Welcome. Our goal is to promote all facets of the Tiomkin catalog, including performances of his work, soundtrack recordings, and scholarly articles, as well as general research and study.
This page will focus on items of current interest, including concert performances, newly recorded soundtracks or archival recordings, and other timely information.
Thanks to Olivia Tiomkin Douglas for her generous support of this venture.
Please visit often.
December 2008
Happy holidays!
Dimitri Tiomkin's 1953 song, "The First Christmas" will be available in the Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology from Hal Leonard Publishing in the coming months. To find out more about Tiomkin's music for the holidays and the story of the carol he wrote, "The First Christmas," to read more...
Christmas Pops in Dallas
A new concert suite from It’s a Wonderful Life will be performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) as part of its Christmas pops concert on Thursday, December 4, 2008, at Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. The suite, which includes the “Prologue,” “Theme,” and “Christmas Eve Finale,” has been arranged by Patrick Russ and incorporates earlier orchestrations by Paul Marquart and Christopher Palmer. Russ has restored the colorful character of Tiomkin’s original soundtrack in this arrangement, which ends, as the film does, with the emotive theme “Auld Lang Syne.” Leading the concert is Richard Kaufman, the orchestra’s principal pops conductor. The program also features a festive evening of yuletide carols with the orchestra, Christmas Chorale, and vocalist Ron Raines. Performances are also scheduled for Friday and Saturday, December 5 and 6. The concert is part of the DSO’s Pops series. Call the DSO ticket office at (214) 692-0203, or go to dallassymphony.com.
Also in December, It’s a Wonderful Life will screen in London for members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A holiday reception for Academy members precedes the screening.
November 2008
Pacific Symphony and Richard Kaufman shine in pops concert
by Warren M. Sherk
The lilting, familiar strains of “This Then Is Texas,” masterfully rendered by the Pacific Symphony and gracefully conducted by Richard Kaufman, filled the hall. It was the world concert premiere of a suite from Giant, one of the highlights of the Pacific Symphony Pops concert Saturday, November 8, the close of a three-night performance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.
Over the course of the evening, Kaufman and the orchestra excelled at interpreting a diverse selection of film and television music by Tiomkin. Patrick Russ, who carried out the orchestrations for the Giant suite as well as the Rawhide theme and selections from Fall of the Roman Empire, and this writer met with Kaufman backstage during intermission. Both conductor and orchestrator were pleased with the performance. Like athletes talking strategy at halftime, Kaufman and Russ immediately launched into a lively discussion of tempos and orchestral balance. The sole disappointment was the absence of Olivia Tiomkin Douglas, who, sadly, was unable to attend as originally planned.
The overture from Cyrano de Bergerac started the evening. In lieu of program notes, Kaufman personalized the audience’s experience by introducing each piece from the stage. The conductor later commented backstage that in order to get the proper balance for the overture, he envisioned it as a harpsichord concerto. From there, the program carved a musical path through a variety of historical periods: the Civil War (“Thee I Love” from Friendly Persuasion), the Old West (the themes from High Noon and Rawhide), and the Roman Empire (the selections from Fall of the Roman Empire).
In juxtaposing High Noon and Rawhide—perhaps Tiomkin’s two best-known Western themes—Kaufman and the orchestra began with the familiar rhythm, reminiscent of trotting horses, that recalls Gary Cooper’s iconic lawman. This flowed effortlessly into the driving rhythm of Rawhide and its catchy antiphonal voicings.
While introducing Friendly Persuasion’s “Thee I Love,” Kaufman recited for the audience the song’s exquisite words written by Paul Francis Webster, calling them poetry more than lyrics. As the orchestra brought the music to life, Tiomkin’s memorable instrumental theme evoked the spirit of that Civil War drama, also starring Gary Cooper.
The suite from Giant included the prelude, love theme, and finale, as prepared by Patrick Russ. The finale incorporated music from Tiomkin’s original score that had been replaced by the song “The Eyes of Texas.” It was followed by The Old Man and the Sea, an arrangement by Pete King, best known for his work with the Pete King Chorale.
For the overture from Fall of the Roman Empire (see article, below), Tiomkin wrote a dramatic organ solo, here played with a sure hand by Dennis James on the hall’s recently installed William J. Gillespie Concert Organ. The two opening notes of the film’s theme, “The Fall of Love,” brought forth a wall of sound from the magnificent instrument. Drawing on his background as a theater organist, James played with equal measures of bravura (solo) and restraint (with the orchestra). He effortlessly allowed the pipes to speak and gave voice to the moving passages with remarkable clarity, considering the length of the tin, wood, and aluminum pipes. Of the 4,322 pipes, the longest extends nearly 50 feet.
Following the overture was the Pax Romana, also from the film, which was not listed on the program. It was a fitting end to the Tiomkin portion of the concert. During the stirring climax, in which the orchestral tutti is matched by the organ’s far-reaching sonic range, one of the first violinists, in the midst of playing a furious tremolo, looked straight up, his awestruck expression a reflection of the music’s power and intensity. Tiomkin’s devilishly difficult work challenged the brass section, and they proved more than up to the task. Backstage, Kaufman remarked that the key to conducting the piece lies in balancing the ensemble when two or three main musical ideas occur simultaneously. Russ added that the original score for the “Pax” was devoid of woodwinds.
After the privilege of listening to nearly thirty minutes of Tiomkin’s beautiful music, two traits emerged despite the music’s wide-ranging styles: the composer’s gift for melody, and his uncanny attention to detail, particularly in the countermelodies and the inner parts.
Back in Kaufman’s comfortably appointed dressing room, the conductor shrugged off the ten-minute warning prior to the concert’s second portion—featuring Righteous Brother Bill Medley—and continued to discuss Tiomkin’s music with trademark enthusiasm, if only for a few minutes more. Kaufman is regarded as a leading proponent of film music in concert in the United States. Just a week earlier, on Halloween night, he led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a world premiere live performance of Franz Waxman’s score for The Bride of Frankenstein. The film was screened in its entirety, accompanied by the orchestra. The parts and music for that concert, as for the Tiomkin, was provided by John Waxman’s Themes and Variations, the premier provider of film music for concert performances around the world. Kaufman will next conduct Tiomkin in December, leading the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a Christmas pops performance of music from It’s a Wonderful Life.
October 2008
Orange County’s Pacific Symphony to perform Fall of the Roman Empire
A suite from Fall of the Roman Empire will be performed by Orange County’s Pacific Symphony Orchestra (PSO) on November 6, 2008, at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center (OCPAC). Richard Kaufman will conduct the orchestra and organist Dennis James in the first half of the program. (Bill Medley from the Righteous Brothers will perform during the second half.) James will be seated high above the stage at the hall’s new organ manufactured by C.B. Fisk and named in honor of philanthropist William J. Gillespie. The $3 million mechanical action 4,322-pipe organ was designed to replicate a pre-electric era instrument, with the key desk attached to the pipes. This enables the organist to directly control the opening and closing of the pipe valves with the keyboards and pedals. Electric fans and computer-controlled stops add contemporary state-of-the-art functionality. For more, read “Pipe Dreams: New Organ Uses Modern Technology to Produce Vintage 18th-Century Sound,” by Al Rudis in the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
To showcase the hall’s inaugural organ performance in the Pacific Symphony’s Pops series, Kaufman suggested a new, shorter suite of music from Fall of the Roman Empire. Orchestrator Patrick Russ selected two pieces that feature the organ prominently: the memorable opening Overture and the impressive Pax Romana. “The William J. Gillespie Concert Organ in Segerstrom Hall will bring a renewed appreciation to Tiomkin’s masterful music for this screen epic,” remarked Russ. “I’m looking forward to hearing Dennis James and the PSO pull out all the stops on this one.” James, a preeminent silent film and concert organist, has served as house organist at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle and the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California. Incidentally, for the 1964 film Tiomkin recorded the organ at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, London. Pianists and singers may note that the theme from Fall of the Roman Empire is included in the forthcoming Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology. The Hal Leonard songbook will include both a piano solo and vocal selection for “The Fall of Love.”
The PSO concert is also scheduled for Friday and Saturday, November 7 and 8. OCPAC (www.ocpac.org) is located at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, California. Tickets are available by telephone from the PSO ticket office at (714) 755-5799, and online at www.pacificsymphony.org.
Remembering Bob Grabeau (1928-2008)
Baritone Bob Grabeau, whose notable renditions of Tiomkin songs include “Thee I Love” from Friendly Persuasion and “There’s Never Been Anyone Else But You” from Giant, died June 8, 2008, in Los Angeles, California. Signed by Capitol Records in Hollywood at age 19, he recorded a number of songs for radio before joining up with bandleader Jan Garber. The vocalist made his mark recording demonstration records—used to promote and showcase new songs—for film composers from Elmer Bernstein to Dimitri Tiomkin. Grabeau demoed a number of Tiomkin tunes, including the 1961 holiday song “Give Me Your Love for Christmas.” “The songwriters felt fortunate to have such a wonderful voice be the first to record their work,” recalls Olivia Tiomkin Douglas. “Dimitri thought that Bob was a lovely person with an exceptional voice and that he deserved more recognition for his musical talent.”
Born Robert Frank Grabot, Grabeau also has been credited as Bob Graybo. He was a featured vocalist on re-creations of Tommy Dorsey’s music for the popular Time/Life musical eras series of the 1970s, memorable for their brightly colored boxes of multiple LPs. Thanks to the success of that series, Grabeau spent much of the 1980s and 1990s performing swing-era music by Dorsey and Glenn Miller, often with bandleader Tommy King. Grabeau spent his final years at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California.
Sources
September 2008
Tiomkin on the program for NSO commemorative concert
A suite from Tiomkin’s score for The High and the Mighty will be performed by the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) as part of a concert in commemoration of September 11. “Nights at the Movies: The Golden Age of Film Music” will take place Friday, September 12, 2008, at 8 p.m. at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall in Washington, D.C. Leading the NSO is guest conductor and host Richard Kaufman. Olivia Tiomkin Douglas will be in attendance. The concert also features music by Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini, Alfred Newman, Alex North, Franz Waxman, and others, accompanied by images from the respective films. On Thursday, September 11, Kaufman conducts the NSO in “Nights at the Movies: Classical Hollywood,” a concert performance of classical music featured in Hollywood films. For more information and tickets: www.kennedy-center.org. For an interview with Kaufman: atlanta.creativeloafing.com.
August 2008
On DVD: The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Fall of the Roman Empire, featuring music by Dimitri Tiomkin, is now available on DVD from the Miriam Collection. The release features the original 1964 Roadshow production, the longest version of the film for which a complete set of picture, sound, and music exists. Audiences can enjoy a full five minutes of instrumental and choral music by Tiomkin—a brassy antiphonal overture and a choral version of the lyrical love theme—that opened and closed theatrical screenings of the film. Three discs are included in the Limited Collector’s Edition of the DVD; the Deluxe Edition features two.
Directed by Anthony Mann and produced by Samuel Bronston, The Fall of the Roman Empire stars Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Christopher Plummer, Alec Guinness, and James Mason, with Omar Sharif and Mel Ferrer co-starring. The production team included historian Will Durant, co-author of the multivolume Story of Civilization, and music editor George Korngold, son of the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold and a noted record producer in his own right.
Filming of this epic took place at Samuel Bronston Studios in Madrid, Spain, where the mighty city of Rome was painstakingly re-created, as documented in the DVD’s extras. The grand scale of the film was matched only by its marketing campaign, which included four full pages in the New York Times—believed to be the largest ever for a motion picture. Travel agencies, Italian restaurants, and jewelry stores were encouraged to carry window displays featuring the illustrated LP sleeve. Wallpaper inspired by the film was designed and sold, and endorsements of the Minox camera by featured player James Mason provided a tie-in for camera dealers. In addition to posters, stills, contests, and opening-night galas, the studio put forth educational material on the Roman Empire, a thirty-minute radio feature, and half a dozen ads and featurettes for television, some of which have been included on the DVD. A Sophia Loren fashion feature was targeted at the female audience, along with leaflets, menu cards, and serviettes for the trendy hostess. Johnny Mathis’s recording of the film’s love theme, “The Fall of Love,” was followed by versions from the Pete King Chorale, Mantovani, and other artists. When the film was finally rolled out, reserved seats were offered at two dozen theaters from Boston to San Diego.
On disc one of the DVD’s bonus features, Tiomkin appears in a 1964 promotional film by Globe Video Film Productions. Titled “Rome in Madrid,” it includes an eight-second clip of the composer seated at a grand piano (go to 18:15 to see the clip). The Still Gallery, also on disc one, has a number of portraits of Tiomkin in action, and some of his best-known works are listed in Filmographies.
The highlight of the special features is “Dimitri Tiomkin: Scoring the Roman Empire,” found on disc two. The twenty-minute featurette, produced by Genius Products for this DVD set, is a music lover’s guide to appreciating Tiomkin’s grand score for the film. Using interviews and archival photographs and clippings, the documentary is structured around film and television music historian Jon Burlingame’s onscreen commentary. Key scenes from the film are illuminated by Burlingame’s insights into how the score enhances the drama, helping to bring a deeper level of understanding of the relationship between image and music upon subsequent viewing of the film. Also offering commentary are Mel Martin, author of a book on Samuel Bronston; former Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conductor John Mauceri; and Olivia Tiomkin Douglas. Douglas offers a personal look into Tiomkin’s world, and Mauceri adds professional observations, pointing out Tiomkin’s unusual use of flutter-tongue in the brass and his choice not to use the Wagnerian leitmotif approach that might be expected for such a large-scale film. The third disc in the Limited Collector's Edition contains vintage Encyclopedia Brittanica educational shorts on the Roman Empire.
The Miriam Collection, a division of the Weinstein Company, restores and releases classic films on DVD. Miriam will next release two more Bronston epics, 55 Days at Peking and Circus World, both scored by Tiomkin.
The DVD of Fall of the Roman Empire can be ordered from www.amazon.com.
July 2008
Angel on My Shoulder soundtrack released
Dimitri Tiomkin's score for Angel on My Shoulder has been issued for the first time on compact disc. This is the third in a series of Tiomkin scores carefully restored by Chelsea Rialto Studios and released by Screen Archives Entertainment, in association with Volta Music. As with Screen Archives’ previous releases for D.O.A. and High Noon, the source material for the Angel soundtrack was obtained from acetate disc recordings in the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at the Cinema-Television Library at the University of Southern California, thanks to the efforts of Olivia Tiomkin Douglas, Patrick Russ, and Ned Comstock. Ray Faiola and Craig Spaulding produced the CD. Faiola, an avid 16mm film collector and film music enthusiast, wrote the liner notes for the lavish 32-page color booklet, which also includes screen captures that correspond to the music cues.
The film Angel on My Shoulder was released by United Artists in 1946. Archie Mayo directed this fantasy comedy-drama starring Paul Muni, Anne Baxter, and Claude Rains. The choral arrangements by Jester Hairston lend a unique feel to the soundtrack, bolstered by what Faiola aptly describes as a “wailing chorus.” The first minute of track 2 is particularly fascinating. Listen closely as the choir—expertly blended with the orchestra—wafts in and out in a soundscape that would make Lutoslawski proud. Compare this with the Devil music in track 4; here the choir is in-your-face and the orchestra subservient.
Our previous feature article, “Wedding Music by Dimitri Tiomkin,” did not discuss the significant wedding scenes in Angel on My Shoulder. [Note: To find a list of articles and cue sheets that include the term wedding, click “Archive Search” on the navigation bar to the left, then type “wedding” in the search box.] In the film, beginning with track 13’s “A Bargain for Marriage” (cue titles are taken from the CD, not from the cue sheet) and continuing through track 15’s “Interrupted Ceremony,” there are about four minutes of underscore predominated by organ and strings. The film’s plot leading to this point is a bit convoluted to recap here; suffice it to say that it involves the interruption of the onscreen wedding between Muni’s and Baxter’s characters. Tiomkin’s music for “Interrupted Ceremony” opens with a Bach-like chorale to evoke the setting. Soon a lengthy violin obbligato is introduced to underscore the scene, which climaxes with the wedding being dramatically called off.
To listen to sample tracks and place an order, go to Screen Archives Entertainment’s Web site (www.screenarchives.com). The disc (SAECRS019) is priced at US$19.95. The nineteen music tracks time out at fifty minutes; however, the bounty of full-blown dramatic orchestral cues on this disc are well worth the money.
June 2008
Walnut High School concert spotlights Tiomkin music
The Walnut High School Symphonic Orchestra may be the only high school in the U.S. that can boast of an annual film music concert. Each year, for more than a decade, the orchestra has performed a “Magic of Music and Movies” concert. This year’s concert, dubbed "They Went That-a Way,” took place on May 22, 2008, at the school’s Performing Arts Center. Under the direction of Dr. Buddy Clements, and associate conductor Corey Wicks, the students performed music from well-known film and television Westerns.
Dr. Clements decided that Dimitri Tiomkin’s long-lasting and significant contributions to this genre warranted devoting a major portion of the evening's program to the composer. Clements selected the themes to the Gary Cooper classics High Noon and Friendly Persuasion (“Thee I Love”), music from the John Wayne films Rio Bravo and Red River, and the theme from the television series Rawhide. “I am gratified that the students of Walnut High School enjoy performing classic film music,” said Olivia Tiomkin Douglas, upon hearing of the recent concert. “I’m absolutely thrilled that music Dimitri composed some fifty years ago remains relevant to young musicians today.”
Forming the backbone of the Orchestra are members of the Walnut High School Vivace String Ensemble (pictured, right), an advanced group of nearly fifty players that would earn the envy of any high school music director. Providing support are the talented, up-and-coming intermediate players of the Allegro String Ensemble (pictured, below)—the “junior varsity” team, to put forth an athletic metaphor.
“In most cases, the orchestra performs from copies of the original manuscripts that were used in the Hollywood recording studios when the motion pictures were made,” explains Dr. Clements. The music is rented from John Waxman’s company Themes and Variations. Other selections in the May concert included the theme from Legends of the Fall, by James Horner, and music from the John Wayne films The Cowboys, by John Williams, and The Sons of Katie Elder, by Elmer Bernstein. Dr. Clements met Bernstein at a seminar at UCLA in the mid-1980s. In later years, he called on the distinguished composer half a dozen times to conduct at Walnut. “Elmer really liked those children,” recalls orchestrator Patrick Russ. “He kept their thank-you note to him, which was signed by about 100 kids.”
Walnut High School, a National Blue Ribbon School, is located, among the rolling hills of the San Gabriel Valley in Walnut, California, twenty-two miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Affluent immigrant families from China, Korea, and the Philippines have settled in this middle-class suburban enclave, drawn by Walnut and Diamond Bar High Schools, both California Distinguished Schools. The music program at the academically rigorous Walnut High School enjoys tremendous support from the community. The student body is ethnically diverse, with approximately 60 percent Asian and 20 percent Hispanic or Latino.
Thanks to Dr. Buddy Clements for calling our attention to this concert and for providing information. Photographs by Bob Pyrah of Pro-Pic Photography, courtesy of Dr. Clements.
May 2008
Flying Blind and Forced Landing
(Second in an occasional series on Tiomkin’s lesser-known film scores)
by Warren M. Sherk
In the mid-1940s Dimitri Tiomkin decided it was time he started making real money as a film composer. He put his acute business sense and knowledge of Hollywood to work, asking and negotiating for “much money,” as he states in his autobiography. (At the time, Tiomkin was living at 606 N. Alta Drive, a 4,400-square-foot house in Beverly Hills, today worth more than $4 million.) After the success of Duel in the Sun and Red River, he went on to become the highest-paid composer in town.
Tiomkin did have to pay his dues, though, like most other composers in Hollywood. By the end of the 1930s he had been well compensated on several significant productions but had also toiled on a number of second-string pictures for much lower fees. Two of these lesser-known films were scored back-to-back, just prior to the United States’ entry into World War II: Forced Landing and Flying Blind. Starring Richard Arlen, these films were aviation “actioners” from the newly formed Pine-Thomas Productions.
Finding a niche
Its founders, William Pine and William Thomas, had been on the publicity staff at Paramount studios, charged with hyping films through press releases and press sheets, or pressbooks. As they cranked out pumped-up grist for the media mill, they realized that slogans and catchphrases were being forced on low-budget pictures that they felt were not worth the effort—or, in some cases, did not even deliver. “Fast-paced action” was promised for a picture that completely lacked it, and disgruntled theatergoers were not being fooled. “We figured that picture audiences don’t care a hoot what a picture costs, so long as it is entertaining,” recalled Pine. He and Thomas left the publicity department to become producers, confident they could make satisfying films without spending a bundle of money. Pine-Thomas Productions debuted in the summer of 1941 with a trio of aviation films: Power Dive, Forced Landing, and Flying Blind. Their office was on the Paramount lot and was one of only two independent production companies—the other being Hal Wallis Productions—at Paramount in 1950.
Theater owners wanted movies that would attract audiences to “programmers,” hour-long films that screened between the top-billed, big-budget main attractions. Studios, of course, wanted these movies to be cheap to produce. Pine-Thomas filled both needs by providing films featuring lesser-known but popular actors. The business-savvy Pine and Thomas knew that most of a film’s budget was spent during the actual shoot. To minimize costs, Power Dive was shot in a then unheard-of ten days—and that was made possible only by extensive pre-production planning, which included mapping out camera angles beforehand. The two Williams wanted to make a million dollars without spending a million dollars, and they soon became known as the “Dollar Bills.”
A look at the music
To stay within budget, the music for the three films was handled by Screen Music Inc. and David Chudnow, a Russian-born music supervisor who had come to the United States at an early age. Chudnow specialized in supplying composers to independent film producers who were working outside the studio system. He most likely had a hand in selecting two fellow Russian composers: Constantin Bakaleinikoff for Power Dive, and Tiomkin for Forced Landing and Flying Blind.
For Power Dive, Pine and Thomas put up their own money, raised some money, and got the film into theaters under a Paramount release contract. Pleased with the picture’s success and critical acclaim, the studio promptly signed the duo to a multiple-picture contract. The ensuing relationship proved profitable for both sides. Paramount would finance and distribute, and Pine-Thomas would receive a supervision fee (around $7,000 at the start) and a percentage of the gross after the studio recouped its costs.
Forced Landing was produced from mid-April to early May, previewed June 30, and released July 25, 1941. Making her American film debut was the Hungarian-born actress Eva Gabor, billed as “the Girl with the Sweater Voice.” Of the $100,000 budget, $3,000 went to music scoring, excluding music preparation costs. In addition to the main and end titles, Tiomkin wrote thirteen music cues. The early cues are character driven, backing the mechanic Christmas (Mikhail Rasumny), nemesis Colonel Golas (Nils Asther), the love interest Johanna (Gabor), and the friendly pilot Petchnikoff (Harold Goodwin). After spinning a romantic theme for Arlen and Gabor—who are married at the end of the film—Tiomkin wrote action music to enhance a plot by revolutionary leader Andros Banshek (J. Carroll Naish). Theater owners could purchase disc recordings with sound effects of airplanes to entice ticket holders as they entered the lobby.
The next Pine-Thomas film was already in production before Forced Landing’s release. Flying Blind was produced from mid-June to early July, previewed August 15, and released August 29, 1941, and is considered the best of the bunch. This aviation spy melodrama involves a pilot, again played by Arlen, who runs a honeymoon air service for elopers. After discovering a pair of foreign spies among his passengers, the pilot breaks up an attempted sabotage. Reviewers thought the film provided good program value and surefire audience entertainment. One reviewer noted that Tiomkin’s score was packed with dramatic color. (The film’s wedding and honeymoon sequence is described in the May 2005 article, “Wedding Music by Dimitri Tiomkin.”) The film opens with a view from the cockpit of a plane landing in Las Vegas accompanied by a jazzy syncopated foxtrot by Tiomkin. Sparsely scored—a full ten minutes passes before the next music cue—the bulk of the score is heard in the last two reels. Until then, the flying sequences are dubbed with noisy airplane engine drones sans music. The score is then used to maximum effect in the cue, “Trouble is Coming.” The thrill of the descending plane is accentuated by the music as it builds before going out as the plane slides to a halt on the ground. After Arlen finally confesses to the girl that he loves her, 
a long musical sequence begins when a passenger says “I’ve got an idea,” and tries to build a fire to signal rescuers. Here, Tiomkin is handed a scene composers relish, one in which music can, and does, make a difference. There is a magical moment as the strings and harp murmur and present a glimmer of hope. The fire catches and spreads and we’re off to the races and a rousing climax. Pine and Thomas have the audience in hand as Tiomkin throws in fight (between Arlen and Roger Pryor) and flight music as the plane emerges from the fire.
Parting ways
Pine and Thomas produced approximately sixty pictures until Pine’s death in 1955. By signing the same experienced talent picture after picture, they were successful at controlling costs. Actors Richard Arlen and Jean Parker, cameraman Fred Jackman, and composers Alexander Laszlo and Darrell Calker were Pine-Thomas regulars. After Flying Blind, Tiomkin moved on to the war documentaries and did not work on another “Dollar Bills” production.
Flying Blind and Forced Landing were acquired by Screencraft Pictures in 1951. The legal ramifications of that sale may account for the pictures’ relative scarcity on the video and DVD market.
Sources
April 2008
More Tiomkin screenings at Motion Picture Academy in Los Angeles
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) will screen prints of three films scored by Dimitri Tiomkin this month in Los Angeles. Two suppressed World War II documentaries, The Battle of San Pietro and Let There Be Light, directed by John Huston, will be shown as part of the John Huston Lecture on Documentary Film on April 15, 7:30 p.m., at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. The films are scheduled to be introduced by the director’s son, Tony Huston, and will be followed by a panel discussion. Tiomkin served as music director for both documentaries. Filmed in 1946, Let There Be Light focuses on the mental problems suffered by veterans after their return home from the war. Banned for decades by the War Department, it was first released to the public in 1981. Time magazine called The Battle of San Pietro “as good a war film as any that has been made; in some respects it is the best.” The score for San Pietro features the Army Air Force Orchestra, supplemented by twenty civilian musicians, the St. Brendan Church boys’ choir, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Music from San Pietro can be heard on the Film Music Society CD release The World War II Documentary Music of Dimitri Tiomkin, available at www.filmmusicsociety.org. Music from this CD will be played in the theater prior to the program.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, also scored by Tiomkin, will be part of the Academy’s Gold Standard screening series in a double feature with Hitchcock’s Lifeboat. The program takes place April 18, 7 p.m., at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The films are being screened in conjunction with the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery exhibit Casting a Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film. The exhibit was on view most recently at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, and was organized by the museum in collaboration with the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library. On April 18, the Fourth Floor Gallery will hold special viewing hours from 5 to 7 p.m. and following the screening. The exhibit runs through Sunday, April 20.
Tickets for the general public can be purchased for US$5 for each event. For more information, log on to www.oscars.org or contact AMPAS at (310) 247-3600.
March 2008
D.O.A. is Live in Texas
Those in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area on Friday, March 14, 2008, won’t want to miss an exciting opportunity to hear a live performance of music written by Dimitri Tiomkin for the classic film noir suspense thriller D.O.A. The Garland Symphony Orchestra (GSO) will be joined by the jazz quintet Five Play for a concert of symphonic jazz that includes “Fisherman’s Jive,” an uptempo musical whirlwind interspersed with jazz combo solos. As originally orchestrated for the film by Herb Taylor, the piece called for a small ensemble of around twenty players: the five quintet soloists, supplemented by mostly brass. Symphonic orchestrator Patrick Russ has now adapted the work, found among material in the Dimitri Tiomkin collection at the University of Southern California, for symphony orchestra and jazz quintet. The concert will take place at 8:00 pm at the Granville Performing Arts Center, Garland, Texas. For tickets, go to www.garlandsymphony.org.
A distinguished regional orchestra, the GSO is a professional ensemble of ninety-three musicians with roots in twenty countries. It was founded in 1978; Robert Carter Austin has served as its music director since 1986. The members of Five Play—Anat Cohen, Jami Dauber, Tomoko Ohno, Noriko Ueda, and Sherrie Maricle—come from the world-renowned DIVA Jazz Orchestra, a dynamic all-female big band from New York.
D.O.A. is enjoying its share of attention. First, the score is available on compact disc for the first time (see November 2007 news) from Screen Archives Entertainment. The GSO/Five Play program is the premiere concert performance of “Fisherman’s Jive,” which made its debut in the 1950 film. Several pieces Tiomkin wrote for D.O.A. became popular, including a vocal blues number, “Fisherman’s Blues,” and one or two rumbas. The script called for a prominent fast jive number over a key scene in which the lead character, an accountant, is lethally poisoned. For the scene, set in a nightclub, the screenwriters imagined a surrealistic piece with a strange, wild, primitive beat. Tiomkin crafted a two-step dance number, not unlike music he would have written in the 1920s for Albertina Rasch’s vaudeville dance routines, with a tempo of half note equals 160. That presented a unique challenge for Patrick Russ in adapting the piece: “This is the fastest tempo I’ve ever worked with,” he says.
Indeed, in the film the notes do fly by. Both Tiomkin—who also served as musical director—and director Rudolph Maté recognized the importance of authenticity. In shooting that scene, they sought out actual jazz musicians even though the music track already had been prerecorded on disc in the studio. As the cameras rolled, the five musicians mimicked playing their instruments along with the prerecorded track—a musical version of lip-synching. Tiomkin was on the set that day to watch the group: James Von Streeter (The Fisherman) on tenor saxophone, Teddy Buckner on trumpet, John Willie “Shifty” Henry on acoustic bass, Ray LaRue at the piano, and Al “Cake” Witchard on drums. (Tiomkin was well versed in jazz, see Fascinating Rhythms: Dimitri Tiomkin, African American Music, and Early Jazz, see March 2007 news)
The visceral energy of the musicians and the ensemble of actors, the smoky atmosphere, and the extreme close-ups of the noticeably sweaty musicians provide a high degree of realism to the two-and-a-half minute set piece. The band is on camera for ninety seconds, intercut with shots of the audience and of O’Brien. Soloing first is James Streeter (who is now best known for his band, Von Streeter and his Wig Poppers), followed by Teddy Buckner. Buckner performed in a few other films, including Pete Kelly’s Blues. Disneyland visitors may recall hearing him play Louis Armstrong-style trumpet at the park’s New Orleans Square, where he was a fixture for twenty years. “Shifty” Henry, “Cake” Witchard, Ray LaRue, and most of the musicians discussed in this article had ties to Los Angeles’s Central Avenue jazz scene. The Shifty Henry All-Stars were regulars around town, notably at the Los Angeles Times end-of-year parties. Around the time D.O.A. was released, Henry had a steady gig on television, backing Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis on their variety show.
In postproduction, the dramatic nightclub scene was cut to the beat of the frenetic music. Heard on the soundtrack is trumpeter Ernie Royal, a longtime studio musician and member of various big bands who may have met Tiomkin through their mutual friend and associate Phil Moore. On tenor saxophone is Maxwell Davis, the father of West Coast rhythm and blues and member of the Fletcher Henderson and Victor Young orchestras. Davis’s combo included drummer Lee Young, who was also hired by Tiomkin for D.O.A.’s recording session. Ragtime and honky-tonk pianist Ray Turner played on High Noon and other Tiomkin films. George Boujie went from the Skinnay Ennis Army Band to the MGM studio orchestra. In addition to acoustic bass, he excelled on tuba, which he played at MGM and on the Flintstones animated series. Two years after D.O.A., he voiced “Tubby the Tuba,” the most famous tuba in history, when Decca released the classic Danny Kaye recording.
“Fisherman’s Jive” is classic source music, that is, music heard from a seen or implied onscreen source.“The great thing about source music in films is it’s often complete, with a beginning, middle, and end, even if only a portion is heard in the film,” explains Russ, whose first film job was writing source music to supplement Elmer Bernstein’s score for Ghostbusters (1984). For “Fisherman’s Jive,” the final filmed scene is about a minute shorter than the three and a half minutes of music Tiomkin wrote and recorded. Concertgoers in Garland will be able to hear the work in its entirety: the world concert premiere of a jazz number written by Tiomkin, an honorary citizen of Texas and composer for The Alamo, Giant, and other popular movies filmed in the state.
Sources
February 2008
Tiomkin songbook to be released by Hal Leonard
Music publisher Hal Leonard is preparing a Dimitri Tiomkin songbook, slated for publication in late spring. It is the largest collection of Tiomkin songs ever published, with nearly forty film songs, a number of stage songs, a wedding song, and a holiday song. Some of these works are being made available for the first time since their initial publication, while others are premier piano-vocal arrangements.
Orchestrator Patrick Russ reviewed, selected, and prepared the songs for publication, assisted by Paul Henning and Warren Sherk. During the compilation of the folio, it was determined that approximately 200 songs were written by Tiomkin from the 1920s through the 1960s. Of these, forty-seven made their way into the songbook; most of them were associated with films dating from 1952 to 1963. Olivia Tiomkin Douglas is thrilled that a new generation of singers and pianists will have access to this impressive repertoire.
The Tiomkin volume is the latest entry in the Hal Leonard catalogue of composer collections by film songwriters, including Harold Arlen, Sammy Cahn, Walter Donaldson, Johnny Mandel, and Alan Menken. A collection of songs by Elmer Bernstein is currently in the works.
A feature article reviewing Tiomkin’s entire songwriting oeuvre will be posted in conjunction with the songbook’s release. Stay tuned.
January 2008
Land of the Pharaohs soundtrack released by Film Score Monthly
With the release of Dimitri Tiomkin's epic score for Land of the Pharaohs on compact disc—part of Film Score Monthly's Golden Age Classics series—the original Warner Bros. master recordings from 1954 and 1955 can be heard for the first time. Studio-archived monaural mixes were digitally mastered for this two-disc set containing one hour and forty-five minutes of music. Among the bonus tracks are unreleased instrumental and vocal versions of the main theme.
Milton Luban, an actor and screenwriter, reviewed the film, which dramatized the building of the pyramids in Egypt, for the Hollywood Reporter. Following the review’s headline, “Land of the Pharaohs a Stupendous Spectacle,” ran a subhead that is a composer’s dream: “Production, Music Stars of Gigantic Howard Hawks Film.” (At the time, a passing mention in a review’s final paragraph was the most composers could hope for—an all-too-common occurrence that no doubt later inspired the title of Henry Mancini’s autobiography, Did They Mention the Music?) In the opening paragraph, Luban raves about the wall-to-wall underscore, declaring that it certainly must be counted among the stars of the picture: “In fact, it is doubtful if this Warner Bros. CinemaScope epic would be nearly as exciting without the tremendous symphonic background created by Tiomkin. As in Lost Horizons [sic], it is almost impossible to separate the story from the music.” Now, with this CD, the listener can separate the music from the film and appreciate the subtleties of the score and orchestrations. This limited-edition soundtrack (FSMCD Vol. 10, No. 17), produced by Lukas Kendall, is available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment. Only 3,000 will be sold. A half-dozen tracks can be previewed on the Screen Archives site. For more information: www.screenarchives.com