Favorite Movie Scores

[guiller]

I would also add "West side story" to the list, although it's a bit of a cheat since the marvelous score the Leonard Bernstein wrote for the earlier Broadway musical was also used for the film (with some adaptations).

 

[guiller]

Taxi Driver is hands down my favorite movie/score

:thmbsp:

 

[Tom Brennan]

Dimitri Tiomkin's Guns of Navarone. (Ever notice that his scores always sound the same, as if they were recorded in the same studio by the same engineer.)

Oh yeah, I have noticed that. Tiomkin certainly had a sound.

I think his strangest score is for that old John Huston-Burt Lancaster western The Unforgiven. Odd music and and odd sound. Pretty cool movie though, sorta like The Searchers turned inside out. Somewhat better IMO than the Eastwood picture with a similar name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqewCzpfmqU&feature=related

 

[rgk5]

Ben Hur

El Cid

Lord of the Rings

Legends of the Fall

Glory

Star Wars

Indiana Jones

Braveheart

Cutthroat Island

 

[Arkay]

I'd agree with a lot of the titles mentioned. Several people mentioned "The Last of the Mohicans." That's the only film I can remember watching where DURING the movie I was thinking, "This music is great! I have to go get the soundtrack to this!" And so I did, the next day! It still gets regular airplay around Casa Arkay.

Since then, I've started paying more deliberate attention to movie soundtracks, but that was the one which started it all--the one where the music actually impressed me more than the movie itself (Is there a more "wooden" actress than Madeliene Stowe?), even as I was watching it for the first time.

 

[jonman]

Superfly-Curtis Mayfield
The Commitments
a couple of my favorites

 

[Tom Brennan]

I'd agree with a lot of the titles mentioned. Several people mentioned "The Last of the Mohicans." That's the only film I can remember watching where DURING the movie I was thinking, "This music is great! I have to go get the soundtrack to this!"

I first became aware of hi-fi because of movie sound. When I was 10 years old, in 1959, I went downtown with my Dad to see the roadshow of Ben Hur, filmed in anamorphic 65mm (MGM Camera 65, later called Ultra Panavision) with 6 channel magnetic sound. The opening blasts of the overture music startled the Hell out'a me and Rozsa's lush, romantic music poured forth, no doubt from an array of 5 large format VOTs behind the screen.

This was not the sound I was hearing in the neighborhood show! (Which was most likely optical mono though Cinemascope was using 4 channel magnetic in some theaters but not all.)

My interest in good sound and in movie soundtracks started that day. The first LP I remember having was the Ben Hur score.

 

[toeknee]

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Jack Nitzsche. Really relaxing tunes. The title theme has what I think is a "musical saw." I have a sealed vinyl copy on the way.

Another is Beyond the Valley of the Dolls by Stu Phillips. Great theme by the Lemon Pipers, but the tracks by the Carrie Nations and Strawberry Alarm Clock are the real standouts. They wail! The Carrie Nations were a fictitious band for the movies sake, but the real singer Lynn Carey has got one helluva set of pipes on her. Listen to "Find It" and you'll see what I mean!

Most of my other favorites are kind of "found music" soundtracks. Easy Rider is a great example. Dennis hopper had originally wanted CS&N to score the film, but he had filled the gap with other found songs until theirs were ready. CS&N urged Hopper to leave it as is. Glad he did! Nothing beats "Born to Be Wild" set along to the footage of Captain America and Billy on the open highway.

Another favorite is any Wes Anderson film. He has great taste in music and uses "found" music to capture moods really well. His movies usually feature amazing score's by Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh as well.