543 posts
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Post by freckles on Dec 9, 2018 14:55:09 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2018 16:05:50 GMT
Ace! Assuming that should be 14th of the 12th.
Other musical analysis programmes Neil has done for BBC have been very interesting, looking forward to this!
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543 posts
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Post by freckles on Dec 9, 2018 16:15:26 GMT
Ace! Assuming that should be 14th of the 12th. Other musical analysis programmes Neil has done for BBC have been very interesting, looking forward to this! It’s the 14th, 22nd and 28th of December! |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2018 16:23:12 GMT
Ace! Assuming that should be 14th of the 12th. Other musical analysis programmes Neil has done for BBC have been very interesting, looking forward to this! It’s the 14th, 22nd and 28th of December! Oh I understand now! Thought your 1's had been mis-typed as 2's, which would have made 14/12/18 - Fridays date! haha A 3-parter makes me even happier! |
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311 posts
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Post by olliebean on Dec 9, 2018 21:53:32 GMT
Although actually, it's the 14th, 21st, and 28th of December.
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Post by talkingheads on Dec 10, 2018 9:17:50 GMT
Saw a preview of episode 1 at the BFI with Neil Brand doing a Q&A, looks to be a wonderful series, and focuses on a lot of lesser known films
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1,089 posts
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 14, 2018 22:41:07 GMT
Did anybody notice a very serious omission in the first part of The Sound of Movie Musicals?
After a brief mention of Cole Porter as composer of the stage show 'Anything Goes', we were told that the music for the film 'Hallelujah' about African Americans was not authentic because it was written by Irving Berlin, who was Anglo Saxon. Hello? Irving Berlin was a Russian Jew!
But after this glaring solecism, I can't recall that we heard the name of any other composers, which seems tough for a programme in which the songs are the main reason for its existence. It was even more strange that the continuing thread throughout the programme was Neill Brand playing many of these tunes on the piano and commenting on their musical construction without once ever mentioning the names of the composers!
Did I miss something here?
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1,089 posts
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 22, 2018 1:32:32 GMT
Same criticism again this week about not giving enough credit to the composers. In this episode Brand made a point about the clever use of the main theme in "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" but although there was a very brief picture of Michel Legrand with the director of the film, I had to Google the name of the film to confirm that it was Michel Legrand who had written the music.
Also, although Brand did mention Leonard Bernstein as composer of "On the Town", he failed to point out that MGM ditched most of Bernstein's original stage score and commissioned new music from Roger Edens, including the title song "On the Town" which Brand played as an example of the driving rhythm of the music in the film, giving the impression it was written by Bernstein.
And I'm not sure that mixing bits from Indian, Chinese. French and even Nazi musical films with mainstream Hollywood musicals really worked comfortably, although it made for a very interesting comparison.
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379 posts
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Post by ctas on Dec 22, 2018 7:43:44 GMT
I had the same reaction to the On The Town section, Bernstein’s score is far superior to the replacement songs. The presenter was also expressing that the musical was about the post-war sentiment of optimism when it was actually written and premiered on stage before the end of the Second World War.
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4,993 posts
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Post by Someone in a tree on Dec 22, 2018 8:13:22 GMT
I also have On the Town rage!
What’s with hardly any mention to Rogers and Hammerstein?
My Fair Lady and West Side Story got about 10 seconds so no chance of mentioning Pajama Game, Guys and Dolls, Calamity Jane etc
A reference to Marnie Nixon would be nice
I am enjoying the non American & UK bits but it’s all too much to squeeze into 3 episodes why couldn’t it feature more episodes (cost obviously) or focus on one particular part of film musicals?
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1,348 posts
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Post by tmesis on Dec 22, 2018 11:07:26 GMT
Same criticism again this week about not giving enough credit to the composers. In this episode Brand made a point about the clever use of the main theme in "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" but although there was a very brief picture of Michel Legrand with the director of the film, I had to Google the name of the film to confirm that it was Michel Legrand who had written the music. Also, although Brand did mention Leonard Bernstein as composer of "On the Town", he failed to point out that MGM ditched most of Bernstein's original stage score and commissioned new music from Roger Edens, including the title song "On the Town" which Brand played as an example of the driving rhythm of the music in the film, giving the impression it was written by Bernstein. And I'm not sure that mixing bits from Indian, Chinese. French and even Nazi musical films with mainstream Hollywood musicals really worked comfortably, although it made for a very interesting comparison. Totally agree Tony. He should have made it clear how little of Bernstein's music is used in the film. He also plays bits of various songs, which then segue into the film but often in a different key to the film version, producing a jarring effect. He seems a good enough pianist to play the music in any key so I think this is just laziness. |
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543 posts
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Post by freckles on Dec 23, 2018 10:44:30 GMT
Yes, this series is very disappointing. I can see he’s trying to not be too obvious and include some VERY obscure examples, but to omit so many major influential and groundbreaking films completely is ridiculous. And the On The Town stuff was sloppy. I knew that part wasn’t going to go well when he started off saying Bernstein wrote “it’s a wonderful town”. He didn’t, he wrote “helluva town” and it was changed for the movie!
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1,089 posts
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 29, 2018 14:37:07 GMT
Personally I found the third and final part left me far behind as I was not familiar with most of the more 'recent' films he mentioned (apart from Saturday Night Fever and Grease) and of the current big three (La La Land, Moulin Rouge and The Greatest Showman) I have seen only Moulin Rouge. Oh yes, I have seen the film of Bugsy Malone but I try to erase that from my mind as I personally found it quite inappropriate to use children in that way.
So I guess it's all my loss and I am stuck in the past with Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Jane Powell, Kathryn Grayson and the rest of the Hollywood musical stars from the golden age.
Much more interesting to me in fact was the long documentary on the life of Frank Sinatra shown afterwards in several parts which I found truly fascinating for the many facets of the Sinatra story that it presented as well as the surrounding stories of the rise of Las Vegas and the Kennedy mafia, not to mention the real mafia, McCarthyism, racism and other significant events in recent American history.
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Post by profquatermass on Dec 29, 2018 15:53:37 GMT
Yes, this series is very disappointing. I can see he’s trying to not be too obvious and include some VERY obscure examples, but to omit so many major influential and groundbreaking films completely is ridiculous. And the On The Town stuff was sloppy. I knew that part wasn’t going to go well when he started off saying Bernstein wrote “it’s a wonderful town”. He didn’t, he wrote “helluva town” and it was changed for the movie! What obscure examples? It wasn't 'The Sound of Hollywood' and it's only right that musicals that were huge hits in their own countries should be included. |
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543 posts
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Post by freckles on Dec 30, 2018 10:29:21 GMT
Yes, this series is very disappointing. I can see he’s trying to not be too obvious and include some VERY obscure examples, but to omit so many major influential and groundbreaking films completely is ridiculous. And the On The Town stuff was sloppy. I knew that part wasn’t going to go well when he started off saying Bernstein wrote “it’s a wonderful town”. He didn’t, he wrote “helluva town” and it was changed for the movie! What obscure examples? It wasn't 'The Sound of Hollywood' and it's only right that musicals that were huge hits in their own countries should be included. Of course it is, but I felt there was more emphasis on this at times, at the expense of other major influences. The whole series was a bit unfocused for me, with a few interesting nuggets. |
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1,583 posts
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Post by anita on Dec 30, 2018 10:39:26 GMT
Real disappointment. It could have been so good. I felt that "Oliver" & "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" should have at least got a mention.
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Post by crabtree on Dec 30, 2018 11:22:24 GMT
and whilst he was wittering on about Ken Russell and Tommy I was hoping for a mention of The Boyfriend.
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5,707 posts
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Post by lynette on Dec 30, 2018 16:59:40 GMT
I think some of us feel he missed out a lot cos he was obviously selective but mainly because he was trying to create an argument/arc about film musicals. I think he did, how they waned and then picked up. I wasn’t at all sure why he included Ken Russel who was a tv man and used music in film yes, but did not write music for a musical drama as a movie. Weird choice. And he could have let some of the numbers run and not do his own little tap at the keyboard though I’m suspecting royalties were payable for whole numbers.
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