THE BLACK HOLE (1979) expanded soundtrack debuts on CD

Intrada are about to release a special edition of the late John Barry's soundtrack to the outer space adventure The Black Hole (1979). Remastered from the original master tapes, this also promises to be the entire score, adding an extra twenty minutes of unreleased music. This is also the score's official debut on CD, see Soundtrack Collector for details.

Music samples, more details and CD ordering information on Intrada's website here.

I only wrote about John Barry's music for outer space a few weeks ago, a recurring and favourite theme of mine in all his work. The score for The Black Hole is some of John Barry's best work, regardless of what you think of the movie. Personally, the music has helped transport me into the dark, futuristic adventure. It's fun to see Disney taking some risks, killing off characters (that aren't parents) and even getting metaphysical...

My full review of The Black Hole is here.

Hopefully someone will remaster the movie soon. It looks very poor on "Disney DVD"...

(The above Japanese poster was teleported from the supreme sci-fi nostalgists' blog... Space: 1970.)

ONE MILLION B.C. (1940) - the original Tumak and Luana

ONE MILLION B.C.

(1940, USA, MAN AND HIS MATE)

Trend-setting rarity not on DVD, later remade by Hammer Films

I've always enjoyed dinosaur movies, but ones with good dinosaur effects are hard to find. This mixes great special effects with rubbish ones. It also set a blueprint for caveman movies for decades to come. The script was closely remade by Hammer Films in 1966, the format repeated by When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

 King Kong (1933) and The Lost World (1925) mixed humans and dinosaurs by having the animals survive for millions of years. This story reverses the format by pushing humans back into the same timeframe as dinosaurs, a huge historical inaccuracy that the film makers ignored, mixing in mammoths and other large mammals as well.

Until Jurassic Park, the most convincing dinosaurs had always been realised with stop-motion animation. But One Million BC ignores this approach, making it a weak link between King Kong (1933) and the remake One Million Years BC (1966) which had special effects by animation giants Willis O'Brien and his protegee Ray Harryhausen respectively. The special effects are still strong enough to make it worth seeing. The modelwork for the earthquakes and erupting volcano are exceptional. Some ingenious composite work also provides some shocks.

'Paste-up' composite publicity photo of a giant iguana somehow walking on two legs

The 'dinosaurs' are depicted with every visual effect that has never ever realistically worked. One Million BC has a crocodile with a dimetrodon sail fin stuck on its back, and a pig dressed up as a triceratops! Oh, and a pangolin with some rubber horns on its head - little more than a visit to a pets' fancy dress store. This looks silly, but the technique endured into the 1960s. Irwin Allen used dress-up animals extensively for his 1960 remake of The Lost World. Harryhausen even used one at the start of One Million Years BC. Visual effects like these made the basic animatronics in The Land That Time Forgot (1975) look like an improvement. 

But it gets worse - the animals are filmed fighting each other. There are some very nasty scenes of a crocodile and a gila monster chomping on each other and trying to twist off limbs. Exotic lizards are tipped through crumbling sets, buried in rubble, and surrounded by fire. There's a bear killing a snake and an almost dead gila monster pumping blood. Plus an astonishing shot of a cave/stuntman braining a charging bull with a staff. It's not quite Cannibal Holocaust but it's halfway there. This animal cruelty is apparently the main reason that this film has disappeared from home video. It used to play occasionally on British TV, sometimes under the alternate title Man and his Mate.

Least convincing is a disastrous 'man in a T Rex suit' which again looks like fancy dress. They knew it wasn't going to work and the suit is only seen in distant long-shots or hidden by really thick foliage. It's the scene in the remake where Tumak saves the girl up a tree in the village of the shell people. I've seen worse 'man in a T Rex suit' movies, but the best is easily The Land Unknown (1957).

The story, characters and dialogue were closely copied for the Hammer remake, though there's more soppiness here as the cave people all learn how to get along. A major difference is that the volcano eruption isn't the climax in the original. Victor Mature and Carole Landis seem to playing to a pre-teen audience, while Lon Chaney Jr milks pathos out of the deposed chief of the rock tribe, in a rare, disfigured make-up.

Without Harryhausen's dinosaurs and Raquel Welch's everything, this is a dry-run for a great remake with better dinosaurs.


Never on DVD, but it's all on YouTube, in segments...

Power Poll - 8/18

# TEAM NAME (Record) (Previous Rank)

1. Philadelphia Phillies (79-42) (1)

2. TIE Boston Red Sox (74-48) (2)

2. TIE New York Yankees (74-47) (3)

4. Milwaukee Brewers (73-52) (9)

5. TIE Atlanta Braves (72-52) (4)

5. TIE Texas Rangers (72-52) (6)

7. Arizona Diamondbacks (69-54) (13)

8. San Francisco Giants (67-57) (5)

9. Tampa Bay Rays (66-56) (7)

10. St Louis Cardinals (66-58) (11)

11. Detroit Tigers (65-58) (10)

12. Los Angeles Angels (65-59) (8)

13. Toronto Blue Jays (63-60) (14)

14. Cleveland Indians (61-58) (12)

15. Chicago White Sox (61-61) (19)

16. Cincinnati Reds (60-63) (16)

17. New York Mets (60-63) (17)

18. Washington Nationals (58-63) (18)

19. Pittsburgh Pirates (58-64) (15)

20. Colorado Rockies (58-67) (22)

21. Florida Marlins (57-66) (21)

22. Los Angeles Dodgers (56-67) (24)

23. Oakland A's (55-68) (25)

24. Minnesota Twins (54-68) (23)

25. Chicago Cubs (54-70) (29)

26. San Diego Padres (55-70) (26)

27. Seattle Mariners (53-69) (20)

28. Kansas City Royals (51-73) (28)

29. Baltimore Orioles (47-74) (27)

30. Houston Astros (40-84) (30)

All standings through 8/18/11

DOWNFALL (2004) - the horror of Hitler

DOWNFALL

(2004, Germany, DER UNTERGANG)

Who knew Hitler could be a YouTube hit? The stream of variations of 'Hitler is angry' and 'Hitler is informed...' recycles movie clips, but rewrites the English subtitles so that the Dictator appears to vent about lightweight grievances of modern life, ranging from iPads to football transfers. These are actually scenes from the 2004 film Downfall, usually when Hitler blames his staff for not informing him how much his troops have lost ground to the Allied forces.

I was prompted to see Downfall when I realised that producer/writer Bernd Eichinger and actor Bruno Ganz had worked together on this before The Baader-Meinhof Complex (2008). I also wanted to see if the YouTube phenomenon might affect newcomers to the movie. I found it engrossing, but also a doom-laden, claustrophobic experience. While I've always sought out horror movies, recently I'm finding well-made reality-based dramas far more horrifying than fiction.

It's not the first portrayal of Hitler's final days. There's been Hitler: The Last Ten Days starring Alec Guinness, and The Bunker starring Anthony Hopkins. It's a temptingly dramatic story. The dictator's death signalled the end of the Third Reich, Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe (Japan held out a little longer). Downfall is the latest version, and the first to be made by Germany, with the added benefit of a new and thorough eyewitness account from Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge.

The story uses her as a central thread to the narrative, from when she first joins Hitler's staff in his reinforced concrete bunker. Crucially, Junge worked with him as the Russian forces finally approached the hideout, and were simultaneously closing in on Berlin. As commander of Germany's forces, Hitler refuses to surrender even though it means the continuing deaths of his outnumbered troops, as well as the civilians left in the city. Despite the desperate situation, his loyalty to his own extreme ideals threaten to drag everyone down with him.

Hitler is undeniably a complex role to portray in any depth, with the added challenge of having to distance the portrayal from every comedian's manic impression. Previous adaptions usually had actors speaking English with a German accent. But Downfall benefits from everyone speaking German. Bruno Ganz (Harker in Herzog's Nosferatu, lead angel in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire) even had access to a rare recording of Hitler in conversation, in order to accurately mimic his ordinary speaking voice.

Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, had remained silent about the events she witnessed for much of her life. In her last years she helped write an account and appear in a documentary about her time with Hitler, when she was living and working in close quarters with him and transcribing his thoughts, right until his final testimonies.

The publicity emphasised this new account, though Downfall uses several other accounts, adding perspectives on what was happening elsewhere, particularly in Berlin. The production was controversial because the German people were still very afraid that any realistic portrayal of Hitler would show him as a human being, and therefore sympathetically.

But of course he was human, and Downfall dares to show the Hitler we don't usually see. Not grainy footage of of him shouting and gesticulating his speeches to the troops. Here he can be quiet, considerate, good with children and animals... But it's carefully presented as a paradox, showing that he was capable of compassion, even though he abhorred it as a weakness in anyone else. Under increasing pressure, his beliefs look like insanity to even his most trusted believers.

Downfall isn't just about historical events, but also an insight into the mentality of the Nazi leadership, and the strength of loyalty that enabled them to commit their crimes. Their lack of compassion extended to German civilians and their own families. The last nightmarish events in the bunker, on Chancellor and Frau Goebbels' final day, are even more as horrifying than the carnage on the streets of Berlin.

I started watching with a sense of dread, that reminded me of Titanic. I knew roughly what was going to happen eventually, and dreaded when and what I was going to see. The two and a half hours running time was a fascinating education and a haunting experience. The grim siege atmosphere where people coldly contemplate suicide over dinner. The horrible tension that the killing will continue as long as he's alive.

It's useful to know a little about the end of World War II beforehand, as there's little historical context included for newcomers. Knowing a little from a few documentaries didn't ready me for how powerful it was as a drama, rather than simply summarised in a voiceover.

The YouTube spoofs didn't spoil the film as I feared. I was already completely drawn into the story by the time that scene appeared. Don't get me wrong, I find them very funny. But I'm conscious that we only see Hitler played for laughs now - like when he pops up in Family Guy. He shouldn't just be a comedy character. Inglorious Basterds was a welcome change, to see a more visceral and emotional response to him.

The narrative is careful to show pivotal events from the perspectives of people we know survived the war to tell their story. In most scenes, it's carefully established which witness was around. I'm in awe of Bernd Eichinger's script having to distilling so much information, while including so much detail. It was a shock back in January when Eichinger passed away at the age of 61. Check out his production credits, you might be surprised at how many of his films you know.

Bruno Ganz's performance as Hitler is easily a career best. But there are many exceptional performances, especially from the women: Juliane Köhler as Eva Braun, and Corinna Harfouch as Magda Goebbels have extremely difficult scenes, but are utterly convincing. Alexandra Maria Lara, as Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, has the central role, though is maybe a little too wise in some of her reactions.

The UK blu-ray from Momentum shows up a lot of film grain, but the 5.1 soundtrack adds to the feeling of being surrounded by a constant enemy bombardment. There are commentary tracks, making-of featurettes, some very interesting interviews with the main cast and an insightful summary from Traudl Junge's biographer of how her full story came to light.

I then watched the documentary Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary (2002) as a test of Downfall's accuracy. It consists solely of filmed interviews with Junge, shortly before she passed away. It was a surprise to see a couple of contradictions between her accounts and some of the events in Downfall, like how she escapes, which proved that it had exercised some dramatic license. But I was very impressed at how the accurately the film portrayed the atmosphere that Junge describes in the final days in the bunker.

Junge talks about her life after the war, apparently dismayed how she was so close to Hitler for so long, while ignorant of what he'd been implementing. Her testimony is fascinating and not all of her stories are dramatised in Downfall, including an account of how his own men tried to kill Hitler (dramatised in Valkyrie) which actually ends up as funny.

Publicity for Downfall says this was the first dramatisation of Hitler in a German film. But interestingly there was another German-language portrayal, which Traudl Junge also advised on, in 1955. Der Letzte Akt (The Last Ten Days) was directed by the G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box), but made in Austria. I can't find this available anywhere though.


Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary was shown as part of BBC's Storyville documentary strand, and has been on DVD in the UK and US. Melissa Muller's book, written with Traudl Junge, is still widely available.

LOVE

Blink-182 front man Tom Delonge started Angels and Airwaves after the demise of blink-182 (who are now back together), it was a new band and an outlet for him to try things that he felt blink-182 was holding him back from. The band's first album, We Don't Need To Whisper (2006) was on constant play in my room, I would often need music to fall asleep and it would always be the first of 6 cd's in my cd player. I loved that album because it was dreamy but also had insightful lyrics and rocked at certain points. Angels and Airwaves would release their sophomore album in 2007, it was called I-Empire which I enjoyed but not as much as the first album. In 2010 Angels and Airwaves released LOVE, a free album which could be downloaded on their web site for no cost.



It was around then that I started to hear that they were filming a movie to the music of the LOVE album. What I didn't know is that they started working on the movie 5 years ago. The band wanted to convey a message to the fans through other ways besides music. Delonge hired William Eubank and the band produced the movie on a shoe string budget, which was $500,000. Eubank built sets in his parents driveway building each set piece mostly with just a few people helping him out. The movie also features a small civil war battle which was all filmed in his parents back yard. Having seen the film, some of it looks like it was professionally done and I give many kudos to Eubank for taking 5 long years of his life to make the sets and work his hardest on the film. It is not everyday that a band realses a movie and I think it was a cool way to get their message out.





The trailer for LOVE







I saw the movie earlier this week, it was one of those fanthom events you often see before a movie starts. The band took questions from write ins after the movie as well as playing a small set of songs including the debut of a new song. I won't say the theater was crowded but they people in the audience were real fans of Angels and Airwaves music. About 20 minutes before the show started Delonge introduced some shorts that tie into the movie and then they showed the movie itself. I am not going to explain the entire plot but here is my thought on the movie: I really liked that the band went out on a limb and the film conveys a message but does so in a long and drawn out way. I respect the hell out of Delonge and Eubank, but the movie lags in several spots and makes you wonder when the end will come. The movie does look amazing, they paid great detail to everything you see in it and it looks the budget of it was much more then what is being reported. Eubank was a cinematographer on 8 other movies and knows how to make a movie look its best.



LOVE, was a great experiment in movie making. I love that a band produced a movie and stuck through with it for 5 years. They really wanted to show their die hard fans that they are very serious about the music and its messages. I wanted to really love the movie but I cannot say I did, but I can also say that I think it was a good idea and maybe one day it will sink in but for now the movie sort of missed its overall mark.

Flea Market Report

Last Sunday I again went to the flea with my good friend Dennis and again I made some good and cheap finds. Again it was a perfect day outside and we were ready to make some interesting finds at the Capitol flea market. Dennis also gave me a gift of a badass Back To The Future DeLorean toy that I wanted, check it out!



You usually find all the best stuff early on and at first this didn't seem to be the case as I was coming up empty early on, that was until I saw something that I wanted. What I saw was an old Oakland Invaders pennant. The Invaders were part of the USFL a league that tried to compete with NFL from 1983-1987, the Invaders had a really good and classic symbol that stands the test of time. I remember seeing a similar pennant a lot when I was a kid and once I saw it I knew I wanted it because it is somewhat rare and took my back to my childhood. Dennis said he asked about the pennants before and they wanted like $5, but when I asked they said $2 so I took that without any hesitation.





I was pretty happy with my find and willing to leave but Dennis was on a search for something nearby and I circled back to the same seller and saw a Mad magazine that had a Jaws spoof which intrigued me. I looked at the date and it was from 1976, so it was an original. Since I'm a huge Jaws fan I thought it would be cool to have this somewhat older piece. Right next to the Jaws magazine were a bunch of older NFL stickers. I saw a 49ers sticker from 7-11 as well as a bunch of other teams. I wanted the 49ers sticker as well, I could immediately seeing it being on my car somewhere. The other teams they had were: Dolphins, Bills, Chiefs, Giants, and Cowboys which I decided against. Now that I wanted the stickers and Jaws magazine I had to negotiate a price. They lady said everything was a dollar each so she was looking to get $7 or so, I said how about $5 and a deal was made. Some of the stickers appear to be from the bottom of cups of 7-11 sodas, I would say most are from the mid to late 70's. The 49ers one is really cool because it looks like that somewhat vintage look and is sticky on the front, I have already put it on my car.






The Mad magazine is really a nice piece as well. You can see the cover yourself below. I read the story which they called Jaw'd. It is about Chief Brooding, Captian Squint, and Clod Hopper on their search for a shark who has its own theme music. The other movie featured in the magazine is Mirthquake aka Eathquake.




After that massive score I hit a cold streak. It seems like a lot of the deals are found in one area of the flea market, usually sellers who are not there a lot. The ones who are there every weekend are on the other side and usually have the same old shit because they will not sell unless they get the exact price they want. We were almost done with the entire middle section when we came around to a seller who was super crowded. We wondered why everyone was at this one guys place and decided to check it out further.

Dennis saw some Nintendo games in a box on the floor and after he said something I knew he had something good. He came out with Contra for NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). I was sorta bummed because I am an avid NES collector and always like to collect the classic games. Lucky for me the guy had a few more games that I wanted, one that is long considered a classic NES game, Metroid! I was able to get it for $2 bucks, a steal for what this game is worth. Dennis got Contra and Three Stooges on NES. It appears the seller was someone who buys out old storage units and sells them off at flea markets. I was happy to add a classic game to my collection of NES games.





Well after that not much else was found by me. I know Dennis scored some VHS movies but the weather was getting hot so it was time to go and get some Taco Bell. Next weekend i am going to the flea market in Pasadena with my brother, so i hope to have another flea market report up soon. Thanks for reading, see you at the flea!

John Barry's soundtracks - atmosphere for outer space

 

My life in space with the music of John Barry

I've regularly listened to John Barry's soundtracks for many years, but when I'd heard he'd died, on January 30th, I stopped listening to his music. The news was a shock, out of the blue. I didn't want to be reminded that there'd be no more of the music I've grown up with. It's taken a few months for me to start again and I just wanted to talk a little about my very favourite of his tracks.

He scored outer space like no-one else. Previous sci-fi movies set in space famously used classical music (2001: A Space Odyssey) or electronic atmospherics (Forbidden Planet), but John Barry's take was more about awe, mystery and trepidation, retaining the danger of humanity living outside the atmosphere.

As long as I can remember going to the cinema, we're talking mid-1960s, I remembered his music. My Mum took me to see a re-release of You Only Live Twice (1967) in 1968. At the start of the story, a US space rocket is followed by another. The surprise of it opening up, then swallowing the other, never left me. The track 'Capsule In Space' describes danger approaching during a space walk. The score accompanies the action perfectly, but also works as a stand-alone piece. The experience in the cinema was enough to put me off space travel, the same way Jaws put me off swimming in the sea.

I was then old enough to see Bond films in the cinema during their first run. I especially loved the exciting music to the ski chases in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). So much so that I'd concentrate on carrying the music away with me in my head. I did this for years until I could afford or find the soundtracks.

I was delighted there was another scene set in space in Diamonds Are Forever(1971), during the launch of a killer satellite. After several stage separations, the beautiful weapon deploys, then begins picking off targets around the world. The tempo of the space march '007 and Counting' matches its graceful motion, alternated with the horrendous power it unleashes.

The theme tune to Diamonds Are Forever really imprinted on me. The impact of Barry's James Bond theme songs were combined in the cinema with the most lavish, widescreen 'pop videos'. Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra and Shirley Bassey singing top ten hits with huge, naked, pop art visuals by Maurice Binder. The music and the images were also associated with the anticipation of two hours of the most exciting films of the time. For many years after their release, Bond movies weren't seen outside of cinemas, being continually re-released until TV eventually paid huge sums to show them, Dr No (1962) wasn't shown on TV in the UK until 1975. I had the chance to see each one several times in the cinema - the music was part of the attraction of seeing them again.

The soundtracks never stayed in circulation on vinyl for very long. If you were lucky, they'd maybe appear when a new format, like music cassettes, were introduced. The search for the albums missing from my paltry collection kept me hunting through record shops looking for secondhand records or cassettes. For many years, this James Bond Collection double-album (above) was the only Bond music to be reissued. A life-saving compilation of cues from the original soundtracks, at a time when there were dozens of weedy soundalike albums. Geoff Love cover versions weren't a sufficient alternative to the real deal.

I'd even record my favourite sections off the TV, when no soundtrack was available. I waited decades for many missing cues to finally appear when the expanded James Bond soundtracks were released in 2003.

But meanwhile, John Barry made more space music. After Star Wars (1977)became a big box office hit, he composed for three more outer space movies, around 1979. But he remained true to his earlier approach of danger and mystery.

Moonraker put James Bond in his very own Space Shuttle. 'Flight Into Space' describes the tension of the launch in the familiar march motif. Again Barry describes the wonder of being in space and the surprises revealed out there.

Another track 'Space Lazer Battle' anticipated some of the aural effects he'd use in The Black Hole. The scene of astronauts fighting in zero gravity is far more convincingly done than the one in The Green Slime. While Moonraker is far from the best Bond movie, I've enjoyed the soundtrack literally hundred of times.

The main title to The Black Hole (1979) makes it sound almost like a sea-going adventure. Again there's a foreboding tone accenting the hazards, particularly from the black hole itself. This time, the whole album accompanies deep space. Barry's music has to carry the entire climax of the film with the track 'Into The Hole', using increasingly mysterioso effects.

Lastly, I'll even mention Starcrash (1978). John Barry sometimes scored movies he later regretted. It may be embarrassingly (though enjoyably) awful, but tracks like 'Launch Adrift' are particularly beautiful. While the album isn't as consistent as the other two, it's still John Barry in his prime.

Among his many soundtracks, I notice a few tracks that seem out of step with the rest of the score - otherworldly moments reminding me of his 'space music'. In Beat Girl (1960) the track '2000 AD', in Midnight Cowboy (1969) there's 'Science Fiction'. In the superb score to King Kong (1976), the haunting 'Full Moon Domain'. And in Dances With Wolves (1990), 'Stands With A Fist remembers'.

Barry's last non-soundtrack albums The Beyondness of Things (1999) and Eternal Echoes (2001) continued with echoes of the lost 'wild' west from Dances With Wolves. In both, there's a sense that he's summing up his life and saying farewell. But I had no idea that it was going to be so soon.

Of course there's much more to his music, and no matter what you think of the movies, here are my favourite John Barry soundtracks to recommend to you:

Some exceptional James Bond soundtracks I haven't mentioned, From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965) and The Living Daylights (1987). They set high standards for how to make action even more exciting.

  

The Ipcress File (1965) accompanied the low-key flipside of spying in the Cold War. This soundtrack propelled Barry into the A-list of soundtrack composers.

Deadfall (1968) woke me up to his being superb music, not just a backing track. The fourteen minute 'Romance for Guitar and Orchestra' at the heart of Deadfall is one of Barry's greatest achievements. Working with director Bryan Forbes, the track had to be woven into the film, being performed in front of the camera, as well as scoring the action of the robbery scene that intercuts with the concert hall footage.

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland (1972) is a rare musical from Barry. With songs as beautiful as they are strange.

King Kong (1976) is one of his very best scores, again to be enjoyed many more times than the movie.

My playlists of his music are made up of my very favourite tracks, cherry-picked from his albums. In all, they're still over 14 hours long. Some of it represents forty years of listening... and counting.