Omen II

Claes - Arnie appears briefly as a heavy (what else?) in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), scored by John Williams. Blink and you miss him. WLW - Jane Fonda is in "Stanley & Iris" while Glenn Close appears as a bearded pirate (honest!) in "Hook". I'm not joking. And Morn, how could you forget Peter Ustinov's turn as King Fawz in John Goldfarb Please Come Home? And it's your favourite score too! Any takers for Robert Redford? Damien

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is the better score by a country mile. No contest, as far as I'm concerned. My favourite bit is that little oboe solo when the dog goes sliding down the ramp from the spaceship. Incidentally, has anyone heard the Danish composer Per Norgard's 6th symphony 'for a new millennium'? I heard it on the wireless the other day and the similarities in one of the movements to The Abduction of Barry were almost too great to dismiss as mere coincidence. Damien - off through the cat flap to meet his spindly-limbed friends any minute now...

The big shark got my nod - the most restrained and dreamy end title JW has ever written. But how about The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, Jaws 2, The Sugarland Express.........................? I guess I'm saying that we're spoilt for choice. Damien

...though not the two John Williams/Paul Williams songs, "Wednesday's Child" and "Nice to be Around", the latter of which was nominated for an Oscar along with the score. The omission of these vocal versions (which were on the original LP) makes an official CD release long overdue. The bootleg has only an instrumental version of one of the songs and completely misses out the other (heard over the opening titles). Funny that Marsha Mason looks pretty much the same in Cinderella Liberty as she does as Marty Crane's overbearing girlfriend in Frasier. Damien

Fred, In the main title of the movie the lyrics start with the verse "Funny old world..." that jsawruk has kindly posted above. I think the song also appears over the end titles but cannot remember what lyrics were used. I saw this film a few years ago and like, wow man! This film is for squares! Being a JW fan I felt obliged to watch it to the end but the film is so lame it was almost unbearable to watch. In fact I'd go as far as to say that it is the worst John Williams-scored film I have ever seen. Maybe cool cats digged its zaniness in the 60s but it's all lost on me... A much better Williams/Mercer collaboration can be heard in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. If you want further info on any Johnny Mercer lyrics, check out www.johnnymercer.com. Damien :cool:

One scene that gets me every time I see it is in Shane when Alan Ladd and Van Heflin team up to chop down the stubborn tree stump. If you've never seen it that probably doesn't sound like much to write home about, but anyone who has seen and appreciates this classic film will know what I mean (it was so good that Clint copied it in Pale Rider, although he replaced the tree with a rock). The scene is helped immensely by Victor Young's quite magnificent score, of course. I'm going to really stick my neck out here and say that his score for Shane is one of the best ever written for a western. It's about time Marco Polo or someone recorded the whole thing for my delectation. Damien - indulging in a rare moment of hyperbole :oops:

David, Veuillez trouver les paroles ci-jointes: John Goldfarb, please come home! There's a lonesome feeling round the Pentagon, John Goldfarb, please come home! You're the kind of hero we depend upon, John Goldfarb, please come home! There's no-one as brave as you, But no-one's as long overdue, We somehow don't think it's right to take a U2 plane and then drop out of sight. [Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah] Haven't heard a word since can't remember when, John Goldfarb, please come home! Can it be that probably you're lost again? John Goldfarb, please come home! Whether you're in Mexico or Mandalay, get here quick - that is if you can find your way. [Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah] Come and lead a life of ease, hear us begging on our knees, Johnny Goldfarb, won't you please just come on home! [John Goldfarb, please come home...] Whether you're in Mexico or Mandalay, get here quick - that is if you can find your way, come and lead a life of ease, hear us begging on our knees, Johnny Goldfarb, won't you please just get on home! Personally, I like this score. Some seemed to be disappointed that the music for a 1965 film starring Richard Crenna wasn't quite as challenging as The Rite of Spring. Lighten up, people! Damien :yellow:

I couldn't let this topic pass without mentioning one of the best, in John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who has not seen the film so I will leave it at this: "I wanted a vanilla twist." Other good'uns are: - that guy's suffocation in the grain silo in Witness - John Connor's adoptive dad's 'milk carton kebab' in Terminator 2 - Shelley Winters's cardiac in The Poseidon Adventure - Scorpio's long range effort on the girl in the swimming pool in Dirty Harry, seen through the rifle's scope and backed by Lalo Schifrin's magnificent score. Has anyone mentioned Chrissie's death at the beginning of Jaws? And to counter this morbid-but-fun topic, it was nice to see that those miners were rescued safe and sound in PA. Damien

Dexster, This had me bamboozled for a good while because the lyrics are so difficult to pick out (and nowhere else on the internet comes up with anything better than that they are in Latin - duh). However, if you can decipher the first word and have attended any Christian funerals you may realise where Horner got all his lyrics from. I think the first two lines are: recordare tunc dicturus omnes cuncta stricte discussurus These are all phrases taken from the sequence (sequentia) of the Latin requiem mass. Horner appears to have randomly selected phrases and, to make things more confusing, added a few words of his own such as 'in', 'est', etc. to fit the meter. It all sounds great but cannot be translated into English. Listen carefully a few times to 'Charging Fort Wagner' from Glory and you will begin to pick out several phrases from the requiem sequence, the first few verses of which I have listed below: dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla teste David cum Sibylla. quantus tremor est futurus quando iudex est venturus cuncta stricte discussurus. tuba mirum spargens sonum per sepulcra regionum coget omnes ante thronum. mors stupebit et natura cum resurget creatura iudicanti responsura. liber scriptus proferetur in quo totum continetur unde mundus iudicetur. iudex ergo cum sedebit quidquid latet apparebit nil inultum remanebit. quid sum miser tunc dicturus quem patronum rogaturus cum vix iustus sit securus; rex tremendae maiestatis qui salvandos salvas gratis salva me fons pietatis. recordare Iesu pie quod sum causa tuae viae ne me perdas illa die. Most of the lyrics appear to come from the second and third verses. Damien - preferred supplier of Latin info to jwfan.net

o tempora! o mores! :tongue2:

Stefan, while I am sure you are right that that is what Goldsmith intended the words to mean, they do not mean that because the grammar is incorrect. Permit me to explain. The words to Ave Satani are as follows: sanguis bibimus corpus edimus tolle corpus satani ave versus cristus ave satani The word 'sanguis' (blood) is in the nominative case denoting that it must be the subject of a sentence. Therefore the first sentence cannot mean "we drink blood"; to mean this it would have to read: sanguinem bibimus The second line is ok (we eat the body/flesh) because the word 'corpus' is a neuter noun for which the nominative (subject) and accusative (object) cases are identical. The verb 'tollere' can mean 'to raise up' in a literal sense but also in the sense of 'exalt' or 'elevate'. Because the word 'corpus' (body) can refer to a body living or dead, this part does make sense - at least until the word 'Satani' which is an invention. There was no word for Satan in classical Latin (for obvious reasons) so the word for Satan would have been invented for church use in mediaeval times and where it does appear, the genitive (possessive) case is not 'Satani'. The next line 'ave versus cristus' is all wrong. Even assuming that 'versus' is a corruption of the preposition 'adversus/adversum', to make grammatical sense the line would have to read: ave (ad)versum Christum (literally "hail the one who is against Christ") The final line (disregarding the fact that the word 'Satani' is still incorrect) would have to mean "hail (the son) of Satan". Whenever a genitive case appears on its own like this it almost always denotes a filial relationship. Damien :twisted:

Marian, Could you be thinking of Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate? If so this is based on a different text. However, you are right that other composers have set the whole of psalm 32(33) to music and have used the text more or less as it appears in the psalm. What impresses me about John Williams's work for Empire of the Sun is that by and large the lyrics make good grammatical sense, even though they are borrowed from a number of different sources. The lyrics Jerry Goldsmith came up with for The Omen's Ave Satani sound very scary but do not hold water at all grammatically (i.e. they cannot be translated into English and still make sense). I therefore award Johnny an A- for his Latin homework and Jerry an E. Damien :wink2:

John Williams appears to have done a clever cut-and-paste job when coming up with the lyrics for Exsultate Justi - most of them appear in the Psalms or in some part of the Latin mass. I have not quite worked out if any of the lines are original Williams creations. The opening line Laudamus te can be heard in the text of the Gloria (interestingly JW's Gloria from the film Monsignor uses only the first line and stops just before we would hear 'Laudamus te') as can the line qui tollis peccata mundi. The other lyrics, as far as I can work out, are liberal borrowings from several of the psalms, especially psalm 32 (33). Check this out and see how many you can spot: http://orb.rhodes.edu/encyclop/religion/ha...salter/ps32.htm The line cantate domino canticum novum appears several times in the psalms, particularly numbers 95(96), 97(98) and 149. If anyone can find the source of some of the other lines, I would be interested to know, although I would guess they are adaptations of lines that appear in the psalms somewhere. I wonder whether Johnny ever sang in a choir or studied Latin at school? I do have a couple of quibbles with the lyrics on the page that Evan posted. I am sure that the choir sings laudatio rather than the made-up compound collaudatio, a word that does not exist in classical Latin. The same can be said of the word salvator, a cod-Latin word that looks good but was probably invented for church use. Here endeth the lesson. Damien

I am glad you specifically mentioned JW's disaster movie end titles, Joe. The end titles for The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure and Earthquake are three of the best ever written (NB: the cue 'The City Sleeps' on the Earthquake CD is the re-recording of the end title music). To my mind, Johnny seems to reserve his best epilogues for 'group jeopardy' films; the end titles for Jaws, Jaws 2, Black Sunday and SpaceCamp are other prime examples. Others that I think deserve an honorary mention (apart from the obvious ones we all know so well) are Sugarland Express and JFK. Damien

Morlock, William Alwyn wrote one of his best scores for the film The Crimson Pirate which starred Burt Lancaster. Although I do not yet have the CD, I have heard good things about the suite on The Film Music of William Alwyn: Volume 2, available on the Chandos label (CHAN 9959). The music is more in the vein of Captain Blood (pardon the pun) than Hook, but there ya go. Chandos have done a few excellent film music releases and I would heartily recommend the Malcolm Arnold and Georges Auric CDs too. Hoist the mainsail! Damien

Gamecube, Check out Harlee's theme from The Towering Inferno (best heard in the end title cue 'The Architect's Dream') then listen to the main title from Earthquake. They could be sisters! Damien

Mel Gibson was famous before Paul Hogan. Also remember Mel moved to Australia when he was 12. He was born in New York. Also remember that Russell Crowe is a Kiwi, though you'd never guess from his accent. He was born in Wellington. New Zealand - the place to live if you don't like snakes. Damien

I thought I would share with you one of my (many) pet hates. Someone at work today had a mobile phone that played Harold Faltermeyer's Axel F theme tune from Beverly Hills Cop. She was away from her desk so we all had to listen to this mid-80's synth classic ad infinitum. What annoyed me was not the music itself (hec, if you must have a mobile phone, at least have a ring tone from the silver screen) but the fact that the penultimate note was clearly a semitone sharp. Moreover, a straw poll among my work colleagues suggested that the tempo was all wrong too. Egad! Where do they find these morons to transcribe the classics for mobile phone use? Do they hear things differently from the rest of us? Do they have to change the notes for some reason to avoid re-use fees? I am yet to hear Johnny's music butchered in this way but fear it is only a matter of time. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, Harold Faltermeyer must be rolling in his grave! Damien :evil:

Dang, Joe, I knew I'd heard the name David Vincent somewhere before! Of course, The Invaders! A Quinn Martin production! Spooky theme tune by Dominic "Color of Night" Frontiere! Damien - searching for a short cut he never found.

Not quite right, Ricard, it was July 1998 that JW conducted the LSO at the Barbican in two concerts, the second of which included his tuba concerto. He also gave concerts with the LSO in 1996 at the same venue. Miz, As JW is perhaps most likely to give UK concerts with the LSO, I suggest your joining their mailing list at www.lso.co.uk. That way you also get to hear about other great concerts well in advance. Damien

Superman must have been the first or second film I ever saw on the big screen when I was very young. My Dad took me and my brother to see it in a cinema that is now a McDonald's. :? Does anyone remember those Superman cards with bubble gum that you could get at the time? Each card showed a scene from the film with a caption underneath. All I can remember is my brother and I, who had learned all the captions off by heart, calling them out during the film as the relevant scenes appeared! That must have pissed off the rest of the audience, but I don't remember us being ejected for it. The only two captions I can remember now are "A world torn asunder" (presumably because I thought 'asunder' was a funny word) and also "Superman pays a call on Lois Lane". We all thought this one was hilarious. Why? Well to this day I cannot watch that scene in the penthouse without expecting Lois Lane to be soaked with urine at any moment. Damien

I'm rather partial to the love theme from Earthquake. Is that such a crime? Top jazz pianist Clare Fischer played on the soundtrack, don'tcha know. Damien :oops:

Of the concertos that I have heard by John Williams, the violin concerto is the one I like best. It does sound quite a lot like Walter Piston's second violin concerto in places. Dvorak's violin concerto is pretty good too (I saw Sarah Chang play it last year), especially the slow movement. Those of you who like Sibelius may want to check out Rautavaara's and Nielsen's efforts for the fiddle. They are both absolutely Norse-some!!! Damien

Quite right, jsawruk. And the most accessible example to support your claim is David Shire's wonderful 12-tone jazz score for The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974) . Although Shire broke the rules once or twice, he should have got an Oscar for this outrageous score. Other members unfamiliar with this score may want to check it out (you can order it from Film Score Monthly's website) . Damien USA 3 - Portugal 2 (told you all so)

Dr. Know, The Grimethorpe Colliery Band recently released a CD entitled Movie Brass featuring arrangements of famous film music, including four pieces by John Williams: Superman, Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Do not be put off by the name. They are reputedly the premier non-military brass band in the UK. Although brass band arrangements are not really my thing, the Williams arrangements I have heard on the radio have been rather good. Damien - counting the hours until China v Costa Rica