"Pilot Error"

Long before the Airport franchise entrenched the clichés of the air disaster genre from the late sixties to the late seventies, Hollywood had offered up dramas that happened to involve pilots, and in the three releases covered this weekend, we have a differing views on the value of a commercial airline pilot.

Based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s best-selling novel, Night Flight / Vol de nuit,  MGM’s Night Flight [M] (Warner Home Video) is erroneously billed as a Grand Hotel-type drama with a stellar cast enacting the struggles of air mail delivery in South America.

Operations manager John Barrymore seems to regard his handful of pilots as children – noble in skill, foolish in vices and human weaknesses – and he’s determined to push them to the limit to launch the continent's first overnight air mail service.

Unlike a similar aviation drama, Frank Capra’s Dirigible [M[ (1931), MGM’s 1933 film is steeped in melodrama and hasn’t aged too well, but it’s a significant production that weighed some of the controversies surrounding commercial aviation after audiences had become accustomed to seeing pilots on the silver screen fighting forking &  country in WWI dramas, comedic action sequences, and musicals with half-naked women and chirpy singers strapped to biplane wings.

By the early fifties, commercial aviation for passengers on an international scale was dramatized in Twentieth Century-Fox’s No Highway in the Sky [M] (1950), a British production about the need to put safety up front instead of money, time schedules, and corporate greed. It’s an unusually non-cynical film about one crusading aeronautical engineer (eccentrically played by James Stewart) who’s convinced the tail on the plane he’s travelling in will break off over the Pacific Ocean, killing everyone.

Not available on DVD, this docu-styled drama junks most of the melodrama larded into Night Flight, and eerily presaged the 1954 disaster of the de Havilland Comet planes which broke up mid-flight due to design flaws.

Lastly, we have Fate is the Hunter [M] (Twilight Time), Fox’s 1964 drama that begins after a deadly plane crash has killed all but one. Based on the novel by Ernest K. Gann, Fate feels remarkably contemporary because a good chunk of its narrative is devoted to the procedural details of gathering crash evidence and trying to determine whether the disaster was caused by mechanical malfunction or pilot error.

Seeing the wrecked craft reconstructed on a metal skeleton in a sterile hangar recalls news footage of the Air India bombing; and the heroism of the pilot’s wartime flights – cheating death and landing a plane using experience, balls, and professionalism – more immediately recalls the case of Chesley Sullenberg, who ditched his plane in the Hudson River without a single loss of life.

In all three films, the skills of the pilots come into question when a signal is lost, a plane crashes, or a corporation decides to wrap up a disaster by blaming the pilot.

As an airman quips in No Highway in the Sky, “Pilots and desks; dogs and Cats. Natural enemies. They’ve got one theme song… Pilot’s error. Whenever anything goes wrong with their calculations and there’s a smash-up: ‘pilot’s error.’”

Seems  cynicism towards pilots is a good 80 years old.

Coming next: reviews of four video game soundtracks.

Coming soon: a review of John Huston's nasty little Cold War thriller, The Kremlin Letter, also from Twilight Time. The new label just announced pre-order details of their debut Blu-ray release - The Egyptian, the 1954 sunburn saga Marlon Brando managed to weasel out of, but had to make amends to CEO Darryl Zanuck by playing Napoleon in Desiree. The latter film is currently available on DVD (where else?) in Spain, and if timing works out and Canada Post's current strike mess is resolved, I should have reviews of both films, so we can all learn if Marlon made the right choice, selecting a new accent and hairstyle.

Lastly, those who've received their TIFF catalogue for the summer series may have noticed a special section devoted to Montgomery Clift. Between July and August, the TIFF Bell Lightbox will screen prints of Elia Kazan's Wild River (1960), Edward Dmytryk's Raintree County (1957), John Huston's The Misfits (1961), and perhaps my favourite WWII drama, Dmytryk's The Young Lions (1958), featuring a superb Hugo Friedhofer score... and Marlon Brando playing a 'good' Nazi.

The complete list is posted at the TBL website (which still needs more design tweaking. Just saying).






Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

August is Human Tomato Season

Back in late May, I did my first Doors Open Toronto (How long have I been living here, and never made the effort?) and from the observation deck of City Hall I took a few snapshots of the CN Tower.

The day was a classically grey and ugly (seemingly the norm for the city of late), but there was something alluring about heavy fog enshrouding the tower’s upper pole, where all the radio and TV gear is house.

A friend used to manage the restaurant a few levels below, and he once described going up into the main broadcast box as fascinating and creepy: all copper lined, filled with gear, and you could feel the damn tower tip swaying with the wind.

Inside the box, you ain’t gonna die; maybe just feel a bit ‘air sick’ from the motions, if you happen to have one of those inner ear issues.

From a broader view of the tower, one can see the scaffolding that was firmly implanted into the circular superstructure, which looks a bit hairy.

Closer inspection (well, not much, given the images were taken through windows splattered with pigeon poop) reveals where participants of the new EdgeWalk amusement will walk. Note how wispy the whole thing looks from afar.

Well, as reported by Torontoist, Mark Laroche, CEO of the Canada Lands Company (owners of our priapic symbol of progress), not only took a walk, but wore a helmetcam to capture the bare essence of striding at the border of one’s doom.

I’ve no doubt the amusement is safe, but there is that extreme fear of a sudden gust of wind knocking one off, the wire snapping, and getting blown over the safety netting  -netting – after which one gets to experience the same freefall ride stuntman Dar Robinson enjoyed for the Canuxploitation classique Highpoint (1982) before you become a human tomato (or pancake, depending on the type of surface your body will marry, hard and fast).

Watch the video, and note the metal brackets on the walkway that no one manages to trip over; note the edge, still unblemished by ‘the netting,’ which is supposed to save you / stop you from attempting an immediate extraction from our global gene pool.

It’s all fascinating, but seriously: there’s gonna be a human tomato / C’est fantastique, mais vraiment: quelqu’un deviendra une tomate humaine.

Tickets are now on sale for $175, and the terror begins in August.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor

KQEK.com

Colour Noir

Merde! Les inconnus sont ici! Zut, alors!

Some purists believe there’s no such thing as a ‘colour noir’; film noir, according to their logic, must be in filled with grays because the genre began with starkly photographed black & white (‘noir’) cinematography.

It’s an oversimplification, arguing the visual palette determines the genre, which isn’t so; high contrast lighting and compositions are possible in colour and wider film ratios, but in film noir, it’s the story and characters that determine the genre.

I tend to argue Leave Her to Heaven [M] (1945) as the best example of early colour noir because it’s about bad behaviour, illicit love affairs, murder, and terrible consequences for innocents and wayward souls.

Violent Saturday [M] (1955) fits that formula perfectly because it uses colour to enhance the bleakness of the dusty Arizona environment, widescreen cinematography to emphasize the slowly crumbling stability of the town’s social order, and features a great balance of plot, tension, and sleaze designed to tease the censor board’s apparatchiks.

Directed by Richard Fleischer, this tight little gem has a superb cast, featuring Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally, J. Carrol Naish, Lee Marvin (he hates kids), and Ernest Borgnine in the oddest role he could possibly take after starring as a NYC blue collar Joe in Marty (1955).

Twilight Time’s DVD also features an isolated score track of Hugo Friedhofer’s music, and is the new label’s third release, after John Huston’s The Kremlin Letter (1970) and Ralph Nelson’s Fate is the Hunter (1964) - films for which reviews will be up this week.

The label’s titles are only available through Screen Archives Entertainment, and are limited to 3000, but they are commercially produced DVDs, not MOD DVD-Rs.






Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

New & Imminent Soundtrack Releases

You'd think there would be a slowing down of soundtrack releases, now that were in the early weeks of summer.

Not so!

Below is the latest tally, featuring May + June and a bit of July, with links to distributors / labels that have a website.

I'm starting with home video releases, followed by MOD / on demand / digital only releases, and then labels offering CD/DVD/MP3 variations.

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FILM MUSIC ON VIDEO:

Aaron Copland: Fanfare for America (Arthaus Musik) --- DVD

Evening with Dave Grusin, An (Telarc) --- Blu-ray

Michel Legrand: Legrand Jazz – Live from Salle Pleyel Paris (2009) (Arthaus Musik) --- DVD

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ISOLATED SCORES ON VIDEO:

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Fate is the Hunter / Jerry Goldsmith (Twilight Time) --- DVD

Kremlin Letter, The  / Robert Drasnin (Twilight Time) --- DVD

Violent Saturday / Hugo Friedhofer (Twilight Time) --- DVD

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ONLINE ONLY VIA Amazon.com (Soundtracks):

Green Lantern (James Newton Howard) --- June 16

Priest (Christopher Young)

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REGULAR RELEASES:

Alhambra (Germany)

L’ultimo Paradiso (Angelo Francesco Lavagnino) --- June, ltd. 500

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Aleph (USA)

Invocation: Jazz meets the Symphony #7 (Lalo Schifrin)

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Beat Records (Italy)

Fire Star Dances (Luis Bacalov, Piero Piccioni) --- mid-June

Il Sesso Degli Angeli (Giovanni Fusco) --- ltd. 500

Prigione di Dionne / Riot in a Woman’s Prison (Albert Verrecchia) --- mid-June

Zombi 2 + un gatto nel cervello (Fabio Frizzi)

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BSX Records (USA)

Ken Wannberg Film Music Collection, The --- June, 2 CDs

Parasomina (Nicholas Pike) --- mid-Jine

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Capriccio (Naxos Germany)

Metropolis (Gottfried Huppertz) --- mid-June

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Chandos Records (UK)

Miklos Rozsa: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 --- June 28

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Colosseum (Germany)

Family Way, The (Paul McCartney) --- July 26

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Cometa (Italy)

Il planeta d’acqua (Ennio Morricone --- ltd.

Invito allo sport (Ennio Morricone) --- ltd.

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DigitMovies (Italy)

Anche gli angeli mangiano faglioli (Guido and Maurizio De Angelis)

Anche nel west c’era una volta dio / Between God, the Devil, and a Winchester (Carlo Savina) --- mid-June

Bruciatelo vivi / Land Raiders (Bruno Nicolai) --- mid-June

Franco e Ciccio sentiero di Guerra (Roberto Pregadio)

La moglie di mio padre (Guido and Maurizio De Angelis) --- June

La notte degli dquali / Night of the Sharks (Stelvio Cipriani)

Oedipus Orca (James Dashow) + Una spirale di nebbia (Ivan Vandor) + la orca (Monti Arduini)

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Disney (USA)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Hans Zimmer, various) --- score + source + remixes

Thor (Patrick Doyle)

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Disques Cinemusique (Canada)

L’Enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot / Inferno (Bruno Alexiu)

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Film Score Monthly (FSM) (USA)

Belle of New York, The (Johnny Mercer, Harry Warren) --- ltd.

Comedians + Hotel Paradiso (Laurence Rosenthal) --- ltd.

Pretty Maids All in a Row (Lalo Schifrin) --- ltd.

Kenner + More Than a Miracle (Piero Piccioni) --- ltd. 1500, 3CDs

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Finders Keepers Records (UK)

Frisson des vampires, Les (Acanthus) --- CD + LP

Jeunes filles impudiques (Pierre Raph) --- LP

Mala Morska Vila (Zdenek Liska) --- CD + LP

Saxana – The Girl on a Broomstick (Angelo Michajlov) --- CD + LP

Solla Solla (various) --- CD + LPs

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GDM (Italy)

Curse, The /aka The Farm + Black Demons (Franco Micalizzi) --- early July, ltd. 500

Ballata per un pistolero (Marcello Giombini) --- ltd. 300 copies, reissue

Cattiva / The Wicked (Armando Trovaioli) --- ltd. 500

La cugina / The Cousin (Ennio Morricone)

Il diavolo nel cervello / The Devil in the Brain (Ennio Morricone) --- late June

Il deserto dei Tartari / The Desert of the Tartars (Ennio Morricone) --- expanded

I Quattro pistoleri di Santa Trinita / Four Pistols for Trinity (Roberto Pregadio) --- ltd. 500

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Howlin' Wolf Records (USA)

Bunker, The (Robert Feigenblatt) --- ltd. 1000

Cry, The (Dean Parker) --- ltd. 500

Cyborg: The Director’s Cut (Jim Saad, Tony Riparetti) --- ltd.

Mean Guns (Tony Ruparetti)

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Intrada (USA)

Battlestar Galactica (Stu Phillips) --- ltd. 3000 copies

City of Fear (Jerry Goldsmith) --- ltd. 2000

Destination Gobi (Sol Kaplan) --- ltd. 1000

House of Usher, aka Fall of the House of Usher (Les Baxter) --- ltd. 1200 copies

Masada (Jerry Goldsmith, Morton Stevens) --- 2 CDs

Observations (Arthur B. Rubinstein)

Sleuth (John Addison) --- ltd. 1500, same music & dial. contents as LP

Straw Dogs (Jerry Fielding) --- ltd. 2000

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (Ron Goodwin) --- 2 CDs, ltd. 2000 copies

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Kind of Blue (Switzerland)

Ennio Morricone: Gangster Movies --- May

Ennio Morricone: Quentin Tarantino Movies --- May

Ennio Morricone: Spaghetti Western --- May

Ennio Morricone: The Dollars Trilogy --- May

Nino Rota: The Godfather Trilogy --- May

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Kritzerland Records (USA)

Audrey Rose (Michael Small) --- ltd. 1000

Berlin Affair, The (Pino Donaggio) --- ltd. 1000

Black Sunday (Les Baxter) --- ltd. 1000

Camelot (London Cast) --- ltd. 1000

Marco Polo (Les Baxter) --- late June, ltd. 1000

Mulholland Falls (Dave Grusin) --- ltd. 1000

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Lakeshore Records (USA)

Hoodwinked Too! (Murray Gold)

Scream 4 (various) --- song + score CD

Tree of Life (Alexandre Desplat)

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La-La Land Records (USA)

Blob, The (1988) (Michael Hoenig) --- ltd. 2000

Breakdown (Basil Poledouris) --- 3 CDs, ltd. 3000

Copernicus’ Star (Abel Korzeniowski) --- ltd. 1000 copies

Crysis 2 (Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe) --- 2CDs

DC Showcase: Superman + Shazam! The Return of Black Adam + Jonah Hex + Green Arrow + The Spectre (Jeremy Zuckerman, Benjamin Wynn) --- ltd. 1000

First Knight (Jerry Goldsmith) --- 2CDs, ltd. 5000

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Ernest Gold) --- 2 CDs, ltd. 2000

Medal of Honor (Christopher Lennertz, Michael Giacchino, Ramin Djawadi) --- 8CDs

Socom 4 (Bear McCreary) --- 2 CDs, ltd. 2000

X-Files: Vol. 1 (Mark Snow) --- 4 CDs, ltd.

X The Man with X-Ray Eyes + Tales of Terror: Morella (Les Baxter) --- ltd. 1200

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Legend Records (Italy)

Bible, The (Toshio Mayuzumi) --- 2 Cds

La donna del fiume / The River Girl + La Risaia / The Rice Girl (Angelo Francesco Lavagnino) --- late June, ltd. 1500

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Madison Gate Records (USA)

Soul Surfer (Marco Beltrami) --- CDR

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Mask Records (Italy)

Salon Kitty (Fiorenzi Carpi) --- ltd. 1500

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Milan Records (USA/Europe)

Angelo Badalamenti - Ghent International Film Festival and Brussels Philharmonic + The Orchestra of Flanders

Craig Armstrong - Ghent International Film Festival and Brussels Philharmonic + The Orchestra of Flanders

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Monstrous Movie Music (USA)

It! The Terror from beyond Space (Paul Swatell, Bert Shefter) --- ltd. 1000

Monster That Challenged the World, The (Heiz Roemheld) --- ltd. 1000

Project Moonbase + Open Secret (Herschel Burke Gilbert) --- ltd. 1000

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MovieScore Media (Sweden)

Age of Heroes (Michael Richard Plowman)

Almighty Thor (Chris Ridenhour, Chris Cano)

Dawning (Nathaniel Levisay)

Heartless (David Julyan)

Lion of Judah (Greg Sims)

Rainbow Suite: The Choral Music of Mikael Carlsson [non-film]

Stake Land (Jeff Grace)

White Lion (Philip Miller)

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Music Box Records (France)

Comment le seduire + Les strip teasueuses + Les combinards (Francois de Roubaix) --- mid-June, ltd. 1000

Le bon plaisir (Georges Delerue) --- mid-June, ltd. 1000

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Music for Moving Images (USA)

Piano Music from the Movies (Stephen Edwards)

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Naxos (USA)

Monster Music: Classic Horror Film Scores (various) --- June 28, 6 CDs

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Perseverance Records (USA)

Secret Adventures Of Jules Verne (Nick Glennie-Smith) --- 2 CDs, ltd. 1200

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Phantom Soundtracks (USA)

Alien Terrain (Darren Callahan)

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Quartet Records (Spain)

Appassionata (Piero Piccioni) --- 2 CDs, ltd. 500

Grace Quigley (John Addison) --- ltd. 1000

Il giardino dell’eden (Stelvio Cipriani) --- ltd. 500

Happets in the Kingdom of the Sun, The (Zeltia Montes) --- ltd. 500

Killing Me Softly (Patrick Doyle) --- ltd. 1000

Knack… and How to get It, The (John Barry) --- ltd. 1000

War Goddess / aka Le guerriere dal seno nudo and Le amazzoni (Riz Ortolani) --- ltd. 500

What’s New Pussycat? (Burt Bacharach ) + Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (Lalo Schifrin) --- ltd. 1000

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Silva Screen (USA / UK)

Eagle, The (Atli Orvarsson)

Historic John Barry, The

Music of Pixar, The (various) --- digital album

Symphonic Celtic Album, The (various)

Theme Tunes of Hanna Barbera, The (various) --- digital album

Trailer Tunes (various) --- digital album

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Sony (USA)

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Rachel Portman) --- July 12

X-Men: First Class (Henry Jackman) --- June 21

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SPV (Germany)

Popol Vuh Revisited and Remixed 1970-1999 --- July 26 (USA)

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Universal Music / Polydor (Germany)

Botschaft Der Götter / aka Mysteries Of The Gods (Peter Thomas)

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Universal Music (Italy)

Habemus Papam (Franco Piersanti)

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Varese Sarabande (USA)

Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Volume 1, The (Bernard Herrmann) --- June 6, 2 CDs, ltd. 3000

Another Year + Happy Go Lucky (Gary Yershon)

Cowboys and Aliens (Harry Gregson-Williams) --- July 26

Fast Five (Brian Tyler)

First Grader, The (Alex Heffes)

Game of Thrones (Ramin Djawadi) --- June 14

I am Number Four (Trevor Rabin)

Jerry Goldsmith 80th Birthday Tribute Concert – Filmucite 3 (DVD + CD) --- June, ltd. 2000

Jig (Patrick Doyle) --- July 12

Kung Fu Panda 2 (Hans Zimmer, John Powell)

Monte Carlo (Michael Giacchino) --- June 28

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Rolfe Kent) --- June 28

My Demon Lover (David Newman) --- June 6, ltd. 1000

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Patrick Doyle) --- TBA

Scream: The Deluxe Edition (Marco Beltrami) --- June, ltd. 2000

Super 8 (Michael Giacchino) --- June 28

Too Big to Fail (Marcelo Zavros) --- June 28

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Warner Bros. Records (USA)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Steve Jablonsky) --- June 14

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MUSIC FROM PLUTO via label Dnigbat:

Tributares di  planeta Pluto (Ennio Morricone) --- Knpthssst audio format only, ltd. 12, orders placed before June 30 cannot guarantee delivery before 2988

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This handy-dandy list was compiled from various sources, including catalogue announcements at Screen Archives Entertainment, Soundtrackcollector.com, Chris’ Soundtrack Corner, and Intrada.






Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Soundtrack Reviews

Another quartet of soundtrack reviews are up including Andrew Hewitt’s Submarine [M] (MovieScore Media), a film just released in Canadian theatres; Martin Phipps’ wonderful Brighton Rock [M] (Silva Screen Records), come soon to home video in England; Marco Beltrami’s Scream 4 [M] (Varese Sarabande); and Darren Callahan’s second score for a non-existent film, Alien Terrain [M] (Phantom Soundtracks).

Hewitt’s score is quite sparse (due in large part to the film’s heavy song content), but MSM’s decision to release the score digitally is a good move towards demonstrating brief soundtracks deserving some commercial release – with digital being the most widespread and cost-effective.

Phipps’ music for Brighton Rock is one of the most refreshing scores in years, and while the movie hasn’t gotten effusive reviews, the score deserves a generous nod. Gorgeous chorals and an addictive, simple little vocal theme that doesn’t leave the head for days. When the film makes its U.K. home video debut at the end of June, I’ll have a review of the original 1947 film, which remains unavailable in Region 1 land due to utter neglect. It’s a fine early work by a young (and non-balding) Richard Attenborough as Graham Greene’s famous child-thug, and features one of the emotionally cruelest endings ever.

Scream 4 may not have been a necessary film (no one seemed to care during its theatrical run, but many franchise efforts are made for home video and ancillary markets, so it doesn’t really matter in the long run), but the release of a score and song album certain rekindled an interest in the original Scream (1996) score. Yes, the first film, which brought Beltrami into the spotlight as a new talent to watch. Varese’s CD Club has issued the score – complete – as a limited CD (2000 copies) – so the wait is over.

One can presumably toss away the bootlegs that emerged when it was clear no one was willing top spend the cash to issue a score-only CD, but the 15 year wait is finally over. Seriously. FIFTEEN YEARS for the music from a contemporary horror film, acknowledged by most critics as a modern classic soon after its theatrical release, to get its proper CD release. ‘Bout bloody time. Watch for my review in Rue Morgue Magazine.

Alien Terrain as a film only exists in the head of composer Darren Callahan, but it’s such a well-crafted score that one can easily imagine characters, situations, and conflicts (though the track titles help make things a bit more precise). Like Spikes [M] (2010), it’s music inspired by a idea rather than an actual film, and it works beautifully, evoking vintage primordial synth gear.






Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com