New film music releases: Fried, Rozsa.

New music releases include:

•  The Grissom Gang (1971; composer Gerald Fried). Dragon's Domain Records. For more information or to hear some clips, go here.

• The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977) and Background to Violence suite (composer Miklós Rózsa); the suite includes selections from The Naked City,  The Killers, and Brute Force). Citadel Records. For more information or to hear some clips, go here.

 

 

Film Music Friday: More music from film noir.

Joseph Cotten, left, with Jack Moss in Eric Ambler's
Journey into Fear (1943)

A recent episode of Kansas Public Radio's Film Music Friday focused on music from film noir, including selections from Double Indemnity (composer Miklós Rózsa, 1944); Journey into Fear (composer Roy Webb, 1943); Laura (composer David Raksin, 1944); Please Murder Me (composer Albert Glasser, 1956); Sorry, Wrong Number (composer Franz Waxman, 1948); and more.

Film Music Friday: Whodunits.

Edward G. Robinson in
The Red House (1947)

The latest episode of Kansas Public Radio's Film Music Friday focuses on whodunits. Included is music from The Big Sleep (composer: Max Steiner), Chinatown (composer: Jerry Goldsmith), High and Low (composer: Masaru Sato), Knives Out (composer: Nathan Johnson), Murder on the Orient Express (composer: Richard Rodney Bennett), and The Red House (composer: Miklós Rózsa).

New CD: Film Noir at Paramount.

Intrada has recently released Double Indemnity: Film Noir at Paramount, which includes selections from Miklos Rozsa's score for Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity; Hugo Friedhofer's score for Wilder's Ace in the Hole; Franz Waxman's music for Anatole Litvak's Sorry, Wrong Number; Victor Young's music for Byron Haskins's I Walk Alone; Gail Kubik's score for William Wyler's The Desperate Hours; Leith Stevens's music from Michael Curtiz's The Scarlet Hour; and Heinz Roemheld's music from Rudolph Mate's Union Station. (thanks to Film Score Monthly)

 

New in thriller music.

Some items re mystery film music, thanks to Scott Bettencourt at Film Score Monthly:

• The new The Man in Half Moon Street showcases the compositions of Miklos Rozsa, providing music from this 1945 thriller as well as some of his work for The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946).

• A two-CD set has been released of Bruce Broughton's soundtrack for Young Sherlock Holmes (1985).

• Also released is the original soundtrack by Michael Small for Child's Play (a 1972 thriller directed by Sidney Lumet that features James Mason, Robert Preston, and Beau Bridges)

WQXR Movies on the Radio: 1940s films.

Miklos Rozsa conducts his suite
 from Ben Hur, 1979 (PBS)

The March 29 episode of WQXR's Movies on the Radio features scores from the 1940s, which includes music from Double Indemnity (composed by Miklos Rozsa), The Maltese Falcon (composed by Adolph Deutsch), and Spellbound (composed by Bernard Herrmann).

WQXR: "The Dark Drama of Film Noir."

The Asphalt Jungle, just one film
scored by Miklos Rozsa

A recent rebroadcast from the WQXR radio series Movies on the Radio was "The Dark Drama of Film Noir," focusing on film composers Adolph Deutsch, Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rozsa, and Max Steiner.

Happy birthday, mystery composer Miklos Rozsa.

Distinguished film composer Miklos Rozsa was born today in Budapest in 1907. His mystery-related film scores

Barry Fitzgerald, left, and Don Taylor
in The Naked City

include Double Indemnity (1944; Oscar nominee, Best Score), Blood on the Sun (1945), Spellbound (1945; Oscar winner, Best Score), The Killers (1946; Oscar nominee, Best Score), The Naked City (1948), A Woman's Vengeance (1948), The Bribe (1949), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Time after Time (1979), and Eye of the Needle (1981). He died in 1995.

To hear some clips from his work, visit the following links:
• The Asphalt Jungle
• Double Indemnity
• The Naked City
• Spellbound
• Time after Time

Miklos Rozsa on The Killers.

Syracuse's online exhibition "Lights, Camera, Music" features film composers Franz Waxman and Miklos Rozsa, including discussion of Rozsa's score for The Killers—namely, Rozsa's ultimately successful claim that the theme for Dragnet was lifted from The Killers.

About the image: Burt Lancaster in The Killers (1946, dir. Robert Siodmak)