Re-posted by N.S.
Alfred Newman's "Railroad Suite" from His Epic Score to How the West was Won (1962/1963)
""@nedland20 Alfred Newman's score for HTWWW was on of the finest scores ever written and to lose the Academy Award that year to John Adison's Tom Jones was a real insult."
N.S.: You're right, of course. And yet, I blame MGM. In a bit of hubris, the studio staggered the picture's worldwide release over the course of at least six months, with it hitting foreign cities in Europe and Asia beginning in 1962, and only being released in L.A. in 1963. Thus, it was only eligible for the 1964 Oscars.
However, had MGM released it in L.A. in 1962, it might still have lost, because it would would have been up against Lawrence of Arabia (Maurice Jarre) and To Kill a Mockingbird (Elmer Bernstein).
John Addison benefited from Tom Jones' coattails, and from a very weak year.
At least Al Newman won nine Oscars, a record which still stands.
Alfred Newman should have scored,"It's a Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World."
ReplyDeleteWhat me worry?
--GRA
Funny you mentioned that- I was just thinking, why didn't that win best score for 1963? (It was nominated.)
ReplyDeleteNow that I looked up the Oscar nominees for that year...
Best picture:
TOM JONES- A piece of garbage, It was so awful the director actually re-edited it when it was released to home video, removing the obnoxious slapstick scenes- don't know if the original version was ever made available.
CLEOPATRA- Unwatchable, with two dead-fish "megastars."
AMERICA AMERICA- Unwatchable. Kazan's career was already over.
HOW THE WEST- Put me to sleep; no doubt it looked better in the movies in Cinerama, but still...
LILIES OF THE FIELD- Are they kidding? Sanctimonious drivel; the constant repetition of the "Amen" song was enough to drive a sane person up the wall.
Shows that the Oscars were always a farce. MAD MAD WORLD should have won Best Picture. HUD should have been nominated. LORD OF THE FLIES, a masterpiece, as was Losey's THE SERVANT. THE BIRDS, for crying out loud! (There's your top five- well, MY five!) HIGH AND LOW wasn't even nominated for Best foreign film!
Also great that year- THE HAUNTING, THE GREAT ESCAPE (Score should have been nominated), JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (Bernard Herrmann's incredible score should have been nominated- it's only a "weak year" for music if you go by the Academy's choices!), SUNDAY IN NY, LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER, X- THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES (Another great score, by Les Baxter)-
Well you get the idea. If you're going to rant, might as well rant about movies!
-RM
Something good came of this- if you Goggle search "IMDB, (fill-in-the-year) movies", you get the ENTIRE list of movies released that year, WITHOUT the extraneous garbage common to IMDB pages! I'm still going through the 1963 list- over 700 titles, and continuing! Information without distractions- right up my alley. Fascinating stuff- though the users' ratings are pretty screwy...
ReplyDelete-RM
-RM
PS- Chalk up another great score for 1963 with ADRIAN MESSENGER- Jerry Goldsmith!
ReplyDelete-RM
Hollywood was cranking out the movies back then--and why not? A lot of great stars to wrap movies around.
ReplyDeleteHUD was a great one. Would have been my pick
--GRA
If you're still reading... I got to see HUD at a revival house long ago, and James Wong Howe's cinematography was awesome on the big screen. The landscape was a big part of that movie, and even with a high-quality DVD, the effect just isn't the same on TV.
DeleteReportedly, the studio received letters complaining about Hud being the bad guy (or at least, an anti-hero)- "Hud was right, the old man shoulda sold that farm!" That took the producers aback, and seemed symptomatic of the shift in public morality that would go completely haywire in just a few more years!
-RM