Score!

From www.scifi-universe.com
I have to say it again, a great score by a great composer can raise a film to a whole new level. Just watched yet another Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare as a Child" (there's 156 or so of them, so I still have a lot to get through). Right from the opening you notice the music, very reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's works. Just like Morricone (remember 'Once Upon a Time in the West' or 'Once Upon a Time in America'), it used a childhood style and theme to put the past into the present, very much in keeping with the story. And who was it? Jerry Goldsmith, of course! Though he wrote only a handful of scores for the series, you notice every one. Excellent!
A day or two back too, I watched 'Little Girl Lost'. You know it's a classic when 'The Simpsons' use it as the basis for an episode (like 'The Shelter' or 'To Serve Man'), and 'Little Girl Lost' serves as the basis for Homer's experience in the Third Dimension. It's also written by Richard Matheson, which helps, although the father's immediate response when his daughter disappears is to 'call a physicist'. Hmmmmm! Perhaps not the most realistic of responses, Richard. Traditionally the third season of The Twilight Zone opens with a 'Produced by' credit, 'Written by', and 'Directed by'. In this episode though and very unusually, the main credit after Producer is 'Music by'. Rightfully so too, for the score is by none other than Bernard Herrmann, frequent collaborator with Hitchcock, composer of the theme and a lot of music for the first season, and one of the all time greats. The score itself is very like earlier scores by Herrmann, it must be said, but it lends a gravitas to the episode that raises it far above the ordinary. Another point: quite apart from The Simpsons, this particular episode obviously inspired 'Poltergeist', right down to the little girl. Excellent!!!!!
And while I'm at it, 'To Serve Man', based on a story by Damon Knight, again a story I read as a child (and loved), I watched the other night too. I must have seen it before, but the punchline is such a good one that it deserves repeated viewing. Richard Kiel as a nine foot tall alien with a huge forehead is also worth the watch. Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(There's a bit of trivia relating to 'Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear' mentioned on the wikiepedia entry for 'To Serve Man'. If you know the punchline, it's a good one. If you don't, read the story!!!!!!!! And someone's put the episode on Google! I want to scream out the punchline!!!!!!!!)

Off Warbling Somewhere in Frenchy Speak

Image from www.wikipedia.org
I really have to give up those 4 a.m. drunken bursts of written diarrhoea. In the end a good night was had by all, including, I am sure, the Cavan masseuse.
You know there cannot be a shirt in my wardrobe that hasn't been besmirched by my love of olive oil. And as for that old chestnut about a hot iron and some brown paper, that's all it is, an old chestnut, and tree seeds have no place in modern laundry practice. I should know; I worked in a professional laundry for three years (well, summers). Blithely I emptied out the sacks of urine-soaked pyjamas and operating room balls of fat on to the conveyor belt. I had sacks of blood drip by my feet from the overhead rails. They even found an amputated hand where I worked (a week before I started). Yes, an industrial laundry that tackled hospital and hotel garments and linen. Anyhow I still never learnt how to iron a shirt.
Believe it or not, short though it is, I only got round to finishing 'Three Men in a Boat' the other day. Very lightweight - never likely to provoke more than a smile - it just couldn't generate enough enthusiasm in this reader to keep me reading for any length of time, though it would never alienate me enough to make me throw it away. Still, although the jokes don't quite do it in this day and age, it is something of a masterclass in how to write comedically over an extended piece of work. Hypocrisy and misdirection are used well, if too repeatedly, and the whole comes across as less of a novel and more a transcribed comedy routine from some observational nineteenth century stand-up.
Series Two of 'The Twilight Zone' isn't up to the standard of its predecessor. Four lemmons in a row today, all of them from Mr Serling. He seems to have let his sentimentality and didacticism run roughshod over his sense of story. It's a relief to get Matheson's 'The Invaders', a somewhat famous episode about an old woman in a farmhouse attacked by the diminutive occupants of a flying saucer. What's really worthy of note in the second series is the development of Jerry Goldsmith as a composer. His music makes itself felt everytime it's used (you know when it's a Goldsmith episode). 'The Invaders' episode, in particular, has a score that looks forward to his classic film music for 'Alien' and 'The Omen', despite the fact that the episode was broadcast in 1961. Fantastic!