, and Brian De Palma, alone, represent some of the most strikingly original, breathtaking dramatic music of the last century. One has simply to listen to the exquisite, achingly beautiful romanticism of Vertigo, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Fahrenheit 451, and “Walking Distance” (the most poetic, uniquely haunting episode of The Twilight Zone) in order to appreciate the sublime artistry of this masterful composer.
In creating a biographical essay for radio, producers Crawford and Coate were faced with the daunting task of capturing the enormity of Herrmann’s career in merely a few hours. To tell the story of this legendary composer, the pair set about interviewing surviving composers, film makers, associates, friends and family members able to recall and recount both provocative and affectionate remembrances of a quite remarkable career. Among the more fascinating recollections recorded for the stunning radio documentary were those related by writer, and former Herrmann spouse, Lucille Fletcher who penned the fondly remembered suspense classic, The Hitchhiker. First dramatized on radio on September 2, 1942, and narrated by Orson Welles for Suspense Theater, the eerie original drama related the story of a man traveling cross country when his car is involved in a near fatal highway accident. Relieved to have survived the crash, the narrator continues his troubled journey across the country with the unnerving realization that the strange hitchhiker punctuating the highway at periodic intervals along his travels is an innocuous seeming personification of death…a determined grim reaper awaiting his every turn and stop. The traveler begins to realize that he never actually survived the earlier calamitous automobile crash, and that the angel of death was beckoning him home. Scripted by Fletcher, and scored by Herrmann, The Hitchhiker was inspired by an actual incident in which Herrmann and Fletcher drove along seemingly endless miles of highway, confined by monotony, in a 1940 Packard. Some seventeen years later, Rod Serling adapted the story for the first season of The Twilight Zone, changing the protagonist to a frightened woman played by Inger Stevens. Bernard Herrmann once again scored the frightening television adaptation of the classic story.
In another particularly captivating segment of the documentary, film critic Leonard Maltin discusses the lasting influence and significance of Herrmann’s initial foray into the highly competitive world of film scoring. It was the landmark music for Orson Welles’ masterpiece, Citizen Kane. While soprano Kiri Te Kanawa sings the famed aria from the Salammbo sequence in the film, Ted Gilling recalls that her recording for the RCA Classic Film Scores Series, conducted by Charles Gerhardt, was sung perfectly. In the film, however, Herrmann deliberately scored the notes too high so that a less competent singer might be perceived as incompetent.
Craig Reardon brings quiet pathos to the program when he gently debunks the composer’s renowned cynicism, recalling that Herrmann’s own favorite score was his work for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Perhaps the most deeply personal, achingly sensitive score of his career, Herrmann remembers his music as reflecting “more of me than any other film score.” Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith remarks rather tellingly that Mrs. Muir was the film that Herrmann took with him to film schools, and that Herrmann often felt isolated and alone. The exquisite beauty of this singular motion picture score laid bare the deep sensitivity that Herrmann tried so desperately to shield from the public. It was a place that the passionately reclusive composer would visit only through his music.
Herrmann would react angrily at the suggestion that had ever repeated himself, and dismissed entirely the critical revelation that he had borrowed from the scores of both Jane Eyre, and Citizen Kane when composing his controversial opera, Wuthering Heights. His biographer disagrees, stating that excerpts from both of Herrmann’s scores for those classic films can clearly be heard within the structure of the opera.
Composer Fred Steiner wisely comments on the fabled Hitchcock/Herrmann collaborations, stating that Herrmann’s musical palette seamlessly framed Hitchcock’s visual inspiration, as inseparably as did Max Steiner’s historic scoring of King Kong. Fred Steiner remembers with mischievous glee a delicious observation by composer Lyn Murray that, after composing the music for To Catch A Thief, the worst mistake he ever made was in introducing Alfred Hitchcock to Bernard Herrmann. It effectively ended his own brief collaboration with the famed director.
While imitation has often been considered the sincerest form of flattery, writer Paul Mandell vehemently discusses his indignation over Richard Band’s virtual creative theft of Herrmann’s Psycho score in The Reanimator. In a one hour profile focusing on the successful on screen collaboration between Steven Spielberg and John Williams for Turner Classic Movies, Spielberg recalls that his own association with Maestro Williams was not dissimilar from the legendary films pairing Alfred Hitchcock with Bernard Herrmann. For that remarkable televised conversation, Spielberg remembers receiving a call from Martin Scorsese asking if he would like to come down to the recording studio to meet Bernard Herrmann. With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Spielberg joyfully recounts how he professed his love of Herrmann’s music to the cynical composer…to which Herrmann replied “Yea, well if you like my music so much, how come you always use Williams?” As a poignant coda to that remembrance, Spielberg concludes by remembering that Bernard Herrmann passed away that very night.
The documentary lovingly addresses each period of Bernard Herrmann’s career with equal and lavish illustration. Bruce Crawford recalls that it was the composer’s friend, Alfred Newman, who ushered in the modern sound of science fiction and fantasy at 20th Century Fox by offering Herrmann the chance to score the Robert Wise classic, The Day The Earth Stood Still, as well as Jules Verne’s Journey To The Center Of The Earth. Never before had such other worldly realms and destinations been represented with such profoundly conceptual dramatic scoring. Norma Shephard, Herrmann’s third wife, recalls that French director Francois Truffaut particularly desired a fantastic score for his version of Ray Bradbury’s visionary science fiction classic, Fahrenheit 451. A seminal novel of futuristic, repressive societal censorship, Bradbury’s Orwellian tale had struck a nerve during the post war years. As related by Shephard, Truffaut told Herrmann that “any composer can give me the music of the twentieth century, but YOU can give me the music of the twenty-third century.” Musical interludes from Herrmann’s exquisite score for Fahrenheit 451 follow, along with a sublimely magical excerpt from the composer’s scoring of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.
Ray Harryhausen, fantasy cinema’s late, beloved special effects genius, discusses the music for their first collaboration, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, recalling that his longtime producer, Charles Schneer, had known Herrmann, and had asked him to score the picture for them. While the composer’s memorable accompaniment for the skeleton fight plays hauntingly in the background, Harryhausen remarks that “His style of music was so appropriate for our pictures. He did four scores for us (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts), and all four were wonderful scores.”
Film editor Paul Hirsch (Sisters) used Herrmann’s score for Hitchcock’s Psycho as a “temp track” in an effort to interest potential investors in the subsequent Brian De Palma film. Later, the director flew Herrmann to London to score the picture, recalling that the great composer appeared disheveled when they met. For De Palma’s personal masterpiece, Obsession, the director joined Herrmann at the MGM screening room in New York. Herrmann had worked feverishly to complete the music, and remarked that he had become so obsessed with the picture that he actually retained no memory of having written the score. At the conclusion of the screening of the completed film, Paul Hirsch turned to the composer and said “Benny, it was a beautiful score.” For Herrmann’s part, he was so emotionally overpowered and drained by the film and its music that he wept unashamedly for ten minutes. Turning to Hirsch, he said “I don’t remember writing it.” He could only remember working in the middle of the night, and feeling that “this music needs women’s voices.” Hirsch felt that, perhaps, Herrmann had, indeed, “heard the angels calling him.” The composer’s exquisite score for Obsession is quintessential Herrmann, an eloquent salutation to his embattled career and ultimate legacy. If, as Hirsch remembers, Herrmann had “heard the angels calling him,” then he sang back to them spiritually, majestically, with his own, deeply inspired spectral voices. It would become his infinitely ethereal musical soliloquy.
Bernard Herrmann had previously suffered a heart attack in 1974. Ted Gilling comments that Herrmann “must have known that his time was near, and kept pushing to get his score for Taxi Driver done.” During a dinner break after completing his music for the Scorsese picture, Herrmann signed an autograph for two young boys, writing out the first three measures of his score for PSYCHO, and signing their book. He was joined by Paul Hirsch and “Taffy,” his daughter Dorothy Herrmann. Ruth Herrmann, his brother Louie’s wife, remembers “Benny” looking remarkably aged, and walking with a cane.” Escorting her brother-in-law to the airport, he seemed in a particularly foul mood. She remembers asking “Benny” and Louie to mend their brotherly differences, kiss, and make up. Herrmann died of a massive coronary at age 64, after “wrapping” his part in the musical scoring of Taxi Driver, on Christmas Eve, 1975.
Ray Harryhausen concludes the remarkable broadcast observing, somewhat poignantly, that Bernard Herrmann “despite his gruff exterior was really a wonderful man.” The end title music for Taxi Driver brings the documentary full circle and to its finish, noting that the final screen credit in the Martin Scorsese noir classic reads…”Dedicated To The Memory Of Bernard Herrmann.” Bernard Herrmann was a profoundly passionate, sensitive soul whose musical fire emblazoned the screen with a singularly radiant eternal flame. The smoldering embers of his brilliance have sparked, inspired, and enriched this superlative documentary.
++ Steve Vertlieb, 26 April 2014
Edited by Roger Hall
The two-and-a-half hour radio documentary by Bruce Crawford and Bob Coate was broadcast on KIOS-FM in 1988. An outline of the documentary follows the jump.
By Steve Vertlieb: Ray Harryhausen remains one of the most revered figures in fantasy/sci-fi motion picture history. Born June 29, 1920, Ray was not only a childhood hero, but became a dear and cherished friend of nearly fifty years duration. June 29, 2020, commemorated his genius, as well as the joyous centennial of his birth with numerous remembrances, events, and exhibitions in celebration of his 100th birthday throughout the world.
His work in films inspired and influenced generations of film makers, and garnered him a special Academy Award, presented by Tom Hanks, for a lifetime of cinematic achievement. Steven Spielberg joyously proclaimed that his own inspiration for directing Jurassic Park was the pioneering special effects work of Harryhausen.
My loving remembrance of Ray was published by The Thunderchild shortly after his death on May 7, 2013, nominated by the annual Rondo Awards for Best Article of the Year, and published once more for what would have been his 100th birthday on June 29th, 2020, by the Hugo Award winning web magazine File 770.
It was my celebration and loving remembrance of the life and work of cinematic master, and special effects genius, Ray Harryhausen. It was also the tender story of a very special man, as well as an often remarkable personal friendship. I love you, Ray. You filled my dreams, my life, and my world with your wondrous creatures.
In sweet recollection of this wonderful soul, here is an affectionate tribute to my friend of forty-eight years, and boyhood hero of interminable recollection and duration, as well as a pioneering champion of original music written for the motion picture screen … the incomparable Stop Motion genius, and Oscar honored special effects pioneer, Ray Harryhausen.
Journey with me now to a “Land Beyond Beyond” where dreams were born, cyclopean creatures thundered across a primeval landscape, mythological dragons roared in awe struck wonder, and magical stallions ascended above the clouds in intimate personal correspondence … Once Upon A Time.
(1) GIVE ME A SIGN! Almost 16,000 people have signed the petition to “Save Star Trek Prodigy!” at Change.org. Here’s the text of the appeal:
Paramount+ have announced the cancellation of Star Trek Prodigy and have stated it will be removed from their streaming platform in the coming days. Their reasoning? It’s a tax write-off.
In a statement to TrekCore.com, Paramount stated that, “Star Trek: Prodigy will not be returning for the previously announced second season. On behalf of everyone at Paramount+, Nickelodeon and CBS Studios, we want to thank Kevin and Dan Hageman, Ben Hibon, Alex Kurtzman and the Secret Hideout team, along with the fantastic cast and crew for all their hard work and dedication bringing the series to life.”
That’s right. Not only are they not moving forward with the show and removing the first season from their platform, but the second season (due to be completed) will not air unless picked up by another buyer.
Paramount have long mistreated the loyalty and generosity of Trek fans, but this feels like a gut punch; the final nail in the coffin of goodwill.
Money talks, but so do fans and we can’t let this beautiful show go without a fight!
(2) A MILESTONE IN HORROR. The New York Times commemorates Shirley Jackson’s story in “75 Years After ‘The Lottery’ Was Published, the Chills Linger”. Stephen King, Carmen Maria Machado, Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Tremblay and others tell how this classic first got under their skin.
Paul Tremblay
Author, “The Pallbearers Club”
I’ve reread “The Lottery” many times and remain haunted by the possibilities and ambiguity in the final line uttered by the doomed Mrs. Hutchinson: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.” Is she simply the victim of blind chance? Did she believe the lottery was fixed so that her name would come up? Was it supposed to have been fixed for her name not to be chosen? Is she decrying the entire lottery, the social/political system and its ugly inherent injustices? Is it existence itself that is unfair and not right? All great stories wrestle with that last question.
Cecilia Rabess figured her debut novel, “Everything’s Fine,” would spark criticism: The story centers on a young Black woman working at Goldman Sachs who falls in love with a conservative white co-worker with bigoted views.
But she didn’t expect a backlash to strike six months before the book was published.
In January, after a Goodreads user who had received an advanced copy posted a plot summary that went viral on Twitter, the review site was flooded with negative comments and one-star reviews, with many calling the book anti-Black and racist. Some of the comments were left by users who said they had never read the book, but objected to its premise.
“It may look like a bunch of one-star reviews on Goodreads, but these are broader campaigns of harassment,” Rabess said. “People were very keen not just to attack the work, but to attack me as well.”
In an era when reaching readers online has become a near-existential problem for publishers, Goodreads has become an essential avenue for building an audience. As a cross between a social media platform and a review site like Yelp, the site has been a boon for publishers hoping to generate excitement for books.
But the same features that get users talking about books and authors can also backfire. Reviews can be weaponized, in some cases derailing a book’s publication long before its release.
“It can be incredibly hurtful, and it’s frustrating that people are allowed to review books this way if they haven’t read them,” said Roxane Gay, an author and editor who also posts reviews on Goodreads. “Worse, they’re allowed to review books that haven’t even been written. I have books on there being reviewed that I’m not finished with yet.”…
(4) FRAZETTA IS BIG BUSINESS. [Item by Arnie Fenner.] Frazetta’s cover painting for Karl Edward Wagner’s 1976 novel Dark Crusade set a new record, selling for $6m at Heritage. It became better known when Ellie Frazetta licensed it in 1979 to Molly Hatchet to use as the album jacket for Flirtin’ With Disaster.” “Frank Frazetta’s ‘Dark Kingdom’ Sells For $6 Million to Rule the Record Books at Heritage Auctions”.
Also, you’ll find this fun: Frazetta’s daughter Holly and granddaughter Sara under their Frazetta Girls imprint have released a light-up Death Dealer keychain.
1. “The Tell-Tale Heart” Is it a crime story? A horror tale? It’s both, of course, and it’s also a chilling masterpiece that finds Poe brilliantly prowling the murky boundary between obsession and madness. As the author’s “dreadfully nervous” narrator tells us how an old man’s filmy “pale blue eye” drives him to murder, Poe gives us a master class in establishing mood, building suspense, and maintaining pace, all while expertly employing wonderfully specific gradations of light and sound. Not just a remarkably constructed model for the short story form, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a near-perfect monologue, with Poe, the son of actors, displaying his ever-keen sense of the dramatic. He tells us just what we need to know, leaving enough unexplained that we continue to speculate about the characters long after the histrionic “tear up the planks” climax. Small wonder this chilling 1843 tale has remained a classroom favorite and a popular performance piece.
Film historian Ed Glaser, who previously found the last 35mm print of The Man Who Saves the World (aka, “the Turkish Star Wars”) has released another mini-documentary for his “Deja View” series. This one focuses on the interestingly named 3 Dev Adam—alternatively known as either 3 Giant Men or Captain America & Santo vs. Spider-Man. The big claim to fame for this movie is that it’s “the world’s first comic book crossover film,” well before the MCU or any imitators came onto the scene. Its other big boast is that its version of Spider-Man lives up to everything J. Jonah Jameson’s ever said about him, because he’s a menace and genuine villain who requires two heroes to team up and bring him down….
(7) MEMORY LANE.
2014 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]
Eugie Foster had a phenomenal life before it was tragically cut short when she died at Emory University Hospital on September 27, 2014 from respiratory failure, a complication of treatments for large B-cell lymphoma, with which she was diagnosed on October 15, 2013. So now I’m depressed, and you should be too.
She was the managing editor for The Fix and Tangent Online, two online short fiction review magazines. She was also a director for Dragon Con and edited the Daily Dragon, their onsite newsletter.
She’s here because of her amazing short stories which were nominated for a lot of Awards including “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” which nominated for an Hugo at Aussiecon 4. It did win a Nebula and was nominated for a BSFA as well.
And that brings us to our Beginning take from her short story , “When it Ends, He Catches Her by” which was nominated for a Nebula and a Sturgeon. It was first published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2014.
And now for the Beginning…
The dim shadows were kinder to the theater’s dilapidation. A single candle to aid the dirty sheen of the moon through the rent beams of the ancient roof, easier to overlook the worn and warped floorboards, the tattered curtains, the mildew-ridden walls. Easier as well to overlook the dingy skirt with its hem all ragged, once purest white and fine, and her shoes, almost fallen to pieces, the toes cracked and painstakingly re-wrapped with hoarded strips of linen. Once, not long ago, Aisa wouldn’t have given this place a first glance, would never have deigned to be seen here in this most ruinous of venues. But times changed. Everything changed.
Aisa pirouetted on one long leg, arms circling her body like gently folded wings. Her muscles gathered and uncoiled in a graceful leap, suspending her in the air with limbs outflung, until gravity summoned her back down. The stained, wooden boards creaked beneath her, but she didn’t hear them. She heard only the music in her head, the familiar stanzas from countless rehearsals and performances of Snowbird’s Lament. She could hum the complex orchestral score by rote, just as she knew every step by heart.
Act II, scene III: the finale. It was supposed to be a duet, her as Makira, the warlord’s cursed daughter, and Balege as Ono, her doomed lover, in a frenzied last dance of tragedy undone, hope restored, rebirth. But when the Magistrate had closed down the last theaters, Balege had disappeared in the resultant riots and protests.
So Aisa danced the duet as a solo, the way she’d had to in rehearsal sometimes, marking the steps where Balege should have been. Her muscles burned, her breath coming faster. She loved this feeling, her body perfectly attuned to her desire, the obedient instrument of her will. It was only these moments that she felt properly herself, properly alive. The dreary, horrible daytime with its humiliations and ceaseless hunger became the dream. This dance, here and now, was real. She wished it would never end.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 26, 1929 — Wally Weber, 94. Cry of the Nameless co-editor when it won Best Fanzine; next year chaired the 19th Worldcon (called “Seacon”, being in Seattle; the 37th was “Seacon ’79” being by the sea; not my fault). In SAPS and the N3F (edited one ish of Tightbeam). TAFF delegate 1963. W.W.W. collection published by Burnett Toskey 1975 (hello, Orange Mike). Has been seen, or at least photographed, in a propeller beanie. (John Hertz)
Born June 26, 1950 — Tom DeFalco, 73. Comic book writer and editor, mainly known for his Marvel Comics and in particular for his work with the Spider-Man line. He designed the Spider-Girl character which was his last work at Marvel as he thought he was being typecast as just a Spider-Man line writer. He’s since been working at DC and Archie Comics.
Born June 26, 1954 — James Van Pelt, 69. Here for the phenomenal number of nominations that he has had though no Awards have accrued. I count 26 nominations so far including a Sturgeon, a Nebula and, perhaps the longest named Award in existence, John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer / Astounding Award for the Best New Science Fiction Writer. He has but two novels to date, Summer of the Apocalypse and Pandora’s Gun, but a really lot of short fiction, I think over a hundred pieces, and two poems.
Born June 26, 1965 — Daryl Gregory, 58. He won a Crawford Award for his Pandemonium novel. And his novella, We Are All Completely Fine, won the World Fantasy Award and a Shirley Jackson Award as well. It was also a finalist for the Sturgeon Award. I’m also fond of his writing on the Planet of The Apes series that IDW published.
Born June 26, 1969 — Austin Grossman, 54. Twin brother of Lev. And no, he’s not here just because he’s Lev’s twin brother. He’s the author of Soon I Will Be Invincible which is decidedly SF as well as You: A Novel (also called YOU) which was heavily influenced for better or worse by TRON and Crooked, a novel involving the supernatural and Nixon. He’s also a video games designed, some of which such as Clive Barker’s Undying and Tomb Raider: Legend are definitely genre.
Born June 26, 1969 — Lev Grossman, 54. Most notable as the author of The Magicians Trilogy which is The Magicians, The Magician King and The Magician’s Land. Perennial bestsellers at the local indie bookshops. Understand it was made into a series which is yet another series that I’ve not seen. Opinions on the latter, y’all?
Born June 26, 1980 — Jason Schwartzman, 43. He first shows up in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod Beeblebrox’s personal brain care specialist. (Uncredited initially.) He was Ritchie in Bewitched, and voiced Simon Lee in Scott Pilgrim vs. the Animation. He co-wrote Isle of Dogs alongwith Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, and Kunichi Nomura. I think his best work was voicing Ash Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Born June 26, 1984 — Aubrey Plaza, 39. April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation which at least one Filer has insisted is genre. She voiced Eska in recurring role on The Legend of Korra which is a sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender. She was in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World as Julie Powers, and was Lenny Busker on Legion.
… The real question, I suppose, is whether he deserved his status as the major creator of the so-called Marvel Universe.
Gelb’s documentary wisely lets Stan himself narrate his story from start to finish. Virtually the only voice we hear during its 1½-hour length that speaks more than one or two sentences in a row is Stan’s, in extended sound bites harvested from a host of TV appearances, comics convention Q&A sessions, award ceremonies, previous documentaries, and radio guest shots — enlivened by the occasional deathless line of dialogue from one of his many late-life movie cameos.
This is a refreshing way to encounter Stan the Man, and Gelb and his producers (which include Marvel Studios) are to be congratulated for letting him tell his own tale his way. By and large, the effort is successful and entertaining … and, so far as I can tell from my long association with him (which includes writing a humongous “career biography” of him for Taschen Books in the 2010s), it presents a reasonably accurate portrait of the man as he saw himself, and as the world came to see him:
As arguably the most important comicbook writer since Jerry Siegel scribed his first “Superman” story back in the 1930s…
As the creator (or at the very least the co-creator) of a host of colorful super-heroes and related comics characters…
…And as the creator (or at least the major overseer and guiding light) of a four-color phenomenon that became known as the Marvel Universe, and which formed the underlying bulwark of the now-even-more-famous Marvel Cinematic Universe, the most successful series of interconnected motion pictures in the history of that medium.
But of course he didn’t do it alone … and that’s where all the mostly ill-considered criticisms of Stan Lee’s life and work begin to kick in.
As recorded in the film, simply because he often (not always, but often) fails to credit the artists he worked with, Stan often seems to be claiming full credit for milestones, be they the powerful Hate Monger yarn in Fantastic Four No. 21 or such concepts as the Hulk and the X-Men. This is partly just a verbal shorthand, yet it is also in accordance with his expressed belief that “the person who has the idea is the creator,” and that the artist he then chooses to illustrate that concept is not. In L.A. in the 1980s (admittedly, at a time when I was not working for him), I argued that very point with him one day over lunch, maintaining that an artist who rendered and inevitably expanded that original idea was definitely a co-creator. I made no headway with my past and future employer. And clearly, when he wrote his celebrated letter, quoted in the doc, that he had “always considered Steve Ditko to be the co-creator of Spider-Man,” he was doing so only to try to mollify Steve and those who might agree with him. Later, he admitted as much….
(10) IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE. [Item by Dann.] Kids from a certain era…here I go dating myself again…will recall the jungle gyms that populated American playgrounds and schoolyards. These were fabrications of steel pipes set perpendicularly to create cubes of space for kids to climb and explore. The “jungle gym” was originally patented by Sebastian Hinton.
Sebastian got the idea from his father, Charles Howard Hinton. Charles was a British mathematician. He also was an author of science fiction. His interest was primarily in the so-called fourth dimension.
Charles constructed an early jungle gym out of bamboo for young Sebastian and his friends to use. Charles apparently thought that allowing children to play on three-dimensional equipment might enable them to develop the ability to perceive the fourth dimension. Spoiler – they didn’t.
Since the first direct detection of the space-time ripples known as gravitational waves was announced in 2016, astronomers regularly listen for the ringing of black holes across the universe. Projects like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (better known as LIGO) have detected almost 100 collisions between black holes (and sometimes neutron stars), which shake up the fabric of the cosmos and send invisible waves rippling through space.
But new research shows that LIGO might soon hear another kind of shake-up in space: cocoons of roiling gas spewed from dying stars. Researchers at Northwestern University used cutting-edge computer simulations of massive stars to show how these cocoons may produce “impossible to ignore” gravitational waves, according to research presented this week at the 242nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Studying these ripples in real life could provide valuable insight into the violent deaths of giant stars….
(12) DISCUSSIONS ON FILM MUSIC BY COMPOSERS/ORCHESTRATORS/ AND WRITERS. [Item by Steve Vertlieb.] This remarkable roundtable of composers and orchestrators assembled ten years ago for a sequence in the unfinished feature length motion picture documentary The Man Who “Saved” The Movies.
Pictured from left to right are acclaimed motion picture orchestrator Patrick Russ, Erwin Vertlieb, Emmy winning film and television composer/conductor Lee Holdridge, writer/film score musicologist Steve Vertlieb, and one of the most brilliant composers working in film today, the marvelous Mark McKenzie.
William Shatner opens the 2005 AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to George Lucas with a song performed the way only Shatner can perform it. Complete with backup Stormtrooper dancers and a cameos by Chewbacca!
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Arnie Fenner, Dann, John Hertz, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Rob Thornton.]
(1) EATING THE FANTASTIC EPISODE 200! To celebrate reaching this milestone Scott Edelman invites listeners to join J. Michael Straczynski for breakfast on Episode 200 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.
J. Michael Straczynski
Wait, what? It’s Episode 200 of Eating the Fantastic? Really? That number shouldn’t seem so unbelievable, because Eating the Fantastic is, after all, my podcast, and I’ve been responsible for every episode, and yet … it still is. My guest for Episode 200 is J. Michael Straczynski, who took time out of his extremely busy schedule to chat and chew with me just as last month’s Nebula Awards weekend was kicking off.
Straczynski is perhaps best known as the creator of the television series Babylon 5, for which he wrote 92 of the 110 episodes. His roles in TV prior to that include acting as story editor on Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, executive story editor on the new Twilight Zone, co-producer for Murder, She Wrote, and many others. And after Babylon 5 came its spinoff Crusade, as well as the series Jeremiah and Sense8. He also wrote Amazing Spider-Man from 2001 to 2007, plus extended runs on Thor and the Fantastic Four. In recent years, he’s published the autobiography Becoming Superman (2019), the novel Together We Will Go (2021), and Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer (2021). He is also the executor for the estate of Harlan Ellison, someone whose name popped up frequently during our conversation.
We discussed his appearance on one of the greatest convention panels I’ve ever been privileged to witness, why Superman stood out above all the other superheroes of his youth, his epiphany which occurred the night before the premiere of Changling at the Cannes Film Festival, the low boredom threshold of Harlan Ellison, how Norman Corwin’s ability to overcome bitterness about the Blacklist helped him deal with his own demons, his realization there was something more important about writing than either plot or characters (and what that something is), the tendency of humans to sleepwalk through our lives and what can shake us free from that, the life-changing nature of the “shoelace moment,” why DC Comics would never have dared publish anything as political as Captain America #1, the reason you don’t ever have to worry about him eating off your plate, the early encouragement he received from Rod Serling, and so much more.
(3) GET READY FOR FATHER’S DAY. Steve Vertlieb ”My Father, Myself” points to “the very special tribute that I wrote for my beloved dad, Charles Vertlieb for Father’s Day a couple of years ago.”
Dad, I love you, and I miss you more and more with every passing day. I live in the sweet shadow of your goodness, and am but a tender reflection of your own humble purity. Wishing you a Happy Father’s Day in paradise.
(4) WRITE-A-THON TIME. Clarion West is taking registrations for the annual Write-a-Thon, which will run from June 25 to August 5. Donations are welcome — it’s their biggest fundraiser of the year.
The Write-a-thon is a time of year we set aside to focus on our wider writing community: participants set writing goals for themselves, create personal Write-a-thon pages, and write!
Achieve your writing goals
Meet other writers in our online affinity groups
Level up your writing with our weekly writing prompts
Join sprints and writing sessions online
Exclusive access to writing classes and webinars
No cost, no obligations
Anyone, at any level, can participate in the Write-a-thon, an opportunity to write alongside the Six-Week Workshop participants.
You can use the Write-a-thon to set personal goals in writing. You can cheer others on, meet fellow writers, and raise funds for Clarion West. The Write-a-thon brings together CW alumni, instructors, and new friends from around the world in one big happy puddle of writerly support.
(5) YOUNG PEOPLE READ OLD SFF. James Davis Nicoll unleashes the Young People Read Old SFF panel on a Hugo winner by James Patrick Kelly.
June 2023s’ Young People Read Old Hugo Finalists story is James Patrick Kelly’s “Rat,” first published in the June 1986 The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Kelly, who first debuted in the 1970s1, has an impressive body of work, always worth seeking out. His fiction has been nominated for a wide variety of awards. “Rat”, for example was both a Hugo2 and Nebula finalist3.
In the ancient and now utterly irrelevant struggle between the so-called Cyberpunks and the so-called Humanists, Kelly was often lumped in the Humanists. Simple categorization is often misleading; “Rat” fits nicely into the Cyberpunk genre. Let’s see what our Young People made of it…
(6) MEMORY LANE.
2021 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]
Ryka Aoki is an amazing individual. She says on her on her most excellent blog that notes she’s a poet, composer, teacher, and novelist.
Genre wise, her works are not that many. One novel, Light from Uncommon Stars which is where our Beginning comes from, and short piece of fiction, “The Gift”.
She’s won an Otherwise Award which was in the category for gender-bending SF.
Light from Uncommon Stars was nominated at Chicon 8 for an Award and for a Mythopoetic and Ignyte Awards as well.
Here’s our Beginning…
Shhh …
Yes, it hurt. It was definitely not just a bruise. Yes, she was scared. Her throat was raw from screaming.
Cautiously, Katrina Nguyen felt under her bed.
Girl clothes. Boy clothes. Money. Birth certificate. Social security card. Toothbrush. Spare glasses. Backup battery. Makeup. Estradiol. Spironolactone.
Katrina had made an escape bag the first time her father threatened to kill her.
At first, the bag seemed an “in case of emergency,” a glass that one would never break.
But after tonight …
Why had she let it come to this? Why couldn’t she be what her parents wanted?
Part of her was in a panic. What have you done? Apologize. Knock on their door right now. Say it’s all your fault—say you’re sorry, say you’ll promise to change.
But another, stronger, part of Katrina was calm, even cold.
You have to escape. Tonight. Breathe, be quiet, and listen.
And so, Katrina listened … for footsteps, for breathing, for sleep. She listened, and listened. Through the dark, she heard her mother’s one last cough. Her father’s one last flush.
And then, finally, there was silence.
Katrina clutched her ribs, then propped herself up. The pain was sharp, but manageable. She was in her room, behind a locked door. All she needed to do was be quiet. And calm. She could do this.
She could do this.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 16, 1896 — Murray Leinster. It is said that he wrote and published more than fifteen hundred short stories and articles, fourteen movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays. Among those was his 1945 Retro Hugo-winning novella “First Contact” which is one of the first (if not the first) instances of a universal translator in science fiction. So naturally his heirs sued Paramount Pictures over Star Trek: First Contact, claiming that it infringed their trademark in the term. However, the suit was dismissed. I’m guessing they filed just a bit late. (Died 1975.)
Born June 16, 1920 — T.E. Dikty. In 1947, Dikty joined Shasta Publishers as managing editor. With E. F. Bleiler he started the first Best of the Year SF anthologies, called The Best Science Fiction, that ran from 1949 until 1957. He was posthumously named to the First Fandom Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the 71st World Science Fiction Convention. (Died 1991.)
Born June 16, 1924 — Faith Domergue. Dr. Ruth Adams in the classic Fifties film This Island Earth. She has a number of later genre roles, Professor Lesley Joyce in It Came from Beneath the Sea, Jill Rabowski in Timeslip (aka The Atomic Man) and Dr. Marsha Evans in Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet. She amazingly did no genre television acting. (Died 1999.)
Born June 16, 1938 — Joyce Carol Oates, 85. No Hugos but she has garnered a World Fantasy Award in Short Fiction for “Fossil-Figures”, and has won more Stokers than I thought possible, the latest one for her most excellent collection of horror and dark fantasy stories, The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror. She has written pure SF in the form of Hazards of Time Travel which is quite good.
Born June 16, 1939 — David McDaniel. He wrote but one non-media tie-in novel, The Arsenal Out of Time, but most of his work was writing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels, six in total, with one, The Final Affair, which was supposed to wrap up the series but went unpublished due to declining sales but which circulated among fandom. He also wrote a Prisoner novel, Who is Number 2? Andhe wrote several filk songs, including “High Fly the Nazgul-O” and “The Mimeo Crank Chanty”. As a fan, he was quite active in LASFS, serving as its Director and Scribe, writing for various APAs (he aspired to be in all of them) and is remembered as a “Patron Saint” for his financial support of the club. (Died 1977.)
Born June 16, 1940 — Carole Ford, 83. She played the granddaughter and original companion of the First Doctor. She reprised the role for The Five Doctors, the Dimensions in Time charity special, and of course for The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. Her first genre role was as Bettina in The Day of the Triffids, and she had an earlier role as an uncredited teen in the hall of mirrors in Horrors of the Black Museum.
Born June 16, 1972 — Andy Weir, 51. His debut novel, The Martian, was later adapted into a film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott. He received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer at MidAmeriCon II. His next two novels are Artemis and Project Hail Mary. Intriguingly, he’s written one piece of Sherlockian fan fiction, “James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal” which is only available as an Audible audiobook. Project Hail Mary was nominated for a Hugo Award at Chicon 8.
…The film distributor is planning a limited theatrical release for the movie at AMC Theatres before it releases digitally, beginning Friday, June 23. Wonderwell also stars Rita Ora, Nell Tiger Free, Sebastian Croft and Kiera Milward….
The movie follows a girl named Violet (Milward) who is brought to “a mysterious portal” near a medieval Italian village by Fisher’s character Hazel, who offers “a glimpse of what [Violet’s] future might hold” after Violet and her family travel to the village for her sister’s modeling opportunity, according to the outlet….
(10) WHAT ARE THE FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE DC EXTENDED UNIVERSE? With the premiere of The Flash this week JustWatch decided it is time for a definitive ranking of DC Extended Universe movies.
So far fans have had the opportunity to see 13 films, and the most favorite turned out to be The Suicide Squad accounting for 17.45% of the popularity. Thus, the standalone sequel became 3.5x more popular than Suicide Squad, which landed in 8th place. On the cinematic superhero podium, two remarkable entries also shone brightly: the empowering Wonder Woman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
(11) TAILS OF TERROR. “The Fish That Ate Our Ancestors” – Discover Magazine knows how to catch my attention. Here’s the opening of the article – more details at the link.
As life was first struggling to set foot on land in the Late Devonian Period, there was a predator waiting to snatch it back to the depths: the recently discovered Hyneria udlezinye, a toothy prehistoric fish estimated to have reached up to 9 feet long.
It represents the largest monster fish yet uncovered from this period and appears to have lurked in the brackish waters of the modern-day Waterloo Farm site in South Africa, in wait for its prey. An excavation exposed a wall of fossils there in 2016, during road construction, and led to this and a number of other discoveries, including the fossil of an early tetrapod, the massive fish’s likely prey. These early genetic forebears of modern human resembled large salamanders or small alligators and walked on four feet (thus tetrapod)…
So, what is this magic technique? Below we lay out the military method’s steps to a good night’s sleep. It’s deliberately designed to be easy and efficient, so anyone can start tonight.
Relax your face. Focus on your forehead, your eyes, your cheeks, your jaw, and so on. Feel the tension held in them and consciously push it away.
Drop your shoulders. Let your arms flop down and your shoulders relax. Imagine there is a soft, warm wind gently pushing your arms down.
Take a deep breath. Slowly inhale and let it out. As you do so, focus on how it relaxes your stomach. Don’t try to hold your stomach in; let it all out.
Relax your legs. The warm wind is back, and this time it’s gently easing your legs down. Let your legs sink into the bed or the floor. They are leaden, and the bed is soft.
Clear your mind. There are a few ways to do this. For instance, try to visualize some calming images, like lying by a flowing river or staring at the clouds. If that doesn’t work, try saying the words “don’t think” over and over for about 10 seconds. If you get distracted, don’t get angry; just pull your mind back to one of those two techniques….
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, Scott Edelman, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
By Steve Vertlieb: Maximillian Kolbe was a Franciscan priest in Poland during the invasion and occupation of his county by Germany during World War Two. While many of his Franciscan brothers understandably fled the monastery that Kolbe had founded, the priest was among the few who had remained. He continued to minister to the sick in the temporary hospital that he’d set up for his ailing, often injured Polish brethren. Proud and defiant, Kolbe refused to sign the Nazi Deutsche Volksliste which, he knew, might have given him the rights of a German citizen in tacit recognition of his own German ancestry. During their often besieged tenure at the occupied monastery, Kolbe and his fellow monks offered shelter to 2,000 Jews hiding from persecution from the Nazis at the friary in the Polish community of Niepokalanow.
The Germans finally closed down the monastery on February 17, 1941. Kolbe was arrested and sent to Pawiak prison. He was transferred to Auschwitz on May 28, 1941, as prisoner #16670. At the end of July, ten prisoners escaped from the notorious prison camp. In retribution, Deputy Camp Commander SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Karl Fritzsh chose another ten men to be starved to death in their place in a Nazi underground bunker. It would serve as an example to those prisoners remaining in cruel captivity. Among these tragic figures was Franciszek Gajowniczek, a condemned captive who screamed “My wife! My children!” in utter despair.
Kolbe heroically volunteered to take his place in what he knew was a prolonged, agonizing death sentence. The priest continued to lead and conduct prayers for his fellow inmates in the secluded bunker. Following two weeks of starvation and dehydration, only Father Kolbe remained alive. The German guards needed the bunker emptied and so, on August 14, 1941, they gave Maximillian Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. The priest was said to have raised his arm in recognition of his fate, while waiting calmly and at peace for the soldiers to have administered the fatal dosage. Kolbe was canonized and made a saint in the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Now, producer Pablo Jose Barroso and Mexico’s Dos Corazones Films, creators of The Greatest Miracle, have reunited to create a new animated screen adaptation of this emotional true story entitled Max And Me. With voice performances by Ashley Greene, Hector Elizondo, and Piotr Adamczyk as Father Maximillian Kolbe, the production has been designed and directed by production designer (and art director) Marec Fritinger. While a noble endeavor, the production has been plagued by difficulties and setbacks, delaying its promised release interminably. IMDB shows its release date now will be October 2023.
For the musical score to this most difficult, ambitious animated production, the producers turned once more to composer Mark McKenzie who had written the highly acclaimed music for their previous production of The Greatest Miracle. Praised by many in the motion picture music community as the finest film score of 2011, The Greatest Miracle was a haunting, ethereal work reminiscent in its thematic texture of the glory days of Hollywood composition, recalling the work of Alfred Newman in particular. McKenzie, an unabashed, unapologetic melodist and compositional romanticist, stands among a handful of present day film composers who continue to write thematic melody and classical structure. McKenzie, along with Lee Holdridge, James Newton Howard, Bruce Broughton, David Newman and, of course, John Williams, are seemingly the last of the traditional symphonists working actively within the Hollywood film music community today.
McKenzie’s scoring philosophy and textured presence are deeply imbedded within the Hebraic roots of such legendary film composers as Alfred Newman, Miklos Rozsa, Bernard Herrmann, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Victor Young, Hugo Friedhofer, Max Steiner, Elmer Bernstein, Alex North, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry, and David Amram, as well as innumerable other composers who created what has come to be known as “The Hollywood Sound.” As Jerry Goldsmith was losing strength in his valiant battle with Cancer some years ago, he asked McKenzie to help orchestrate his final seven film scores, calling Mark “My Godsend.” No less a musical presence than Sir Paul McCartney referred to McKenzie as “brilliant.”
Working in the film community as a trusted, skilled orchestrator for decades, McKenzie began trying his hand at creating his own unique original stylings with sole scoring credit on such films as Death In Granada (1996), The Ultimate Gift (2006), Saving Sarah Cain (2007), The Greatest Miracle (2011), The Ultimate Life (2013) – Sammy Film Music Award, Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire (2017), and now Max And Me (2018).
Recorded at the famed Abbey Road Studios with large orchestra, The London Boys Choir (“Liberia”), and acclaimed solo concert violinist, Joshua Bell, Mark McKenzie’s truly remarkable score for this deeply moving motion picture has been released by Sony Classical on iTunes. While Sony’s decision to record and release the score is commendable, its decision to allow the music to be experienced only through iTunes is lamentable, if not tragic. McKenzie’s confidence and talent as a film composer have been gaining momentum with each new assignment, and his score for Max And Me is easily his most satisfying work to date, as well as the finest film music of 2018. McKenzie’s startlingly beautiful music reaches layers, depths and textures of ethereal redemption and spiritual ascension stunningly realized and performed. Joshua Bell’s superb virtuoso violin, along with the sublime vocal performance by The London Boys Choir, elevates the force and majesty of McKenzie’s remarkable score to unimagined heights of tearful grandeur. McKenzie’s faith filled musical portrait of Maximillian Kolbe’s humanity and ultimate sacrifice is both rapturously sacred and deeply moving, an inspirational testament to the indomitable human spirit, and to the overcoming power of humanity and spiritual goodness.
Listening to Mark McKenzie’s score without tears is virtually impossible. Among the notable highlights of this deeply moving score are “Prayer For Peace” (track #15) … hauntingly expressive in its plea for life and for the dignity, nobility, and preservation of the human soul. “Auschwitz Cries” (track #16) is utterly searing, a plaintive, devastating wail…remembering the six million Jews imprisoned, tortured, and decimated by Adolf Hitler and his abominable Nazi machine. “Triumph Over Fear” (track #19) is, perhaps, the score’s finest hour. Building to a shattering emotional crescendo from utter loneliness and desolation, McKenzie’s use of orchestra and choir bring hope filled ascension and spiritual redemption out of captivity, desperation, and mind numbing fear… a prayer to Jehovah that love and humanity will ultimately triumph in the face of overwhelming degradation and despair. “I Believe In You” (track #21) is a life affirming summation of the overcoming power of faith, while the concluding piece, “Heaven’s Welcome” (track 22), becomes an overwhelming orchestral testament to the divinity and spiritual ascension of the mortal soul … a symphonic, choral celebration of the joyous moment when God and Man conjoin, becoming as one as mortal life reaches its consummate, enduring summit.
Mark McKenzie’s score for Max And Me is a triumphant, ravishing masterwork … a glorious, infinitely exquisite tribute to the overpowering faith and inherent goodness alive within the human soul. It is a work of extraordinary beauty and dramatic power that cries out from the ashes of the concentration camps for recognition, for a voice, and for a legitimate CD release. Perhaps time and justice will ultimately prevail. Until then, the composer’s musical vision and ethereal artistry shall continue to prevail…while the charity and sacrificial nobility of men like Maximillian Kolbe will forever inspire the world.
By Steve Vertlieb: While science fiction in cinema has always enjoyed enormous popularity around the world, dating back to George Melies 1902 experimental short A Trip To The Moon, few would argue that the cultural renaissance of the well worn genre occurred during its most prolific flowering from 1950 until 1959. Arguably, British cinema and television seemed to understand and respect the outer limits of imagination far more than their American counterparts, treating science fiction themes with more respectability and adult interpretation than expectation would normally demand. Alexander Korda’s London Film Productions glorified the subject matter in the Thirties with H.G. Wells Things To Come in 1936. With uncommon reverence for its massive presentation, Korda assigned distinguished classical composer Arthur Bliss to compose the music for the prestigious presentation.
James Bernard autographed photo.
That same serious consideration for the genre would be repeated during the science fiction craze of the Fifties, during which Britain’s tiny Hammer Films would rise to the stars as England’s chief exporter of domestic product. During its reign, Hammer Films would produce many of the finest science fiction and horror films of the period. From 1955 until 1976, the studio would film Shakespearean calibre excursions into the cinematic realm of the fantastic, featuring many of the most eloquent English-speaking actors and actresses of their day. The incomparable Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee would find their greatest success in Hammer Film series playing Doctor’s Frankenstein, and Van Helsing, Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster respectively. The exquisite Veronica Carlson lent her poetic presence to these dramatic endeavors, as well, finding rich delicacy in her subtle performances, as well as a rare sensual grace. It was with the same degree of respect and commitment that the studio would choose its musical tapestry, along with the composers who would create the unforgettable Hammer sound.
Steve Verlieb and Peter Cushing.Steve Vertlieb and Veronica CarlsonSteve Vertlieb and Jimmy BernardSteve Vertlieb and Michael RIpperSteve Vertlien and Jimmy BernardBernard group with VertliebAnother Bernard group with Vertlieb
If any composer has been largely responsible for creating the sound of Hammer, or identified nearly exclusively with the musical significance and atmosphere for horror/fantasy films, it would almost certainly be James Bernard. Born September 20, 1925 in India, the son of a British Army officer, Bernard suffered from early ill-health and was relocated by his family back to his native England. Regaining his strength, he studied piano at Wellington College and joined The Royal Air Force where he served proudly until 1946. Interested in music at an early age, he began a correspondence with composer Benjamin Britten who suggested that he study composition at The Royal College of Music. Bernard had become something of a musical prodigy as a boy, offering piano recitals with ever-maturing skill and natural assuredness. While learning his craft under the tutelage of Imogen Holst, the young Bernard remained close to Britten, staying at the home of his mentor in 1950 when the older composer asked his student to copy out the vocal score for his opera Billy Budd.
A year earlier Bernard had met writer Paul Dehn with whom he formed both a professional and personal relationship lasting twenty-seven years. Together they wrote the original treatment for Seven Days To Noon, winning the Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story in 1952. The idea for the story had been formulated during a conversation between the two men in 1950 during which they wondered aloud what might become of the world they knew if nuclear madness were allowed to proliferate without rules of society in place to prevent such unbridled insanity. While the treatment would serve as a successful introduction to motion pictures, it wouldn’t be the last time film goers would either hear of, or listen to James Bernard.
BBC Television had produced a series of live science fiction serials in the early years of the decade focusing on the fascinating exploits of rocket scientist Bernard Quatermass who, engaged voraciously in the exploration of space, would ultimately need to defend his own planet from the onslaught of unwelcome predators from surrounding worlds. Written by the brilliant visionary author Nigel Kneale, The Quatermass Experiment was a huge success throughout the British Isles. Hammer Films was able to secure theatrical rights to the groundbreaking teleplays and assigned director Val Guest to helm the first of three films. The Quatermass Experiment was released in England under its original title and found recognition in The United States as The Creeping Unknown. Released theatrically in 1955 and featuring American actor Brian Donlevy in the lead as Quatermass, the first of the hugely popular science fiction melodramas had a bold, semi-documentary style approach in its presentation, lending a chilling, realistic focus to its other worldly tale.
Producer Anthony Hinds had originally contracted composer John Hotchkis to write the music for the film but, as fate so often determines, Hotchkis grew ill and was unable to fullfill his assignment. Hinds telephoned John Hollingworth, conductor and eventual Music Supervisor at Hammer, to ask if he might suggest another composer to fill the vacancy left by the ailing Hotchkis. Hollingworth suggested a young, twenty-nine-year-old composer who had recently written a successful score for a BBC radio play of The Duchess of Malfi. His name was James Bernard. Hollingsworth, according to writer David Huckvale in his biography of Bernard (James Bernard: Composer To Count Dracula, McFarland, 2006) notes that Hollingsworth was reluctant to offer the young composer a larger orchestra to perform his first film score, and so the twenty or so minutes of music for the film were performed entirely with a string ensemble and played, under Hollingworth’s direction, by The Royal Opera House Orchestra. The three-note theme written by Bernard for The Quatermass Experiment was a stark, bone chilling instrumentation predating Bernard Herrmann’s searing string score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by five years. Bernard’s visceral music for the picture perfectly captured the grim mood of the horrific tale realizing, in its striking notes and themes, the bleak predominant threat of an alien infestation destroying London.
The studio wanted to do a follow up to the initial “Quatermass” story, but Nigel Kneale refused at first to allow his character to be used by Hammer again, due his personal distaste for American-born actor Brian Donlevy. Losing neither sleep or disquiet over Kneale’s refusal, Hammer assigned writer Jimmy Sangster to write an original Quatermass screenplay without using the name of Kneale’s protagonist. In 1956 Hammer released X-The Unknown, directed by Leslie Norman, and featuring American actor Dean Jagger as the embattled scientist fighting both alien invasion and the British political establishment. Composer James Bernard would once again contribute the very effective score and, to all appearances, this next Hammer shocker was in every way, save for both character name and permission, a “Quatermass” film.
Hammer followed their instincts and produced the second installment of the original Nigel Kneale trilogy a year later when Quatermass 2 was released in 1957 throughout England. Enemy From Space was the American title for the Val Guest-directed shocker, once again starring Brian Donlevy as Professor Quatermass with another chilling science fiction score by James Bernard. Apparently, Nigel Kneale had relented in his initial displeasure, now allowing the studio to adapt his second teleplay for filming. Following the same semi-documentary approach as he had used in the first film, Guest guided his actors in frighteningly realistic style to a spectacular conclusion in which huge gelatinous creatures, resembling H.P. Lovecraft’s “old ones,” collapsed in excruciating torment to the striking accompaniment of James Bernard’s economic, yet unforgettable themes.
James Bernard was now solidly a member of the Hammer repertory company. What has now become known as the Bernard years, however, would officially begin the next year in 1957 with the release of the first of Hammer’s legendary recreations of the classic Universal monster series. Curse of Frankenstein was essentially a modern retelling of Universal’s 1931 production of Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff as The Monster, and Colin Clive as his creator, Henry Frankenstein. The startling new production would feature Hammer’s lurid color trademark, accompanied by sexual situations, and graphic violence. Starring Peter Cushing in his first outing as Doctor Victor Frankenstein, and Christopher Lee as his abominable experiment gone horribly wrong, Curse of Frankenstein ignited world box office records as the innocence of the original Universal productions was replaced by explicit thrills for a new generation of monster enthusiasts jaded, perhaps, by the simplicity of the earlier films. James Bernard composed the score for the film which was as profoundly impactful and dramatic as the characters and colorful horror for which it was driven.
1958 would provide the composer with, perhaps, his signature work. Now that Hammer had successfully begun mining the riches of Universal with Curse of Frankenstein, the obvious choice for their next classic monster revival was The Monster’s caped counterpart, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Peter Cushing was signed once again to play off his earlier rival, Christopher Lee. This time Peter Cushing would play Dr. Van Helsing, while the tall, aristocratic Lee would essay the vampiric count. Released once again in lurid British Technicolour, with graphic bloodletting and even more provocative sexual situations, Dracula would prove Hammer’s greatest triumph. Released in America as Horror of Dracula, this first vampiric foray by Hammer remains among the most notable, striking visualizations of Bram Stoker’s acclaimed novel. For Dracula, Bernard would compose his most demonstratively mature, symphonic music for films to date. The three-note salutation has become internationally recognized as Dracula’s theme, while the rest of his full-bodied score is as remarkable and memorable as the film itself. Directed by legendary film maker Terence Fisher, with star making performances by both Cushing and Lee, and a thrilling score by a composer beginning to feel more confident of his gift, Dracula became the standard by which all successive Hammer Film Productions would be measured.
Hammer’s next distinguished pairing of actors Cushing and Lee, with composer James Bernard, would be yet another retelling of both a classic novel and motion picture. However, this time the studio would turn to mystery, rather than horror, with a new version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s definitive detective yarn, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Filmed earlier by Twentieth Century Fox studios in 1939, the original film would feature the legendary pairing of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in their initial appearance as the iconic sleuths, along with Richard Greene as Sir Henry Baskerville. For the full-color version from Hammer, Peter Cushing would play Sherlock Holmes, while Christopher Lee would essay the part of Sir Henry Baskverville. Andre Morell would appear as Dr. Watson. Directed once more by Terence Fisher, this gothic dramatization remains, perhaps, the definitive interpretation of the Conan Doyle novel. Cushing, born to play the fictional detective, delivered one of his most distinguished and energetic performances. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect Holmes than Peter Cushing, with Basil Rathbone alone sharing contention for the screen’s most memorable Holmes interpretation. Hammer, however, couldn’t quite resist the temptation to turn the Doyle classic into a horror film. Since the story is traditionally hovering on the border between suspense and terror, Hammer’s graphic treatment was hardly out of line. James Bernard’s distinctive music for the picture is brooding, commanding, and eerily effective, creating a sense of encroaching danger upon the dreaded moors.
The Kiss of the Vampire, released by Hammer in 1963, was a thoughtful tale of vampiric infestation in a rural Balkan village, and featured a lovely suite by James Bernard who, by now, was truly maturing as a superior screen composer, as evidenced by the superb piano concerto written by Bernard expressly for this often-forgotten gem from Hammer.
Bernard’s next assignment from Hammer would rank with his finest, most haunting contributions to the genre. The Gorgon, released by Hammer Films in 1964, and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, along with Barbara Shelley and Patrick Troughton, featured a beautiful, mesmerizing score by Bernard, capturing the hypnotic menace and legend of the awful mythological creature who could turn men to stone with a mere glance of her hideous features.
Hammer turned to one of their most ambitious productions in 1965, choosing to re-imagine H. Rider Haggard’s epic novel She once more for the screen. Filmed earlier at RKO by Merian C. Cooper in 1935 with Randolph Scott, Nigel Bruce, and Helen Gahagan Douglas, an expensive new production in full color would star Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Ursula Andress as the ageless queen. While cinematically daring, at least on paper, the completed production of She was, in the end, strangely static in its execution, with performances that appeared unaccountably bored, stiff, and disinterested. The one area, however, in which the film did succeed beyond its most earnest ambitions was in the musical scoring by James Bernard. Rich beyond words, and lush beyond reason, Bernard’s magnificent score for this often turgid film brought to mind and heart all of the stunning legend of an ancient sorceress who might live eternally, providing the haunting and unforgettable musical imagery sadly lacking in every other aspect of the compellingly mediocre visualization.
In the years that followed, Hammer would remake many of its earlier hits with both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee reprising their earlier triumphs, hoping to find cinematic treasure once again. The results were sporadic, offering rare moments of gold interspersed with uninspired tedium. While scripts may have become increasingly tired and mundane, however, the performances by Cushing, Lee, and James Bernard rarely lost their magical spell over audiences. While more closely identified with the bombastic themes for Dracula and Frankenstein, James Bernard revealed a softer, more poetic side to his musical signature as the familiar series wore on, writing some of the most lovely, unabashedly romantic music of the period. He would often insist that these gentler themes would identify his music far beyond the recorded recollection of those written for horrific thematic identification, and that these rhapsodic interludes would more clearly define his musical legacy. Indeed, desperation on the part of corporate executives to somehow recapture a fragment of the magic of their earlier efforts, may actually have filled a creative void in the heart of the composer, much as it had with his music for She. While each successive sequel demanded yet another failed homage to the films that had initially inspired them, James Bernard was asked to recall thematically the torrential music that launched a thousand ships. He found artistic solace, however, in the deeply sensitive and introspective music created for the quieter intervals in each of the studio’s sequels.
Bernard remained actively working for a variety of British filmmakers in the years that followed, writing the music for Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966), The Plague of the Zombies (1966), Torture Garden (1967), The Devil Rides Out (1968), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974), and the ill-fated The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974). While The Devil Rides Out was a somewhat tepid screen translation of the famed novel by Dennis Wheatley, its score remained the composer’s personal favorite of his own works, illustrating once more David Raksin’s contention that “good music has saved more bad films” than one could ever realistically imagine or expect.
There were some gems, nonetheless, interspersed along the way featuring sparkling musical champagne from the skilled hand of a now seasoned, gifted, and versatile composer. One has only to listen to the deeply sensitive, profoundly exquisite, romantic melodies delicately elevating the quieter interludes in such films as Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), and Scars of Dracula (1970) to recognize, and properly evaluate the poetic genius and stature of this gentle soul. Indeed, Bernard felt most comfortable with these tender, affectionate themes, sensing somehow that his true value as a composer might one day come to be recognized more for his unabashedly romantic interludes than for the full orchestral assaults associated with the more horrific aspects of his Hammer film scores.
Tragedy befell James Bernard in 1976 when his trusted friend and life partner Paul Dehn was killed in a tragic act of violence. Traumatized by this senseless loss, Bernard retreated into both emotional and artistic retirement for many years. It was somewhere about 1997 when James Bernard’s creative energy and juices returned him to the medium he was born to write for…motion pictures. Still relatively young, Bernard yearned to return actively to composing for films. I met the composer in 1994 at a Fanex film conference in Baltimore sponsored by Midnight Marquee Magazine, and we became fast friends. He was simply “Jimmy” to those he regarded as chums, and I was happily to be counted among this rapidly growing circle of companions. Jimmy would often telephone me from his home in London on Sunday mornings, and we maintained an active correspondence over the years remaining to him. He had gotten himself an agent in London, actively seeking film and television work once more. Assignments were slow in coming, however, to a musician whose age surpassed seventy years, and whose musical presence had been missing for so many years. One Sunday morning, by telephone, he asked me if I thought that hiring an American agent in Los Angeles might lead to greener pastures in Hollywood. I wrote to Elmer Bernstein, whom I’d known for many years through correspondence, asking his thoughts on the matter. Despite his own advancing age, Bernstein was still working rather productively in the industry. Bernstein wrote back, entirely in sympathy with Jimmy’s desires to remain active and productive. The reality, however, was that Bernstein…by his own description…was “a dinosaur,” and that film producers were looking for “kids,” rather than older men. He remarked that he was uncommonly fortunate to still be working at his craft.
Even if new assignments weren’t immediately forthcoming, however, there seemed to be renewed interest in his earlier work. Silva Screen Records in England offered Jimmy an opportunity to prepare new concert suites for some of his scores with the intention of recording them for commercial release. Jimmy was anxious to get back to work, but had some reservations about the accessibility of his music for the Quatermass films. During the course of a letter, and later a telephone conversation, he asked if I thought that the earlier scores would either translate into listenable recordings, or if there would be any serious interest by fans in having a suite for Quatermass recorded for CD release. I assured him that there would be enormous interest in having his music preserved by Silva, and that he needn’t spend any more needless time worrying about the success of such a recording. Happily, his music for the Quatermass series was recorded in 1996, along with his carefully prepared and selected suites from She, Kiss of the Vampire, Frankenstein Created Woman, The Devil Rides Out and Scars of Dracula. Conducted by Kenneth Alwyn, Nic Raine and Paul Bateman, The Devil Rides Out: Music For Hammer Films…The Music Of James Bernard (FilmCD 174) is a marvelous celebration of Jimmy’s remarkable music, both splendidly conducted and performed by The Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra, together with The City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
Fortune would intercede a year later when an enterprising producer asked Jimmy to score a newly remastered edition of F.W. Murnau’s silent horror masterpiece Nosferatu for a new generation of film enthusiasts. Plans were in the works to release the film theatrically, with a DVD of the restoration to follow. Jimmy was elated at the prospect of returning to his roots. Happily at home once more, the resultant score by James Bernard for the German expressionistic classic would become among the finest works of his career. Nosferatu is a masterful work, a wonderful symphonic coda to a distinguished screen career.
The score was premiered at a prestigious, live concert event at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on November 17, 1997, in which the iconic motion picture was unspooled before an enthusiastic capacity audience, accompanied by a large symphony orchestra. Among the invited celebrity guests that evening was the score’s composer, James Bernard. Ironically, plans for a theatrical release were abruptly canceled when funds were not forthcoming and, as often occurs in theatricality, this was ultimately a promise that was not to be. Frustration by Jimmy was tempered by an offer by Britain’s Silva Screen Records to record the seemingly lost score for posterity on CD. I cried through much of my first listen to the commercially released recording, for this was not the work of an old man but, rather, the passionate symphonic rebirth of an artist who had simply been away for a time, while growing immeasurably as a musician. There were echoes of Hammer’s Dracula films, to be sure…but, more importantly, the new work represented a fresh, vital, and important reinvention of a singular composer’s miraculous gift for musical expression. Exhilarated and profoundly moved by the experience, I sat down to write Jimmy a letter of my joy and exultation over his achievement, expressing my sincere belief that his score was easily the finest new film music of the year. Not long after receipt of my letter, there was a telephone call from him in which he thanked me profusely for my critical analysis of his work. It was a moment of friendship, bonding, and genuine affection between us that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
The following year saw Jimmy writing the music for a wonderful new television documentary, produced for Turner Classic Movies, documenting the history and tradition of early horror films produced by Universal Studios. Universal Horror provided a sublime look into the past of the legendary studio that had offered the inspiration for Hammer Films’ remarkable rise to international recognition and success. It seemed fitting, then, that James Bernard compose the decidedly atmospheric music lovingly caressing the haunting documentary.
In the years that followed, Jimmy’s health was sadly deteriorating, while film work seemed to diminish substantially. On July 12, 2001, James Bernard quietly succumbed to years of disturbingly debilitating illnesses. Jimmy is gone, but the light, laughter, and brilliance that illuminated his soul remains ablaze in the flickering image upon the screen, and on the wondrous soundtrack of our collective memories and experience.
++ Steve Vertlieb — Halloween, 2011
Steve Vertlieb Remembers James Bernard – The Musical Heart & Soul Of Hammer Films: “In June 2014, cinema archivist / historian / educator Steve Vertlieb took time before our documentary cameras to reminisce on his special friendship with legendary film composer – the late great James Bernard, best known to many as the primary musical voice of the classic 1960’s era horror and sci fi films of England’s Hammer Studios…”
By Steve Vertlieb: I was a lonely, introverted, deeply sensitive little boy with a fertile imagination as big and as vast as the sea. The 1950’s opened the door for me to a magical kingdom, overflowing with wonders that fed my appetite, enticing my yearning heart with the promise of worlds, oceans, and a dimensional universe of both dreams and promise. While my physical world was confined to emotional conflict, and the youthful constraints of intellectual subservience, a magical little box called television opened up limitless vistas of travel, exploration, and journeys to the stars. I could escape my fears, vulnerability, and self-doubts simply by turning that fertile “Dial of Destiny” on our new television set, inviting me to a gentle path along a beloved “Yellow Brick Road.” It was there, and only there, that I might, perhaps, find release from the bonds and fleeting ignorance of childhood, and fly away upon wings of fancy to “Never Never Land.”
As the newborn light within its circular dome flickered hesitantly to life, I found myself riding my valiant stallion across the Western plains alongside saddle pals like Hop-A-Long Cassidy, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, and Bob Steele. I galloped together with Zorro’s Fighting Legion, sat astride a camel’s humps with Buster Crabbe as Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion, fought together with Gene Autry to escape The Phantom Empire, and the underground city of the future, “Murania.” I journeyed to a Forbidden Planet at my local neighborhood Benner Theater, on a Saturday matinee, savored exotic fruits upon the surface of Altair 4, and rocketed to the Planet Mongo every weekday afternoon, during my lunch break from school, with “Chuckwagon Pete”, and his identical twin brother, “Uncle Pete” (both played by beloved early Philadelphia children’s television host Pete Boyle, the real life father of Young Frankenstein, Peter Boyle), sharing the fabled exploits of Doctor Zharkov, Prince Barin, Dale Arden, Princess Aura, Ming the Merciless and, of course Larry “Buster” Crabbe as Flash Gordon.
Buzz Corry (Ed Kemmer) courageously commanded the star cruiser “Terra,” along with Cadet Happy and I … “Uncle Milty” (Milton Berle) owned Tuesday nights … Ed Sullivan was the Toast of the Town … and a gravel-throated cinematic magician known affectionately to “children of all ages” as “Uncle Walt” brought a magic kingdom to life for millions of adoring kids. He brought us Zorro every Thursday night on ABC TV, while sprinkling his special wand across generations over NBC Television with mythical stories and legends of Davy Crockett (starring Fess Parker), Zorro (played by swashbuckling Guy Williams … later to star in Lost in Space), The Nine Lives of Elfego Bacha (with Robert Loggia), The Swamp Fox (with Leslie Nielsen), Johnny Tremain (with Hal Stalmaster), Treasure Island (with Bobby Driscoll and Robert Newton), The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh (with the star of tv’s The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan), The Hardy Boys, (with Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk), The Story of Robin Hood and His Merry Men (starring Richard Todd), The Adventures of Spin and Marty (with Tim Considine, David Stollery, Harry Carey Jr, and Annette Funicello), The Wonderful World of Disney, and the show that changed our youthful lives forever, The Mickey Mouse Club.
Walt Disney had been entertaining, and enchanting the children of the world since 1928 when he introduced “Steamboat Willie,” and a mouse named “Mickey” to motion picture screens. However, it wasn’t until 1954, with the premier of Walt Disney’s Disneyland, followed by The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955, and Walt Disney Presents in 1958 that this master showman made his everlasting mark on television. The memorable lyrics from Pinocchio” sung by Jiminy Cricket (Cliff Edwards), brings me to tears still, while Uncle Remus (James Baskett) singing “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” shall bring a smile of remembrance to my lips for as long there remains breath in my body. When I first visited my little brother and lifelong best friend, Erwin, in Los Angeles in 1974, I fulfilled a childhood dream by visiting the land of dreams … Disneyland. As we entered the park inside the Monorail, my eyes filled with tears, and I began to sob. I couldn’t understand why until I realized that the voice of that legendary little cricket was singing over the loudspeakers … “When You Wish Upon A Star … Makes No difference Who You Are … Anything Your Heart Desires Will Come To You. If Your Heart Is In Your Dream … No Request Is Too Extreme … When You Wish Upon A Star As Dreamers Do. Fate Is Kind … She Brings To Those Who Love … The Sweet Fulfillment of Their Secret Longing. Like A Bolt Out of the Blue … Fate Steps In and Sees You Through … When You Wish Upon A Star … Your Dreams Come True” (Leigh Harline and Ned Washington). I guess that’s when I lost it. I was six years old once more.
It was during the Christmas season to come that “Uncle Walt” told us of his newest feature film attraction, a cinematic re-telling of Jules Verne’s immortal fantasy classic novel, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Directed by Richard Fleischer, with music by veteran Disney composer Paul Smith, and starring Kirk Douglas as Ned Land, James Mason as Captain Nemo, Peter Lorre as Conseil, and Paul Lukas as Professor Pierre Aronnax, this spectacular new film version was previewed on the weekly television Disney program with a special documentary about the making of the film. The highlight of the promotional film was a brief look at the giant squid luring the vessel to its ultimate destruction, both the interior and exterior of Captain’s Nemo’s fantastic submarine, the Nautilus, and Kirk Douglas performing his soon to be “hit” recording of “A Whale of A Tale.”
My eyes grew wide, and my little jaw dropped open as I encountered the Nautilus for the very first time. She was utterly magnificent. I’d never seen anything quite like her. I was utterly entranced by this vision of wonder. My expectations grew over the weeks to come, and it was during the week between Christmas and New Years Eve, 1954, that my mother took me downtown to, perhaps, the most majestic of old movie palaces in Philadelphia, “The Mastbaum Theater,” to see Walt Disney’s production of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea for the very first time. Located at 2001 Market Street in the very heart of the city, its vast lobby and auditorium were stunning beyond verbal description. As luck would have it, my mom deposited me at the theater a few moments late, and I can recall missing the opening credits of the movie. I was just nine years old when the movie opened, but I can still vividly remember walking slowly down the aisle in the already darkened theater, and seeing the Nautilus speeding toward its unwitting prey, a Victorian steamship, sailing blithely across the waves to its impending doom and destruction, as the Nautilus rammed into her bow, sinking the great vessel and her crew “Down to the Sea in Ships.” Consumed by the ravaging waters of the eternal sea, the nautical victim of Nemo’s vengeance sank to her inevitable doom.
Early in 2023, the city of Philadelphia became the joyous recipient of the Walt Disney Company’s “100th Birthday Celebration Exhibition,” the very first stop on a worldwide tour encompassing many of the studio’s most famous, fabulous, and most cherished artifacts and treasures. I purchased tickets to the show, being held at the famed Franklin Institute, along its fabled Parkway, for my girlfriend, Shelly, and I in late Spring. From the moment that we arrived at the exhibit, I happily shed the outer garments of maturity, and became an innocent once more. I had dwelt in ecstasy for countless hours within the land of enchantment. Few experiences in my own fragile seventy-seven years had ever come remotely close to the special feeling of bonding, and to returning “Home” that I felt upon entering this ‘Wonderful World of Disney,” this incomparable miniature “Disneyland” at my doorstep. It was as though I had traveled back to “Oz.”
The celebration of 100 years reached its zenith, however, when the sight that I’d dreamed of for nearly seventy years came at last in view. I’d seen a short television special on a local station in which the hosts took a brief tour of the exhibition, and so I knew that it was there … there within the confines of the museum in my own home town. I had met Kirk Douglas in 1974 on the set of the Gene London children’s tv program in 1974, twenty years after the film’s original release. I had even encountered the original “Robby, the Robot” full-sized prop from MGM’s 1956 science fiction classic, Forbidden Planet, at the home of William Malone, a well known film director. There was nothing, however, that could have prepared me for the sight of the actual model of the Nautilus, used in Walt Disney’s 1954 epic 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. I gasped audibly when she came into my view at last, and my eyes filled with tears of joy and remembrance. Here she was, actually before me, in all of her restored glory. It remains a moment … a memory that shall lovingly occupy both my memory and my heart for all the remaining years of my life …never to be erased or forgotten.
For the fortieth anniversary of Nicholas Meyer’s romantic fantasy masterpiece, released September 28th, 1979, here is a look back at the soundtrack release of the brilliant motion picture classic, Time After Time, and its legendary score by Miklos Rozsa.
The film, which suggested an entirely imaginary friendship between writer H.G. Wells and Jack The Ripper, follows the exploits of the famed science fiction author as he courageously chases the infamous murderer through time and space in a fabulous device of his own making.
His journey to prevent future bloodshed is the intoxicating premise of this sublime science fiction thriller for which three-time Oscar winning composer Miklos Rozsa fabricated one of his most exquisite romantic scores.
Produced by Lukas Kendall for his wonderful succession of soundtrack releases at Film Score Monthly, Rozsa’s inspired score is a musical journey worth taking … Time After Time.
By Steve Vertlieb: Toward the end of a summer cluttered with loud, virtually indistinguishable motion picture fare, a small cinematic miracle called Time After Time emerged quietly amidst the visual noise. Released by Warner Bros. on August 31, 1979, Nicholas Meyer’s tender fantasy was a ray of radiant sunshine spilling over a cloud covered, obediently commercial horizon. Based upon a novel by author Karl Alexander, from a story idea by Alexander along with Steven Hayes, the story found its inspiration unashamedly in the pages of Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, in which a resurrected Sherlock Holmes battles his arch nemesis once more on paper and on film. Rather than pit the master detective against crime and punishment, however, Alexander decided to extract H.G. Wells from Victorian England and have him impersonate Holmes while trailing Jack the Ripper through portals of time. Nicholas Meyer, both flattered and intrigued by this updated tribute to his own work, decided that the novel might make an interesting film and, when approached by Karl Alexander, determined to option the novel with Warner Bros. for the screen rights.
Meyer wished to helm the picture himself and, as a novice director, wanted to fashion a retro sense about his introductory screen effort. He envisioned the traditional Max Steiner logo sequence opening the film, a concept that didn’t particularly excite Warner Bros, as the Forties intro hadn’t been used by the studio in years. He cast Malcolm McDowell as his hero, a courageous reversal of type casting since the actor had largely portrayed only villains and sleazy anti-heroes thus far in his career. It was an interesting choice, considering that Wells would be enacted as a sweet, innocent idealist with little worldly background or sophistication. For the music, Meyer wanted to have an old fashioned Hollywood score as the blanket caressing his lost protagonists. He chose one of his favorite composers, the legendary Miklos Rozsa, to create the magical score for his fantastic voyage.
Rozsa, for his part, was in the process of winding down his motion picture career and had been called upon only sporadically in the past twenty years by a film industry jaded, cynical, and blithely ignorant of its musical past. After winning his third and final Oscar for MGM’s 1959 epic Ben Hur, the composer found his talents ill used in a growing climate of slavish adoration to youthful demands, and insistence upon popular song score compilations. Except for a precious handful of worthwhile offers, such as Billy Wilder’s unforgettable The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes in 1970, Rozsa remained content to write music solely for the concert stage. All of that was about to change in 1975 with Jaws and, more importantly in 1977, with Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The rising popularity of composer John Williams, coupled with the spectacular sci-fi/fantasy epics of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, had returned symphonic film music to its former glory. With increasing, renewed demand for dramatic, full blown orchestral scoring, both Williams and Jerry Goldsmith leaped to the forefront of a new musical renaissance in Hollywood. While each rose admirably to the occasion, neither composer had either the time or the opportunity to score every new film on the drawing boards. Out of respect for their remembered legacy, a daring handful of youthful directors reached back into time to utilize the talents of the few remaining composers from filmdom’s fabled golden age.
Nicholas Meyer and Steve Vertlieb.
Time After Time was all the more remarkable for its Victorian sensibilities, and tender sensitivity in the midst of global narcissism, and cultural disdain. Both the screenplay, and its direction by Nicholas Meyer, seemed to embrace a painful longing for values long since replaced by worldly cynicism and ridicule. Vibrant in its infectious enthusiasm, the film seemed to hit a nerve with a small, yet influential segment of the film going population, quickly elevating the tiny “motion picture that could” to cult status and artistic reverie. Time After Time functioned comfortably on a variety of conceptual levels. It was an old-fashioned thriller in which author H.G. Wells, a Victorian novelist and unabashed idealist, chases the very personification of ancient evil through time, and the painful evolution of modern society.
It worked as a lovely comedy in which the now archaic Puritanism of nineteenth century England finds awkward reconciliation upon the mean streets of twentieth century San Francisco. It works equally well as pure storybook romanticism in which the handsome prince from another reality steals away the beleaguered heroine of a cruel and unforgiving kingdom, from which love and compassion have grown sublimated by callous cruelty, and emotional detachment.
For his part, composer Miklos Rozsa found comfort and creative reassurance in his own distinguished background and breeding, for Meyer’s cultural homage enveloped the world weary musician in a vaporous world that had long since vanished from experience. While only two film assignments remained in his future after completion of Nicholas Meyer’s romantic thriller, this haunting tale of poetic fate and synchronicity led Rozsa to compose a rich, brilliant score that has come to be regarded as a final masterwork by one of cinema’s most gifted artists. Rozsa’s music, like the cautionary loss of innocence articulated in Meyer’s fantasy, symbolizes a lush, passionate, deeply reflective longing for a world that has disappeared from the Earth that sired it. It is the bittersweet search for peace of mind and of heart that have gone with the wind, lost in the angry cynicism of societal maturity, and intellectual detachment. H.G. Wells has grown lost, a displaced “stranger in a strange land” trying to find home and, with its attainment, a return to simplicity and moral civility. Rozsa, himself adrift as a composer in a “brave new world” of noise and shallow contemplation, must have found a chord of artistic recollection and redemption within this sensitive visual remembrance, for his score is merely sublime.
Steve Vertlieb with Miklos Rozsa.
The score for Time After Time has long been considered among the richest of Rozsa’s symphonic career. It is a dazzling musical tour de force, capturing every imaginative nuance of both character and characterization with complexity and radiant vitality. Rozsa paints his symphonic canvas with the expressive brush strokes of a great artist. He is a master of emotional interpretation, conveying each subtle nuance of character reflection and vulnerability in brilliant musical strokes and terminology. Whether illustrating thrilling chases through valleys and corridors of time or finding, in moments of quiet desperation, love’s passion lost and found, this cultural icon from cinema’s beginnings and roots, has invested ageless enthusiasm into a final portal of grace and cinematic eloquence.
The score for Meyer’s precious gem of a motion picture had been released on both album and compact disc in 1979 when Rozsa entered the studio one more time to re-record his music for Entr’acte Records. That excellent recording has stood well the proverbial test of time for the past thirty years. In an age, however, of archival restoration, Lukas Kendall and his brave army of preservationists have returned this brilliant score to its original stereophonic splendor with their spectacular release of the complete, original soundtrack on their Film Score Monthly label. Co-produced and issued through Craig Spaulding and his exhaustive Screen Archives Entertainment resource, the magnificent music for this timeless enterprise has now come full circle with a new and definitive representation of a glorious score. With the participation of Nicholas Meyer, original orchestrations by the late Christopher Palmer, and a handsome accompanying booklet with both literate and informative liner notes by Jeff Bond and Frank DeWald, this spectacular production is a joy to hear and to behold.
In its final moments, as Wells and Amy Catherine Robbins reach out their hands to one another, lonely souls conjoined across a sea of time and space, the sheer poetic grace of Meyer’s and Alexander’s tender science fiction fantasy reaches romantic crescendo. The heartbreaking passion of Rozsa’s orchestral rhapsody finds the summit of its power in the final chords of a brilliant career. Miklos Rozsa found his voice once more, as he had on so many occasions during a life in film spanning forty-five years…as he had done Time After Time.
