Music from the movies at Symphony Hall

Watching a symphony orchestra at work is like watching a magic trick explained and yet still retain the mystery. One sees the component parts of the music put together, each musician’s contribution to the whole, and being able to see the machinery of it, if you will, is wonderfully dramatic. Music from classic films, removed from their films in the setting of a symphony performance, is revelatory.

I recently had the pleasure of attending an evening of theme music from the movies—mostly classic films—performed by the Springfield (Massachusetts) Symphony Orchestra, which is currently celebrating its 75^th anniversary.  My thanks for the comp ticket to my friend Shera Cohen, whose company, In the Spotlight, reviews the arts in western New England.

Fans of classic films are usually extraordinarily well informed about pretty much every facet of filmmaking in the studio era, and the music—whether a sweeping theme or even incidental background music—is as important to them as a favorite actor or director. Unlike other elements of film, rather than intellectual analysis, the music evokes a purely emotional response.

So it was at Springfield Symphony Hall and “Music Night with Maestro Rhodes.”  Along the same lines as big-screen showings of classic films, this evening brought out not only symphony regulars, but clearly an enthusiastic audience who recognized the film scores.

Maestro Kevin Rhodes conducted and also interspersed between the selections a bit of background information on the composers.  His style of presentation was breezy, lighthearted, and quite funny at times.  When he introduced composer Alex North’s “Prelude” from Cleopatra (1963), he remarked of its suggestion of an exotic ancient world—and Elizabeth Taylor’s presence— “You can just see the blue eyeshadow when you hear this one.”

Other composers included Alfred Newman, who was represented not only by his music from Street Scene of 1931 (which found its way into other films), but the familiar “20^th Century-Fox Fanfare,” which was a delightfully whimsical way to begin the show.

Max Steiner’s Warner Bros. fanfare, and theme from Gone with the Wind (1939)—of course—and Casablanca (1942) were favorites.  The latter was especially stirring for its intricate suggestion of Moroccan intrigue and the sudden swell of “La Marseillaise.”

Works from greats Bernard Hermann, Elmer Bernstein (the theme from The Magnificent Seven tends to raise people out of their seats by at least a foot, and his “Suite” from The Ten Commandments of 1956 concluded the program), and Miklos Rozsa—the percussionist’s lengthy solo on the chimes in the “Prelude” from Ben Hur (1959) is something I’ll remember the next time I see the film.  Likewise, the kettle drums from the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and a light sensation of dancing on the tambourine in Maurice Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) kept our attention on the percussionists, whose effort we can see more vividly perhaps than the player of a woodwind instrument.  There’s a certain gallant dash about smashing a couple cymbals together.

Films from later decades included the “Love Theme” from The Godfather (1972), Titanic (1997)—which included a stunningly haunting refrain from the women of the Symphony Chorus first from up in the loge and then on stage (I had no idea the Irish penny whistle ever made its way into a symphony orchestra), and other modern hits, but probably the most charming was when the maestro played a piano solo of the “Ragtime Medley” from The Sting (1973) and then joined by a single clarinet, piccolo, trombone, and tuba to playfully embroider the delicate ragtime theme.  They were brought out to the apron of the stage as if to delightfully demonstrate that only these handful of musicians were required despite the complexity of the arrangement. They belonged on a gazebo in a park in summer.

It was an evening of tribute to these composers whose majestic music is so part and parcel of the films that one cannot be thought of without the other.  Watching people make the already fondly familiar music in front of you makes the experience still more intimate.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century.

"Four Daughters" (1938) and Sequels

“Four Daughters” (1938) and the sequels which followed, “Four Wives” (1939) and “Four Mothers” (1941) was a brief but successful series featuring three actual sisters, the Lanes, who through their individual stage work and musical careers with big bands brought them separately to Hollywood.

Priscilla, Lola, and Rosemary Lane worked separately before and after this series of films, but along with Gale Page, who played the fourth sister, were ever afterward identified with the Lemp family portrayed in these films.

The first film in the series, “Four Daughters” is the best, and was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It’s mix of supporting actors, from the always terrific Claude Rains as their father, to the handsome young Jeffrey Lynn, to the ever dependable Frank McHugh, Dick Foran, and especially May Robson (who will be the topic of Thursday’s blog), lends a lot to the film. Most striking, however, is the debut of John Garfield, who was nominated for his role.

The dialogue is fast and funny. Rains plays the father, the director of a local music academy. The girls are all musicians. Aunt Etta, their father’s sister, lives with them, runs the house, and acts as surrogate mother. The film starts out being a wholesome Andy Hardy type outing, light and funny, particularly when the girls’ beaus are brought home for the first time to meet father, subjected to the usual discomfort of trying to impress and fit into this army of females. As anyone from a big family, or marrying into a big family will tell you, it’s difficult for outsiders to join in to what appears to be an impregnable wall of familial affection, inside jokes, and a tight-knit past that has nothing to do with the newcomer. These scenes are done well, first with Frank McHugh running the gauntlet as the new boyfriend. His discomfort is acute and sweet.

Dick Foran plays the shy, stumbling neighbor they’ve known forever, and Jeffrey Lynn charges into the scene as a happy-go-lucky young musician, bouncy as a puppy, who all the girls immediately fall in love with, but when he eventually chooses Priscilla Lane for his love, there is a rollercoaster dip in the tenor of the film. When the two announce their engagement, the quick close-ups on the other girls showing disappointment is quietly intense.

The real fireworks begins when John Garfield enters the picture as a self-pitying, bitter musician at first sarcastic towards this close family, and then sadly desperate to join it. When Priscilla leaves Jeffrey Lynn at the altar for Garfield, it is meant as a sacrifice to release Lynn to marry her sister. The light and funny outing is over for this family, and the film increasingly becomes more serious and somewhat sinister, with delicate romantic triangles and unrequited love. Though she has agreed to marry Garfield, Priscilla still loves Jeffrey Lynn, and there is an intense scene at a Christmas reunion where all are stiff and mannerly, but anguished in each other’s company. Priscilla gets Jeffrey’s coat for him when he leaves, and takes a moment to gently run her hands on the shoulders and back of the coat and hold it a moment before bringing it to him.

The film then turns tragic as Garfield performs what he must regard as the ultimate sacrifice for his unhappy wife. There is a simple but evocative foreshadowing shot of his wet shoe on the accelerator of the car he is driving, and an unusual shot of his stony face from the floor of the car through the steering column, and we know he is going to kill himself in that car. When he speeds up and turns off the windshield wipers, letting the windshield fill with snow, it’s almost sickening.

Director Michael Curtiz does some interesting things with pacing in this film, and his repetition of themes, like the squeaky swinging front gate and several establishing shots of items in the house and the flowering tree outside. The final shot is of the gossipy neighbor lady, intrigued with the young lovers swinging on the gate, finally stealing a moment to try it herself. Her astonished expression of bliss is a quirky and delightful way to end the film.

Most remarkable I think is the use of music in this film. It’s not strictly a musical, but there is a great deal of classical music played and sung by this family, from pieces of “Lohengrin” by Richard Wagner, to Brahms, Mendelssohn, and a long, lazy rendition of “Serenade” by Franz Schubert that opens the film and is reprised in the sequels. Rosemary Lane, the aloof sister with the dry humor, does the singing, and she appears to be the only Lemp sister who plans a professional career as a performer. To have classical pieces and German lieder given such space in a film made about four attractive, modern sisters in the height of the era of Big Band music, and not have them portrayed as glasses-wearing intellectual freaks, is unusual. They handle these classical pieces with natural ease and with evident pleasure, even if they occasionally madden their father by teasing him with swing renditions of his revered Beethoven.

This film was followed by “Daughter’s Courageous” reunited all the cast, but was not about the same Lemp family as in “Four Daughters”. An unusual move and evidently the studio felt it was more profitable to go back to the well and do more movies about the original family, so “Four Wives” and “Four Mothers” were released carrying the further adventures of the girls into marriage and motherhood. The second film, “Four Wives” is more maudlin, and third had more to do with the family’s financial ruin than with motherhood. We are afforded only brief glimpses of the baby daughters, another generation of girls.

The second film “Four Wives” has an even longer musical segue as a so-called “Symphonie Moderne” is staged. This piece was actually composed by Max Steiner. The camera slowly pans the orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Lynn, to the hospital bed of Priscilla and her new baby, the child of her deceased husband John Garfield who appears through flashback, and to her family listening to the radio at home. Such a lot of time spent on the piece might make those not interested in classical music fidget a bit, but director Curtiz’s use of it remains intriguing. I like the slow pace in this part of the film, and the tour of the emotions on which the camera takes us.

Also, the manner in which all the sisters and their separate stories are shown through the course of the three films is one of brief scenes and using small nuances to symbolize larger themes. There is no single star of the films, though Priscilla Lane’s and Jeffrey Lynn’s characters change the most, from silly and carefree, to deeply hurt and sorrowful. It can’t have been an easy job either for the writers or the director to use such a large cast in equal proportions, which is pretty much what happens.

“Four Daughters” was remade as “Young at Heart” (1954), and both films were coincidently shown on TCM last night. The original series probably could have been extended, with the war and a new set of tribulations facing the sisters as a backdrop, but perhaps neither the Lanes nor Gale Page wanted to be stuck with playing the Lemp sisters for too long. Only Gale Page would continue her acting career in later decades; none of the Lane girls ever made a film beyond the 1940s.

Johnny Belinda (1948) - Part 2

This is a continuation of yesterday's post on Johnny Belinda (1948) - see part 1 here.

When Lew Ayres first meets Belinda, she is raggedly clothed, with a dirty face, attending the birth of a heifer, tending to chickens and lugging sacks to the grist mill, consumed as much as her father and her aunt are in the endless drudgery of working just to eat. It is not a glamorous role for Jane Wyman, but as Belinda changes and cleans herself up to primp for the doctor, we see profound beauty in her, and in her studious dark eyes that dart over the faces around her, and in the lovely expression of her hands.

The film introduces sign language for a movie going audience which probably had not seen it before. It is conveyed in a simple and almost childlike way, as Belinda learns to sign “father” from the two signs of “man” and with hands to indicate he is holding a child. Even her father wonders delightedly at the fluttering fingers sign for “butterfly.”  He shows this to his sister, asking her if she can guess what it means. Miss Moorehead’s crushing and funny reply is, “It means you’ve gone looney.”

When Belinda is raped by Locky, the progress she has made is lost and she retreats back to a zombie state, frightened and repulsed at being touched. There is a nice scene when Ayres, frustrated at being unable to reach her, confesses his own loneliness to her. A softness returns to her inscrutable expression, and we see that they are the key to each other’s happiness.

It is a tight script, and several incidents build on each other. Some fine scenes are when Richardson must tell Belinda she is going to have a baby, when he confides in Aggie, who expresses horror at the crime and sympathy for her niece with whom she has always been sharp, and when he finally must tell Belinda’s father, who does not take the news well. Richardson eventually guesses that Locky is the father, and when the banns of marriage are read between him and Stella in church, Mr. Ayres’ sardonic expression, like Jane Wyman’s performance, is restrained yet tells us everything about his disgust and lack of surprise.

Another good scene is when Belinda’s baby, called Johnny, is born and Aggie wearily tells the worried expectant grandfather, “It’s hard to get born and it’s hard to die.” When Johnny is born, we hear only his infant cries. Belinda cannot even whimper much less scream. Just as affecting are her crying scenes, particularly when Richardson tells her he must go away. Her expression is anguished and her tears are silent, and all the more powerful for being so. Black MacDonald’s tears are silent, too, as he sits in the dark, waiting to be told if mother and child are well.

The trial is a bit melodramatic, but movie trials tend to be. The stalwart Canadian Mountie is positioned like a product logo for Canada in several shots to remind us the Dominion is just and fair, even for unwed deaf mute mothers who kill people.

Back to the musical score for a moment, at each tense scene, such as the Belinda’s difficult labor and the struggle between Locky and her father that results in her father’s death, we hear the scratchy fiddle sound that Locky made on the violin he stole to trick her into coming close enough to him for him to grab her. The sound is a harbinger of doom and a reminder of violence. It’s a small element, but very effective.

Johnny Belinda rode the crest of an era of post-war socially conscious films. It was a powerful film for its day tackling uncommon subjects, which director Jean Negulesco keeps from descending into lurid sensationalism by his attention to detail of everyday life in the village, on keeping this primarily a character study, and through the intelligent playing of a complicated girl half her age by a very talented lead actress.

This slide show from “Johnny Belinda” was recently placed on YouTube. Here you get a nice chance to listen to Max Steiner’s score.

For more tributes on Jane Wyman, see J.C. Loophole’s entry on The Shelf , and Laura’s post at Laura’s Miscellanous Musings and by Jaime J. Weinman at Something Old, Nothing New.

Johnny Belinda - Part 1

The recent death of actress Jane Wyman calls to mind one of her most famous roles, the role for which she won the Oscar as the deaf mute in Johnny Belinda (1948). It’s an interesting film, and quite unexpectedly beautiful.

The character of Belinda is isolated from the small Nova Scotia community by her deafness and by their prejudice. A lot happens in the film, most notably her rape and resulting pregnancy, and afterwards she goes on trial for murder. With such a forlorn character in such harsh surroundings and grim events, one would think the film could be as lurid as the sensational movie poster advertising the film, with its menacing shadow of a man over a cowering Belinda. The unusual inclusion of rape, a taboo subject in those days, was enough to attract publicity. There are indeed a few menacing shadows in the film; one can pick out film noir influences here and there, particularly the table level and floor-to-ceiling camera shots. However, the film comes off as gentle and kindly, and almost uplifting.

Max Steiner’s lilting score that seems to echo Belinda’s innocence may have something to do with this, and perhaps that most of it is shot out of doors, against a wide sea and a majestic sky. But a lot of the credit for the hopefulness and gentleness of this film lies with Jane Wyman.

Miss Wyman reportedly studied at a school for the deaf and learned, along with sign language, to use her eyes to convey how Belinda learns about the world; in effect, to listen with her eyes. Her expression, and her whole body language, is curtailed and without any exaggeration. It is a minimalist performance. She stiffens at the presence of others, like an animal relying on its instincts. She has adjusted to her world, but is lost in the world of others. She is classic case of a handicapped person who has been dismissed by others, and she has adjusted to being dismissed as much as to her deafness.

The film tells us right off what kind of world this is. We see immediately the working harbor, the fishing boats unloading their catch. We see the weather-beaten cottages and straggling fences, the peeling paint, the laundry that hangs limply in a wet ocean breeze. We see this is a hardscrabble existence. This is a poor community, but not an indolent, depressed and out-of-work community. Just the opposite; everyone is working as hard as they can at whatever they can to do survive. It is a hand-to-mouth existence. There is no time for pity even for someone like Belinda, who works as hard as an indentured servant on her father’s struggling farm and grist mill.

We also see immediately how the principle characters are established. Locky, played by Stephen McNally, is bullying, selfish and a charmer. Dr. Richardson is preoccupied, aloof. We see that Stella, played by Jan Sterling in a small but important role as his young housekeeper has a crush on him, but is courted by Locky because she is to inherit an uncle’s property. Locky needs the money to pay off his debts. We see Pacquet, the posturing, arrogant store owner to whom Locky, and many in the village, owe money. The villagers make the film. They are realistic and create a caste system we can easily follow.

Agnes Moorehead plays Belinda’s aunt, in one of her best roles. Miss Moorehead is feisty, curt, no nonsense, humorless, with a charming Scots burr.

But it is Miss Wyman’s film, and not just because she has a soap-opera heroine type role as an uber-victim. Her Belinda, curious and kind, blossoms under the attention of Dr. Richardson. He teaches her sign language, and by the end of the film even we know enough to understand her signing The Lord’s Prayer over the dead body of her father, and her confession of love to Dr. Richardson.

It is a simple message from the start, as Richardson, played by that master of kindly doctors, Lew Ayres is told by Black MacDonald, Belinda’s father, played by Charles Bickford, “If people would only learn to let each other live, it’d be a different world.”

More here in part 2 on Johnny Belinda.

Old Movie Buffs

You know you might be a real fan of old movies when:

Though cable news channels constantly cover the latest news about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, or anybody on American Idol, you still have no idea who they are talking about.

When the only thing about watching the Oscars on TV that interests you is what old timer is going to win some honorary award.

When the only people you recognize on the Oscar telecast are in the memoriam reel of performers who died in the preceding year.

You feel really bad about the performers dying in the preceding year.

You use words like “swell” in your speech to indicate approval.

When you and your spouse go to bed, one of you keeps at least one foot on the floor at all times.

You list the cast and put end credits on your vacation videos.

You put a Max Steiner score on your vacation videos.

You know who Max Steiner is.

You know who James Wong Howe, Gregg Toland, and Edith Head are, and any of the Westmores, and you can recite the film technicians’ names on any movie the way your kid can recite the starting lineup of a favorite baseball team.