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LAKEPORT, Calif. — Debonaire spies, superheroes, dinosaurs and witches from the Kingdom of Oz — they are all part of the musical program planned for the Lake County Symphony’s Mother’s Day Pop Concert at the Soper Reese Theatre.
John Parkinson, conductor and musical director for the Lake County Symphony, has chosen music from several memorable movies for this year’s concert on May 11.
The concert starts with the 2006 film, “Superman Returns” as Superman, who is back on Earth after an absence of five years, discovers that his love interest, Lois Lane, has moved on from him while his archenemy, Lex Luthor, is planning to kill him and reshape North America. John Ottman was the editor and film score composer for this sequel and used John Williams’ music from the first Superman movie made in 1978. Ottman greatly respected Williams and later told interviewers that the prolific movie composer had influenced his decision to become a musician.
The second piece in the Mother’s Day Concert features a medley of tunes from several James Bond movies: “Goldfinger,” “Live and Let Die,” “For Your Eyes Only,” and “The Spy Who Loved Me.”
“Nobody Does it Better” (sung by Carly Simon) was the theme song for “The Spy Who Loved Me.” It was written by Carole Bayer Sager and composed by Marvin Hamlisch.
“For Your Eyes Only" is the theme to the 12th James Bond movie of the same name, written by Bill Conti and Mick Leeson, and performed by Scottish singer Sheena Easton for the accompanying soundtrack album. “Live and Let Die” is the soundtrack to the eighth James Bond film of the same name, scored by George Martin. The title song was written by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by Paul McCartney and Wings.
Energetic and dramatic music from “The Magnificent Seven” is the next selection. The 1960 classic Western was directed by John Sturges; stars of the film include Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Charles Bronson as a group of gunfighters hired to protect a small village in Mexico from a group of marauding bandits led by Eli Wallach. Elmer Bernstein’s Academy Award-nominated score includes one of the most recognizable pieces of film music, the "Magnificent Seven Theme."
Then comes a change of pace, with music from “Pinball Wizard” by Peter Townshend. It was first performed by The Who, and was featured on their 1969 album, “Tommy,” and in the rock opera of the same name. Elton John performed the song in the theatrical adaptation of “Tommy.” Ken Russell wrote and directed the 1975 film, described as a “psychedelic musical fantasy drama.”
The next selection is music from “Children of Sanchez,” a 1978 Mexican American drama starring Anthony Quinn based on the book by Oscar Lewis. The movie’s well-known soundtrack was created by jazz musician Chuck Mangione. Its opening song won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for that year.
Next the symphony plays music from “The Sea Hawk” a 1940 American adventure film starring Errol Flynn as an English privateer fighting the Spanish Armada. Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed the rousing movie score, which some have said sounds more like a symphony than a soundtrack. In this arrangement, several of the themes from the movie are featured.
“Wicked” is the next selection for the symphony. The original production premiered on Broadway in 2003. It won three Tonys, and the original soundtrack album received a Grammy. Stephen Schwartz, the American musical theatre composer and lyricist, wrote both the music and lyrics for “Wicked.”
Music from “Jurassic Park,” the 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg features music by John Williams, a frequent composer of Spielberg's films. Williams felt his music for “Jurassic Park” needed to convey the sense of awe and fascination that one would have upon seeing live dinosaurs, while more suspenseful scenes involving Tyrannosaurus attacks required frightening themes.
“Apollo 13” is a 1995 American docudrama directed by Ron Howard. James Horner composed and conducted the score, which was a critical success, garnering Horner an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score.
The final piece of the concert is a tribute to John Williams, an American composer and conductor with a career that has spanned seven decades. Music from Star Wars, Jaws, Superman, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and E.T. are featured in this arrangement by Paul Lavender, with music from the Kennedy Center Honors.
Williams’ film music is some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed in movie history and is known for its distinct sound, described as “a mixture of romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration.”
Williams is best known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Among his numerous accolades are 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards and four Golden Globes. Williams is the second-most nominated person, after Walt Disney, and, at age 93, is the oldest Oscar nominee in any category.
Tickets for the regular 2 p.m. Mother’s Day Concert are $25 for general seating or $30 for premium seating in the balcony. Tickets may be purchased from the Soper Reese website, https://www.soperreesetheatre.com, and are also available at the Soper Reese box office at 275 S. Main St. on the day of the concert.
Please arrive 30 minutes early when buying tickets at the door-especially when attending the 11 a.m. dress rehearsal concert.
The rehearsal concert is still a bargain, although the price has increased to $10 for adults. There is no charge for those who are 18 and under.
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- Written by: Debra Fredrickson
TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL ROUNDUP
Just like last year, the concluded four-day celebration of film at the TCM Classic Film Festival offered much more than promised with its theme of “Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film.
The theme worked well for the opening night gala presentation of “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” No one should question that George Lucas created an enchanted world of fantasy in outer space.
Producing events at TCM’s festival, Bruce Goldstein is a fountain of information and insight on pre-Code films, and fortunately he was the presenter for 1932’s “Me and My Gal,” a comic crime tale starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett.
When the Hayes Code, which set a variety of standards to rid films of such things as profanity and sexual perversion, became enforceable in 1934 “Me and My Gal” was kept out of circulation for decades because it could no longer be released.
Spencer Tracy’s Danny Dolan, a wisecracking street cop in pursuit of escaped mobster Duke Castenega (George Walsh), initiates an erratic romance with perky waterfront waitress Helen Riley (Joan Bennett).
Over a cup of coffee at Helen’s hash house, Danny proposes to Helen, saying “Will you marry me so I can get some sleep?” After the screening, Goldstein noted this line was deemed ribald enough to get censored in some jurisdictions even before the Hayes Code kicked in.
While “Me and My Gal” was delightfully funny, Goldstein regaled the audience by quoting film reviews of the era that savaged the film for being smutty. Flopping at the box office, the film got pulled from theaters after a week.
The Los Angeles Examiner noted the film was “real entertainment with the highbrow stuff left out.” One could look at this review as a sort of backhanded accolade, if only because so many other reviews were so brutally negative.
With some irony, Goldstein noted the film also got confused with “For Me and My Gal,” a musical released a decade later and starring hoofers Gene Kelly and George Murphy.
Considering the brilliant wit of Noel Coward, notable for being a playwright, director and actor among other talents, the chance to see the 1945 film adaptation of “Blithe Spirit” proved irresistible.
Coward’s bantering dialogue is evident throughout the film, with Rex Harrison’s Charles informing his second wife Ruth (Constance Cummings) in one exchange, “If you wish to make an inventory of my sex life, I think it only fair to tell you that you’ve left out several episodes.”
Echoing the film’s title, Charles’ flighty deceased first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond) is conjured up during a séance and appears visible only to him, proceeding to hilariously haunt him and induce jealousy from Ruth.
In the role of presenter to the screening, Christine Ebersole, who starred as Elvira on the Broadway stage in “Blithe Spirit,” noted that in the film role Kay Hammond had to be painted a light shade of ethereal green.
The paint job provided the necessary “ghostly quality” needed for a spirit from the beyond, and Ebersole expressed hope that the green coating “didn’t shortened her life” due to the chemicals. Hammond apparently passed at age 71 from undisclosed causes.
“To Be or Not To Be,” a comedy about the Nazi occupation of Poland released in 1942, generated a share of controversy and divided reviews, which are interesting due to the director Ernst Lubitsch coming from a Jewish family and born in Germany.
Jack Benny as Joseph Tura and his wife Maria (Carole Lombard in her last movie role) lead a troupe of Polish actors who turn the tables on Hitler’s lunkheads who have taken control of Warsaw.
Maria copes with her egotistical husband’s comical attempts to play Hamlet on stage and fends off the advances of a lovestruck Polish air force lieutenant (Robert Stack) in her dressing room.
The film turns insanely funny for its sharp dialogue and the clever deceptions against the Third Reich goons by impersonating Nazi officers to save the resistance fighters.
“Jeopardy” host Ken Jennings, who vaulted to celebrity by his record-breaking 74-game winning streak on the quiz show, noted that “To Be or Not To Be” personified the “Lubitsch touch,” which is a sophisticated, cosmopolitan style with an urbane quality.
Jennings observed that the movie raised the question of whether it was in bad taste. At the time, there only two types of films involving Nazis. They were either an “existential threat” or “clowns and buffoons,” and this film straddled the line between these two categories.
A real delight was the 50th anniversary screening of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” an irreverent, anarchic take on the Arthurian legends, with Graham Chapman as King Arthur and the Python members playing multiple roles.
Presenter Patton Oswalt showed up for the morning screening wearing pajamas and a bathroom, telling the audience that comedians don’t get dressed before noon. As such, Oswalt captured the spirit of what he called the “wellspring of pure absurdity” that came with “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
Just like last year, the concluded four-day celebration of film at the TCM Classic Film Festival offered much more than promised with its theme of “Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film.
The theme worked well for the opening night gala presentation of “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” No one should question that George Lucas created an enchanted world of fantasy in outer space.
Producing events at TCM’s festival, Bruce Goldstein is a fountain of information and insight on pre-Code films, and fortunately he was the presenter for 1932’s “Me and My Gal,” a comic crime tale starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett.
When the Hayes Code, which set a variety of standards to rid films of such things as profanity and sexual perversion, became enforceable in 1934 “Me and My Gal” was kept out of circulation for decades because it could no longer be released.
Spencer Tracy’s Danny Dolan, a wisecracking street cop in pursuit of escaped mobster Duke Castenega (George Walsh), initiates an erratic romance with perky waterfront waitress Helen Riley (Joan Bennett).
Over a cup of coffee at Helen’s hash house, Danny proposes to Helen, saying “Will you marry me so I can get some sleep?” After the screening, Goldstein noted this line was deemed ribald enough to get censored in some jurisdictions even before the Hayes Code kicked in.
While “Me and My Gal” was delightfully funny, Goldstein regaled the audience by quoting film reviews of the era that savaged the film for being smutty. Flopping at the box office, the film got pulled from theaters after a week.
The Los Angeles Examiner noted the film was “real entertainment with the highbrow stuff left out.” One could look at this review as a sort of backhanded accolade, if only because so many other reviews were so brutally negative.
With some irony, Goldstein noted the film also got confused with “For Me and My Gal,” a musical released a decade later and starring hoofers Gene Kelly and George Murphy.
Considering the brilliant wit of Noel Coward, notable for being a playwright, director and actor among other talents, the chance to see the 1945 film adaptation of “Blithe Spirit” proved irresistible.
Coward’s bantering dialogue is evident throughout the film, with Rex Harrison’s Charles informing his second wife Ruth (Constance Cummings) in one exchange, “If you wish to make an inventory of my sex life, I think it only fair to tell you that you’ve left out several episodes.”
Echoing the film’s title, Charles’ flighty deceased first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond) is conjured up during a séance and appears visible only to him, proceeding to hilariously haunt him and induce jealousy from Ruth.
In the role of presenter to the screening, Christine Ebersole, who starred as Elvira on the Broadway stage in “Blithe Spirit,” noted that in the film role Kay Hammond had to be painted a light shade of ethereal green.
The paint job provided the necessary “ghostly quality” needed for a spirit from the beyond, and Ebersole expressed hope that the green coating “didn’t shortened her life” due to the chemicals. Hammond apparently passed at age 71 from undisclosed causes.
“To Be or Not To Be,” a comedy about the Nazi occupation of Poland released in 1942, generated a share of controversy and divided reviews, which are interesting due to the director Ernst Lubitsch coming from a Jewish family and born in Germany.
Jack Benny as Joseph Tura and his wife Maria (Carole Lombard in her last movie role) lead a troupe of Polish actors who turn the tables on Hitler’s lunkheads who have taken control of Warsaw.
Maria copes with her egotistical husband’s comical attempts to play Hamlet on stage and fends off the advances of a lovestruck Polish air force lieutenant (Robert Stack) in her dressing room.
The film turns insanely funny for its sharp dialogue and the clever deceptions against the Third Reich goons by impersonating Nazi officers to save the resistance fighters.
“Jeopardy” host Ken Jennings, who vaulted to celebrity by his record-breaking 74-game winning streak on the quiz show, noted that “To Be or Not To Be” personified the “Lubitsch touch,” which is a sophisticated, cosmopolitan style with an urbane quality.
Jennings observed that the movie raised the question of whether it was in bad taste. At the time, there only two types of films involving Nazis. They were either an “existential threat” or “clowns and buffoons,” and this film straddled the line between these two categories.
A real delight was the 50th anniversary screening of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” an irreverent, anarchic take on the Arthurian legends, with Graham Chapman as King Arthur and the Python members playing multiple roles.
Presenter Patton Oswalt showed up for the morning screening wearing pajamas and a bathroom, telling the audience that comedians don’t get dressed before noon. As such, Oswalt captured the spirit of what he called the “wellspring of pure absurdity” that came with “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
- Details
- Written by: Tim Riley
