PSYCHO (1960) - original music still not on CD

PSYCHO - the music

The mother of all horror soundtracks is still not available on CD

I think this music is in my blood. My mother told me that she went to see Psycho at the cinema when it was first in London. She was pregnant at the time... Yes dear readers, I experienced my first horror movie... WHILE I WAS STILL IN THE WOMB! (Shrieking violins...)

I just want a Psycho soundtrack CD. I listen to a lot of soundtracks, including horror, but I can usually tell if it's a re-recording. That is, what's on the CD isn't what was used in the film. This is quite common with older films where the tapes have been lost and a modern orchestra re-records the music. Fair enough. But I know that the elements for Psycho are still out there. Second-best maybe all that's possible for lesser known soundtracks, but c'mon. It's Psycho. It's a movie classic, not just a horror classic.

The best horror movie soundtrack ever made? That's a matter of taste. But what's the most influential horror movie soundtrack? I'd say we're talking Jaws, Alien and Psycho. The music that's most likely to be plundered for inspiration and temp tracks. While Jaws has had a digitally remastered CD re-issue, the Bernard Hermann Psycho soundtrack has never officially been on CD.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of soundtracks that have 'paid homage' to the Psycho score are out on CD. Including Danny Elfman's recreation of the score, recorded for Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake in 1998.


The Herrmann CD sounds lush, but it's a re-recorded version (artwork above). But just compare the tempo of the first track, the title music, you'll notice that it's considerably slower. It sounds urgent, but not frantic. It's definitely not the recording used in the film. There are several other CDs out there (like the artwork at the top), but none are the original.

It has been available, sort of, included as a music-only track on the huge laserdisc boxset, unfortunately on an analogue track. So at least the elements still exist. But what about a digitally remastered release? Sometime?

If I'm wrong about any of this, and there has been a CD out somewhere, please let me know. My main source of information here is Soundtrack Collector who list the only truly original CD as a bootleg. I'm guessing that it was made from the laserdisc, which was a very hissy analogue source. And it's a bootleg. So it doesn't count.

GOBLIN: the sound of Argento - live in London

GOBLIN in concert, London, 2009

Anyone who's seen Dario Argento's horror films Suspiria, Tenebrae or Deep Red have heard the music of Italian prog-rockers Goblin. The band also composed and played most of the music for Zombies: Dawn of the Dead (1978). The soundtrack for Suspiria is a prolonged and uniquely scary experience. Wide stereo sighs and whispers surround the unusual strings and pounding percussion.

I've not stopped listening to the Suspiria and Zombies albums for thirty years now. So I'd have kicked myself, viciously and mercilessly, if I'd missed this concert (thanks for the last minute tip, Tony). Goblin played their first ever London gig on July 27th in The Scala, near King's Cross. It's been twenty years since they last played in the UK. Back then, The Scala was my favourite cinema. one that played cheap double bills of 'alternative' movies and lotsa horror films. The programming choices were superb. Where else in London could you see Batman - The Movie (1966) with Barbarella (1968) on a big screen, Frank Henenlotter double-bills, and even John Waters triples, if you were brave enough. You could drink beer in the cinema and put your feet up on the seats. I loved the place.

Seeing it transformed into a concert venue for the first time was weird. The layout inside the main auditorium has changed a lot, but is still recognisable. The stage is roughly where the old screen used to be. While I watched the support band, I realised that it was at The Scala that I'd seen many of Dario Argento's films for the first time. As Goblin played two tracks each from Zombies: Dawn of the Dead, Suspiria, Tenebrae and Deep Red, I was flashing back to seeing the films in the same cavernous room.


I didn't take many photos. If I concentrate on the camera, I'd miss the concert. I also don't use flash, it wipes out the atmosphere, so these photos are the best of the lot.


To say it was a memorable concert is an understatement. They played most of their new album, Back to the Goblin, but the audience whooped when they started with the old favourites. Re-edited clips from the films were projected behind the band. The same images that played on a much larger screen. A few feet further forward, two decades back.

My Tube

Not too much to blog about of late. I am enjoying my summer off. Went to LA and am going to Vegas next week so that should be fun. I got half way to my list of 100 movies but I don't think there is anyway I will finish it, seeing as I have a month left and oh 48 movies more to see.

So here are some clips that have peeked my interest off you tube. The first one is a great video by Miles Fisher. This video is really well done and the actor has an uncanny resemblance to Christian Bale, or at least how he looked during the movie American Psycho, which the video is playing homage to. The music is eh ok...check it out you will not regret it! The video is a cover of a Talking Heads song called This Must Be The Place.





The second video is from the upcoming Tron sequel. At first I though this clip was a video game but then I realized it was not, a bit of a surprise at the end of the clip. I would watch it in HD if you can (I can! I got a new cpu with a HD screen) If you wish to just simoply click on the videos and watch them directly on YouTube. WELCOME TO TRON!



The last one is a review from my favorite Angry Video Game nerd, even if you have never watch the angry ones reviews before you must watch this one. He probably found the worst game ever made! It has to do with chickens, pandas, shower scenes...yah and much more. So go watch it now!!!

Video Games | ScrewAttack | Angry Video Game Nerd: Plumbers Don't Wear Ties

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) early homages in new Tarantino

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
(USA, 2009)

Some notes, but no spoilers, on my favourite Tarantino film...

Crikey! I like the new film from that fellow, Quentin Tarantino. I know everyone and his brother is going to blog about it, but I'd like to add my own tuppenceworth. Saw the UK Premiere last week. Went in without so much as a clue what the deuce it was all about. Damned fine! Good to see he's not just been watching 70s and 80s exploitation movies, and seen some quality war films of the 1960s. Well-pronounced drama, dry comedy, selfless heroism... all punctuated by short savage bursts of graphic violence. Bravo!

Tarantino takes risks with the pacing, alternating action with drama, letting scenes run long, milking the suspense. There's constant danger that the characters will get caught by the Nazis, who will do to them what the Nazis did best...

Tarantino has encouraged inspired performances from the cast, serving them with dialogue that for once doesn't sound like they're channeling his trademark rants. The attention to detail in the script, of history and particularly European languages, puts many other American productions to shame. The totally 'borrowed' soundtrack is risk-taking but really enjoyable.

It also surprised me by being as much about cinema as it is about war. Besides being relevant to the story, there are many nostalgic reminders about oldschool film technology, like showing reel-changes in a projection booth, as well as tributes to many kings of early European cinema. I won't spoil the many amusing 'references' in the film, but would like to tell you of a couple of the oldest homages...

I was astonished to see G.W. Pabst getting name-checks. But it's only fitting considering that the director made two silent classics of pre-Nazi Germany, both starring American actress Louise Brooks. Two must-see silent classics - Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl (both 1929).

A detail in another scene is the French wartime thriller Le Corbeau (1943). A tense and clever thriller that showed that edgy, angry material could be produced even when the country was occupied by the enemy. The story is about the damaging effects of malicious gossip and paranoia on a small town. It's just as relevant today. Clouzot was known as the French Hitchcock and was even an influence. 'The Master of Suspense' certainly saw Clouzot's Les Diaboliques and wanted to make a thriller just as inventive and shocking - it turned out to be Psycho. Basterds also gets a Hitchcock film involved in the mix...

There's an earlier reference to the Jewish legend of the Golem. Don't hear much about him nowadays! My overview of this unusual European monster is here. The impressive silent movie version heavily influenced Universal Studio's first version of Frankenstein(1931).


Inglourious Basterds is funny, violent, but also a brutal drama about brutal people.

... and it's a delight to see Universal's seventies globe logo at the start of the film. A nostalgic reminder of how some of my favourite movies used to begin.

PUPPET ON A CHAIN (1971) - rare Alistair Maclean action thrills

PUPPET ON A CHAIN
(1971, UK)

 UPDATED March, 2012 - new US DVD release 

A brutal blond-haired tough guy using any means necessary to bring down heroin smugglers in Amsterdam. With a pistol, and brute force, he's actually an undercover agent working for the good guys, despite his destructive murderous methods. This is a personal favourite of mine for the spectacular, verging-on-reckless, speedboat chase through the canals of Amsterdam that pre-dates many of the stunts used as the centrepiece of James Bond classic Live And Let Die (1973). I was shocked to see how little attention this action thriller had on IMDB.
What if Daniel Craig was James Bond in the 1970s?

Movies based on Alistair Maclean novels were sure-fire hits back in the 1970s, fuelled by the popularity of his earlier schoolboy-pleasing WW2 adventures, The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, he then spawned a string of modern-day tough-guy action thrillers, like this one.


After a triple-murder in Los Angeles, a heroin-smuggling pipeline is traced back to Amsterdam and the police's top unorthodox undercover operative is brought in to track down the murderers. Diving headfirst into the seedy world of prostitutes, junkies, pimps and pushers, he murders his way through the bad guys to get closer to the truth. OK, maybe it was self-defence. There's some creepy doll moments too, adding to the weird twilight portrayal of drug-addiction.

Besides the boat chase similarity with Live And Let Die, the hero's persona is much the same as Daniel Craig's present James Bond, but with less charisma. He's not totally heartless, falling for his fellow operative on the case, but he's practically a stone killer.

It's a good opportunity to enjoy a 70s Bond-type thriller without Roger Moore's increasingly lightening of the role with awful jokes. A very similar Maclean character is the downright misogynistic anti-hero played by Anthony Hopkins in When Eight Bells Toll.

Puppet on a Chain was usually cut for TV, but in the early 1970s even family audiences could see a little bloody mayhem and even the occasional topless waitress in the cinema. Go-go boys, body stockings and psychedelic nightclubs were borderline classifications, but still allowed for all ages.

The star is Sven-Bertil Taube, who I failed to remember from The Eagle Has Landed (1976). He's excellent, but maybe too humourless for a career in action movies. Barbara Parkins usually played a suburban good girl in Valley of the Dolls and Peyton Place and seems ill at ease here, but was also dipping into horror at the time, in The Mephisto Waltz and Asylum. Best of all is Vladek Sheybal whose Polish accent and cheeky acting enlivens every screen appearance (UFO, From Russia With Love, Deadfall, The Boyfriend). He and Sven also brave out much of the onscreen stunt work.

The best Alistair Maclean thrillers on DVD:

These include some of the most action-packed thrillers of the 1970s, paralleling the early Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood tough guy films where the hero is an anti-hero, prone to destructive, stunt-heavy action. More love wanted for the Maclean!

Here's a scratchy original trailer on YouTube, NOT representative of the quality on the new DVD...

The big chase scene makes the most of the location, with spectacular helicopter shots of the speedboats charging through the canals of Amsterdam city centre. The stuntwork, particularly the collisions, seems to exceed the bounds of safety of even Jackie Chan's Hong Kong films. The scene was shot by cult director Don Sharp (Psychomania, Curse of the Fly, Kiss of the Vampire, The Face of Fu Manchu).

I've yet to see the new DVD from Scorpion Releasing, but DVD Talk give the new widescreen transfer a good review...THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961) UK and USTHE SATAN BUG (1965) Available widescreen from Warner Archives
WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968) UK and US
WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL (1971) UK DVD
PUPPET ON A CHAIN (1971) USA widescreen DVD, released March, 2012 (above)FEAR IS THE KEY (1972) UK widescreen
FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE (1978) US and UK
Other films based on Maclean novels include Caravan To Vaccares, Breakheart Pass (Charles Bronson), Golden Rendezvous (Richard Harris) and Bear Island (Donald Sutherland) all of which I haven't seen recently enough to pass comment. But his body of thrillers obviously influenced action cinema for nearly two decades. Many of these rarer films are out in Scandinavia, but only as fuzzy-looking, non-digital, full-frame transfers.

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1939) - the pick of the hunch

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
(1939, USA)

I recently watched three movie versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and completely revised my opinions of all of them. The Lon Chaney (1923), Charles Laughton (1939) and Disney musical (1996) versions were the three most lavish and serious attempts at visualising the story. But which stands as the best?

The novel by Victor Hugo (who also wrote Les Miserables and The Man Who Laughs) centres on the clash between the gypsy population and the citizens of 15th century Paris. Violent unrest threatens the peace of the city when a young gypsy girl is framed and takes sanctuary in Notre Dame cathedral, protected by the deformed deaf-mute bell-ringer. They're all unaware that they're being manipulated in a bid to ridding the city of travellers...

The Disney version, which I enjoyed first time around in the cinema, updated the story with the feisty gypsy girl matching the chief of the police in both strength and wit. There was also an unusually adult portrayal of a predatory religious hypocrite, for Disney anyway. But seeing it again, the heavy use of modern, anachronistic puns and sight gags, together with too much unfunny slapstick, spoiled it for me considerably. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood for a musical (rarely am). I don't think it's aged as well as many other recent Disney features.

Next I watched the version I'd assumed would be the best, with Lon Chaney in the silent movie epic. The versatile actor has had a considerable amount written about him in recent years, particularly three exhaustive and impressive books by Michael Blake. Chaney's films are amongst the most watchable and available silent movies on home video, certainly of interest for fans of early horror and the macabre. I really enjoy Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera (1925) the most of all the Phantoms. It's a must-see silent movie and horror film.

So I expected Chaney's previous portrayal of the Hunchback, Quasimodo, would be similarly impressive, but I found the film to be slow and too talky. Quite a feat for a silent movie. Chaney's portrayal of Quasimodo was also hard to take seriously because of the make-up. His mop of Scarecrow hair and unreal facial disfigurements were part of his most elaborate and extensive make-up, but not his most successful. Of course, it's impressive that he designed and applied the look of his spectacular characters. But I'd say that the 1939 version easily outshines his work here.


The Charles Laughton version, directed by Wiliam Dieterle, is a masterpiece. Even worth highlighting for your attention here. A movie that looks like it actually might have had a cast of thousands. The plot still holds surprises, including some a sublimated sexual undercurrent, as Esmeralda gets caught in a love quadrangle (she's that popular!). There's a superb cast, particularly the treacherous Frollo, exceptionally played by Cedric Hardwicke (The Ghost of Frankenstein, Rope).


Full honours have to go to the astounding performance by Charles Laughton (Night of the Hunter, The Old Dark House), in a flawless make-up. Laughton plays Quasimodo deaf and dumb, struggling to communicate with everyone around him. Impressively he still acts up a storm without the power of clear speech and under a ton of make-up. The actor is almost completely unrecognisable, in a role reminiscent of John Hurt as Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980).


There's a misleading early scene with him acting like a typical Frankenstein sidekick, lurking in the shadows, chasing a helpless girl while doing his master's bidding. It's fun but feels out of character. A bigger minus for modern audiences could be the overly theatrical turn by a young Edmund O' Brien (Fantastic Voyage), who is overacting to the heavens, because he's playing a smitten theatrical type.

Hopefully the drawbacks are be outweighed by the spectacularly huge sets, beautiful black-and-white cinematography, gigantic crowds and action scenes, and a top-rate cast milking the intense drama that feels decades ahead of its time.

It was an RKO picture, so I shouldn't have been surprised that the late Robert Wise edited it, shortly before he also did Citizen Kane for the same studio.

All three versions of Hunchback are out on DVD in the US. But while the 1939 film used to play regularly on British TV, it isn't on DVD in the UK.

Finally here's the trailer for the 1939 The Hunchback of Notre Dame on YouTube.

My Real Childhood Heroes

I was a lucky kid, I had a older brother who would mostly put up with me and my dad was a manager for Toys R Us while I was growing up. For some reason I recall this moment over and over again as a kid: Me and Kevin (before mentioned older brother) were counting up our GI Joe's and finally reached that magical kid number that at the time seemed like the largest number in the world, we has finally counted up our Joe's and had 100 of them.

While this moment resonates in my mind is a mystery, but it does and I can remember being in his room for the final count. It seemed like we accomplished something that day, but really all we did was collect 100 GI Joes that cost $3.99 a pop. GI Joe was my toy, it was the cartoon I would watch and love as a child. I own the GI Joe animated movie from 1987, some kids were into Transformers I had my real american heroes. I can remember that playing with the Joes was a way of bonding for me, not only with Kevin but also with kids at school. I would often hang out with kids and play and compare GI Joe's it was an instant way to get to know them.

This was suppose to be about the new GI Joe movie titled G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra. I guess GI Joes were more then just a toy to me, but they held many great memories. I was a tad to young to be hardcore into Star Wars (that would come during my teen years) and besides The Real Ghostbuster toys for me it was pretty much Joe or nothing.

I mean look at these character designs, who can look at Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, or Firefly and not say they look fucking awesome (and have kick ass code names to boot). Snake Eyes never even talks and he is on the coolest guys in cartoon/toy history, I would even go as far to say he is somewhat Boba Fett like.

You also had some hot chicks, Baroness and Scarlett. Even the bad guys were cool looking. Destro with his shiny metal dome head and Cobra Commander had some good suits, the classic Blue hood look is my favorite. I know they are not wearing the suits in the movie, I am sad but I really understand. It worked mostly for the X-men franchise, and I am not sure if you have seen some of those old uniforms but they would not work in real combat situations.

So the movie? Sure I have some issues with it, like I wish it was made with a better cast but some early reviews are showing that it could be a fun summer action flick. I am really looking forward to seeing it because it reminds me of a simpler time when I was just a kid who would go outside and make my own little world with my toys. The movie sucking will not take that away. If the movie is good it will just add more interest to going back to my childhood and buying some more of those cool new GI Joe toys, I always look at them when I go to target...who knows maybe I will buy some next time I see them.