Music Webmaster Len Mullenger
FILM MUSIC RECORDINGS REVIEWS
July 1999 Film Music CD
Reviews
Music Webmaster Len Mullenger |
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FILM MUSIC RECORDINGS REVIEWS |
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July 1999 Film Music CD
Reviews |
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© Film Music on the Web 1999. All rights retained. Reviewers retain copyright on their reviews. Disclaimer
COMPETITION WIN
a CD of your Choice
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Collection THE SNOW FILES - the film Music of Mark SNOW SONIC IMAGES SID 8902 [70:43]
Clearly, this album has been produced to showcase the talents of the composer of the music for the fabulously successful TV series, The X-Files. Indeed, the most substantial track on the album is a 31+ minute suite of Snow's music from that series produced, arranged and performed(?) by John Beal. I insert the question mark after 'performed', because I am not sure just what function Mr Beal performs in the performance process? Surely he can't keep running around all the ensemble from instrument to instrument? (John, I'm pulling your leg!)
In this site's review pages I think I have expressed my aversion for the dragging chains and escaping steam effects of much of the genre of synth music so I approached the X-Files track with some trepidation. Yet, actually I was quite agreeably surprised. I qualify the statement with the word 'quite' because, for me, 31 minutes was rather too much and I think the suite would have been more effective for some snipping away of less interesting, more clichéd material. Having said that, the combination of Snow and Beal has produced music that has plenty of imagination, ingenuity, and variety of texture, timbre and tempi. I liked the way, for instance that Beal builds up an atmosphere of mystery and apprehension and the way he suggests an alien abduction as the music gathers to whoosh skywards before he introduces Snow's famous "whistling" main X-Files theme, which he then proceeds to develop at some length. Elsewhere one can appreciate the debt Snow must owe to John Williams's score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The opening Main theme - La Femme Nikita again employs synth music imaginatively in a tense Gallic-flavoured essay with interesting urban effects like police sirens to the heighten atmosphere.
Four tracks follow under the collective title 'Darkness and Desire.' 'The Dark Waltz' from Seduced and Betrayed dances uncomfortably close to Jerry Goldsmith's sensuous lines for Basic Instinct. I enjoyed the sultry ballad that is the love theme from Conundrum with the smoky voice of Cassandra Crossland. An imaginative dark use of the harp lifts the music for A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story. Jagged outbursts effectively penetrate the textures of the score for Caroline at Midnight.
A further four tracks are gathered under the umbrella appellation of 'Love and Hope.' Snow's high-strings orientated music for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea score echoes John Barry's style. I liked the more tenderly romantic folksy material for The Substitute Wife. Oldest Living Confederate Wife is even more folksy and reminded me very much of David Mansfield's score for Heaven's Gate reviewed above. (Some of these films have the most extraordinary titles - many of these TV films never cross the Atlantic to us here in the UK; or maybe they change their titles half way over?) Smoke Jumpers, a 1996 TV movie about a crew of parachute fire-fighters, has a rather routine heroics score.
The collection closes with three diverse tracks. Dark Justice is gothic and zombie-like; Max Headroom is headache-provoking heavy rock and Pee-Wee is sheer comic madness in the Danny Elfman tadition - a quirky piece of music using speeded-up vocal samples.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
and Paul Tonks adds
Snow is now instantly bagged and tagged with The X-Files, and naturally that is this disc's selling point - a half hour suite from the show. It is this that makes and breaks the album. It'll be exactly what fans of the show were expecting. It's also a great departure from the other material on the album. Unfortunately, it's almost too much of a departure in that the downbeat downturn it takes detracts from the chirpier surroundings. Right after you get bonus tracks which include Pee Wee's Playhouse and Max Headroom. They're light-hearted enough to almost rightside the disc after the 30 minutes of gloom. Since it was all preceded by so much warm, it's possibly just a wee case of ill-advised sequencing.
The preceding high spots include A Woman Scorned, Conundrum, Caroline At Midnight, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and The Substitute Wife. The surprise instrument voices, and mellow timbres indicate there's so much more the Muldur & Scully fans need to appreciate. So all in all it's an album with the potential to impress most of its listeners for one reason or the other. Just remember that most CD units have the capacity to re-order tracks !
Reviewer
Paul Tonks
Collection: Great Movie Classics - GERSHWIN/MORRICONE/ROTA
I Cameristi di Roma are a rather bottom-heavy (two horns and two bassoons) wind octet. This perhaps tells against this disc where the performances are often rather ungainly - sloughed in a treacly slow motion. This is a pity because the first track begins with an agreeably cheeky Gerhswin arrangement which rapidly comes apart as languid treacle rather than slow burning fire runs through the veins of Summertime. The other tracks are arrangements of classic Italian film music. The Morricone tracks come over very well with that sense, Morricone could capture, of time suspended in a tear drop.
Trovajoli's music for Nell' Anno del Signore has a sad-eyed dignity and Morricone's for Investigation of a Citizen Beyond Suspicion is cheeky and exudes the vernal freshness of a Canteloube setting. A Rossinian wink and a sly jab in the side occasionally takes the listener by surprise but the tendency to languor, for me, simply undermines this selection and makes me long to hear these pieces in full orchestral garb.
Basta!
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
Mike POST NYPD Blue - The Best of Mike Post
This is what it appears to be: a selection of Mike Post's themes for TV and all apparently from the original soundtracks and, in that sense, fully authentic. The range is wide. The memorably gnawing dawn drums, quiet elegies and menace of NYPD Blue contrasts with the less likeable Blossom Street, Hardcastle and McCormick, Hunter; Stingray (not the animation) and The White Shadow - all the latter being examples of forgettably sleazy rock trivia. Strong tracks include Hill Street Blues with its gloriously evocative spirit of made-anew mornings. Also notable are the cool themes from L A Law, Law and Order and Top of the Hill. Tale of the Gold Monkey has clear classical influences: Copland and Stravinsky. Contrast this with Sonny Spoon with its 'down and dirty' harmonica. B L Stryker is all slouching urbane confidence and a similar feeling pervades Hooperman (with prominent sax part), Doogie Howser MD and Studio 5B (heartbeat at start). Commercial rock (and often deeply unattractive) tracks include Magnum PI, The A-Team, Riptide and The Rockford Files. Good to hear the icily amiable theme from Quantum Leap.
The medium (TV) is ephemeral and themes tend to be written to match. Post (and a few others) confound low expectations with more memorable music than average. Quantum Leap, Hill Street and NYPD Blue are classics to be enjoyed in their original guise here. A great souvenir (though no notes).
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
Joseph LoDUCA Xena - Warrior Princess Vol 4
As far as TV mythological heroes, are concerned, our household has split loyalties. The ladies swoon over Hercules' biceps while the feisty Xena can throw her discus, or any other part of herself, in my direction any time! What a woman!
Joseph LoDuca's busy and versatile pen greatly assists in enhancing the thrills, building the atmosphere and lifting the credibility of this TV fantasy hokum. His richly textured scores and inventive orchestrations impress too. At over 70 minutes duration, this is a very generous helping from Varèse. The booklet notes are sparse almost non-existent with only track titles to guide the listener. It appears that music for four stories is included plus two bonus cues.
Chin: The Debt, comprises seven cues of exotic oriental music with, in the first exciting 'Caesar's Mark' cue, a choir in virile Carl Orff mode. 'Flying Ninjas' is a rhythmically stimulating cue featuring an array of percussion and woods. 'Execution of Xena' has a woman's chorus chanting over menacing brushed cymbals and bells. The score for this episode also contains music that is more sympathetic and compassionate with elegiac strings for 'Visit to the Damned.' Extraordinarily, 'The Bath' with its soprano solo, again wordless, sounds as much Gaelic as oriental with a nice evocative wash of harp strings. In 'Taking Flight' the music does just that; again, with the soprano against feathery upper strings - it's as though we are about to embark on a magic carpet ride à la Miklos Rozsa/Thief of Baghdad.
The Destruction of Hope:Family Affair music is less interesting. 'Lambikin's Missing' is an exercise in sub-Herrmann menace with heavy snarling brass and 'Who's Who' is a creepy cue with some interesting writing for snare drum and strongly accented hand drum figures. 'Hello Beautiful' has chill winds and menace lurking behind the high strings' sweet pleasantries and the soprano's yearnings.
The most substantial part of the album is devoted to India: Devi/Between the Lines/The Way. LoDuca has clearly done his homework for he uses the Indian ethnic intruments: the sitar etc to impressive effect through the twelve cues. The music ranges from the ethereal and elegiac to the usual menacing and combative. There is plenty of dance music with sinuous, seductive rhythms. A male chorus is prominent.
Turangi: Adventures in the Sin Trade seems to evoke the heat of Africa. Voodoo ceremonies can be imagined too. I was impressed by LoDuca's multi-part choral writing for women's voices in 'Released/Spirit Dance' opening over serenely cool woods and strings, and opposing the mystical with ethnic dance figures.
Of the two bonus tracks, 'Everybody Dance Now' is a mix of country and western and Riverdance; while 'I'm in Heaven' is an incongruous crooning-style song for soprano and tenor in the style of the 1920s or '30s.
A fascinating, fun album
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Joseph LoDUCA Hercules - The Legendary Journeys Vol 3
I will confess I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the music on this disc and the Xena album reviewed above. I had only come across LoDuca in reviewing his music for Young Hercules on this site last year - a young people's pop-based score which I did not rate highly at all. [As a family we have only enjoyed Digital TV and therefore Hercules and Xena for the last eight months or so].
Again Varèse have served up a generous helping with nearly 70 minutes of varied material. The notes are threadbare with only cue titles as guidance. Do the four collection titles refer to separate episodes of the fantasy TV series based on the Greek mythological hero?
The album opens with five selections from Sumeria: Faith/Descent. The opening cue opens in very dramatic fashion with a strong, thrusting rhythmically vital theme with chorus again, as in the Xena opening track, in Carl Orff mode. LoDuca uses his predominantly male chorus a lot in these Sumeria selections: in 'Zombie Fight' they spit out their words with malevolent relish over a suitably trudging mindless Zombie-like orchestral accompaniment. In Sumerian Boat Song they intone in time to their oar-strokes over a controlling rhythmic drumming. Later in this cue ghastly screechings and moanings leave us in no doubt about the horrors 'Up River'. It is a tribute to LoDuca that he rarely uses synthetic music to get the effects he wants.'Rebuilding' is a very colourful cue: noble heroic material is contrasted with swirling, voluptuous belly-dancing type music.
From Sumeria we go to ancient Ireland for 'Eire:Resurrection/Render Unto Caesar'. Opening with the haunting, plaintive 'Faith's Song' we pass through several cues that have much Gaelic charm and delicacy as well as more cloudy and threatening material. Some of this harsher brooding menacing adversary-type material is given to high strings in sour mode. Those pipes, which James Horner seems to have made obligatory these days, are much in evidence. There is also much of what you might call 'ancient' Riverdance material. The Druid Chant sounds odd - not very Gaelic more Afro.
'Norseland: Norse by Norsewest (ouch!)/Rainbow Bridge', takes us northwards with icy, trilling strings and crystalline harp figures etc as LoDuca evokes the shadowy menaces of more Northern climes. Subtle influences of Sibelius, Atterberg and Hanson are discernible.
The collection is completed by isolated cues from other episodes. 'Hunk O' Herc' nods towards John Williams's Superman theme. 'We Go Now' is reminiscent of Holst's Mars. 'Flying Machine/Believe in Yourself' reminds one of those aerial dog fights, all dodgings and tracer bullets. 'Air Herc' is incongruous modern rock. To an accordion and string accompaniment, a contralto sings sultrily of how she has 'fallen so low with no place to go in 'One Dinar a Dance'. The album closes with an appealing heroic/elegiac track, 'Works of Art Pt. 1' No mention of any other parts?
Again, as for Xena, colourful and interesting music -
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Another look at a favourite James Horner score:-
James HORNER Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan
Horner's full symphonic music for the second Trek film is amongst the strongest of the six Trek (ST1) scores. In case you have forgotten, this is the film in which the Genesis Project features, Spock dies in the Warpdrive chamber saving everyone and Chekhov's brain is manipulated by a Ceti eel.
The score has moments of fragile beauty (enhanced here by very decent stereo separation) and Ligeti like string rustling (track 5). The bubbling excitement as the USS Enterprise clears her moorings is very fine indeed - like the intoxicating emerald-green sea evocation of Sainton's Moby Dick (Marco Polo).
The main Trek theme was introduced on television by quiet violins singing in chaste innocence. The introduction here is similarly by the violins but here they are heavy with menacing dread and the creepy crawly strings reminded me of Sibelius's En Saga and Pohjola's Daughter (try the Horst Stein Decca recording). The battle scenes have lashing strings and crackling brass.
All in all the score is one of saturated romance, visceral renewal and valorous endeavour. A great score then - even if there is a hint of indebtedness to the John Williams Superman theme. The disc's final track (after giving us Spock's voice-over recitation of the famous Trekkie mantra) ends in whooping confidence.
The music was orchestrated by Jack Hayes and we acknowledge the work of Mr Hayes whose contribution is a significant part of the magic of the score.
A fine disc and score though the printing looks decidedly budget quality.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
Curio Corner
Bruce MONTGOMERY and Eric ROGERS - THE CARRY ON ALBUM -Music by from the Carry On films 1958-1975 (Camping, Sergeant, Teacher, Nurse, Cabby, Cleo, Jack, Behind, Convenience, Khyber, Doctor, Doctor Again)
Here is the music for the Carry On films and heard as never heard before. The soundstage is not quite natural with a fair amount of (well-judged) spotlighting of instruments. The music is lightly entertaining when it is not brash. When it is brash it is the essence of 1950s kitsch and makes no impact on me except an adverse one. It is however a reminder of those films.
Most of the tracks are by Eric Rogers and the others by Bruce Montgomery are instantly recognisable as they are scored for military band. The Rogers tracks are for full orchestra. The music is very much of a piece: jazzy, brash, Poulencian and the occasional subtle touch of George (Gershwin) in the night as at 4:20 of Montgomery's
Carry On Suite. Some of the quieter interludes have some magic (middle section of Carry On at your Convenience). Oddly enough that piece of Gershwiniana evolves into a rather nobilmente bit of Walton which soon lapses back into absurd seaside trivia. Walton is also a noticeable presence in the Anglo-Amalgamated Fanfare No 1 and the Khyber theme.
The Carry On theme has a touch of Coates at his most vulgar and unsubtle. There is a bit of middle eastern Rózsa in Carry On Cleo - quite Biblical really - in the Charlton Heston sense! For the most part this is cheeky chappie, wink and a nod, sly humour which now comes across, despite classy and zestful advocacy by conductor and orchestra, like congealed horlicks, flat pommagne or tepid Asti.
The notes run to 6 pages and are in English only. They give plenty of information on the films and the two composers. There are also rare photos of Rogers and Montgomery.
A worthy addition to the growing library of British light music and a real feather in the cap of ASV whose catalogue is a national asset. Intermittently enjoyable music then and bliss if you go for the style. You will know. Great performances. It is probably my loss that much of the music leaves me cold. I speak as an enthusiast for some of the films including Carry On Screaming and C.O. Cleo. A dead cert guv' for Carry Onners. As for the rest of us …. I suppose I must confess to a po-faced review!
For: Carry-On-o-philes
For me:
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
MAME - Music by Jerry Herman.
Big, brash and wonderful, Mame sparkles. Its music races along, full of fun and high spirits. It opened on Broadway in 1966 and ran for five years collecting eight Tony Award nominations with wins for Angela Lansbury, Beatrice Arthur and Frankie Michaels. Jerry Herman, himself, was rewarded with a Gold Record and a Grammy for best show album. The film version appeared in 1974 with Lucille Ball in the Lansbury role.
Mame is the incorrigible and irrepressible Aunt to orphan Patrick Dennis. She plays the horn, she holds wild parties serving bathtub gin. She shows Patrick much of her eccentric world as she becomes involved in nude art classes, fires, nightclub raids and a 'visit' to the police station. In a play, she takes the part of a lady astronomer and straddles a crescent moon as it rises wobbling for the climax of the last act. She takes job after job, marries, becomes widowed, rides a wild stallion (side-saddle of course) and that's just for starters, as young Patrick grows up.
The jubilant, breathtaking overture sets the pace and we are treated to a whole series of good tunes the most memorable of which are the title song Mame; and the celebrated bitchy duet between Mame and her friend Vera (Beatrice Arthur), 'Bosom Buddies' in which they promise eternal friendship yet tear each other's character into shreds: "…your sense of style is as far off as your youth…"; "…if I kept my hair like you do yours I'd be bald…" etc. Then there is the lovely sentimental romantic waltz 'My best girl' and Mame's poignant 'If he walked into my life.'
There are five interesting bonus tracks of the composer Jerry Herman singing songs from the show to a piano accompaniment.
Quoting the title song - "You coax the blues right out of the horn, Mame…we think you're just sensational, Mame!" A fun 65 minutes.
[N.B. Rosalind Russell appeared in the title role of the 1958 Warner Bros.film, Auntie Mame, from the book and play that pre-dated the film. Rosalind Russell was Oscar-nominated. This film picked up many other Oscar nominations for: best picture; cinemaphotography; supporting actress (Peggy Cass); art direction and editing. In the event it won no Oscars. Bronislau Kaper wrote the music]
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Anna Russell Encore?
Madame Anna Russell first revealed these pearls of musical wisdom to New York audiences in 1958.
On this occasion, she begins her oration by covering Poetry in the Cellar with Jazz. "They read all kinds of way out poetry with the musicians clinkering behind," states Anna. "I imagine it is done by the angry young men or possibly the beat generation … I thought that meant beat-up but I am told that it doesn't mean that at all; it means beatific. Of course, I suppose if you get sufficiently beat up you could become beatific from the point of view of being slap-happy…However the whole thing is very existential" So, wearing her existential glasses Ms Russell proceeds to read two such poems: 'My Ear', about a well adjusted young lady who nevertheless has a left ear that behaves strangely - it changes into a gardenia but when it turns into a cauliflower she has to consult an ear and throat specialist who runs screamimg from his surgery and joins the used car business. The other poem asks the question who killed 'The Rubens Woman'… and Where is Whistler's Mother?
Madam Russell then turns her attention to Backwards with the Folk Song. She reminds us that the definition of the folk song is "Uncouth vocal utterances of the people about the cares and joys of ordinary life extemporised by the singer accompanying himself on a simple instrument." Anna then goes on to observe: "I don't see this going on, do you?. Researchers dredge the Kentucky Mountains, and pry into the archives of the museums and libraries…and then they accompany themselves on dulcimers and lutes - anything but simple instruments. They have to because (a) they can't find the simple instruments - or (b) if they do nobody can play them - or (c) if you do find out how to play them they're so antique they fall apart on you…. Then people start societies for the protection of this sort of thing which the general public refuse to go to on account of it all being too arty. So the folk song has now become the complete opposite of what it started out to be namely - the uncouth vocal utterances of the people…!" Madam Russell then assails our ears with five typical folk songs: 'A Lily Maid Sat Making Moan' ("I am the Lady Fripple - Frop and my husband did me dirt…); 'Old Mother Slipper Slopper' whose milk keeps turning sour; 'Ricky Ticky' with advice on how to carve up the family belongings through divorce; 'I'm sitting in the bar alone', described as one of the "self-pitying- ---school" songs ("I was once a movie star now I sit alone in the bar"); and finally 'Jolly Old Sigmund Freud' in which the singer tells why she killed the cat and blackened her husband's eye.
We then have two lectures on instruments. We are told everything about the French Horn including how to blow down it - "make a raspberry or Bronx Cheer at one end." We are also told it is not a very nice instrument for ladies because it could skid on their lipstick… "but if there is one lying around the house it makes a very smart hat!" The Bagpipe comes under scrutiny next. "Once I asked audiences to guess what it was but I had to give that up because some of the guesses, well…"
The grand climax of the programme is a detailed description of Verdi's Hamleto (or Prosciuttino). Madam Russell begins by admitting, " Now Verdi has made operas out of many of the Shakespeare plays. He has not as a matter of fact made one out of Hamlet but I am not, for a moment going to let that stand in my way." She tells us that Hamlet is a fantastically complicated story but there would have been no story at all had Hamlet avenged his father's death at once instead of hinkle pinkling around.
"Which just goes to show if you don't behave as you ought to you are liable to be terribly interesting!" Anna then spends nearly half an hour analysing this production singing all the parts on the way. We learn for instance that Polonias like Wotan (remember him from The Ring reviewed last month?) is also a crashing bore and that Ophelia is a little weak in the head - "…so naturally she is a coloratura soprano. We also learn about the Queen's big Arras.
Absolutely hilarious.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Zez CONFREY (1895-1971) Piano Music
ZEZ CONFREY (1895-1971) Piano Music
Kitten on the Keys 1921
Dizzy Fingers 1923
Meandering 1936
African Suite 1924
Jay Walk 1927
Sparkling Waters 1928
Wise Cracker Suite 1936
Amazonia 1945
Blue Tornado 1935
Three Little Oddities 1923
Coaxing the Piano 1922
Stumbling 1922
Moods of a New Yorker 1932
Rhythm Venture 1935
Fourth Dimension 1959
Zez Confrey was born Edward Eleazar Confrey in Peru, Illinois on 3 April 1895.Confrey is the Transatlantic counterpart of Billy Mayerl. If you like Mayerl you will certainly like this.
The famous Kitten is a celebration of scatty, jazzy, high speed prestidigitation. Skimming pianism and impressively whispered dynamics are memorable elements of Dizzy Fingers. Then comes the more reflective though still faintly jazzy Meandering where pacing is plastic with many shifts and changes of gear. The African Suite is not at all an evocation of the jungle: High Hattin is a jazzy saunter, Kinda Careless a Gershwinian blues drone, Mississippi Shivers is over-shadowed by the influence of Gershwin but has something of the great river in it.
Jay Walk is a light fingered wander; Sparkling Waters a Lisztian essay with silvery runs. Yokel Opus is light and easy; Mighty Lackawanna is the first seriously impressionistic piece on the disc. The surface of the piece is undisturbed and although a rippling pulse keeps things mobile the atmosphere is placid. It glows in a heat haze. The Sheriff's Lament is back to Confrey's accustomed Keystone Cops scattiness (just as suggested by the liner notes).
Amazonia is initially only very slightly Latino despite the protestation of the liner notes. There is a rhumba-Havanaise trill to the piece. Blue Tornado displays Confrey, the light as air prestidigitator. The Impromptu from Three Little Oddities (and they each have a salon-style title) is rather Ravelian and definitely the serious Confrey. The notes suggest the influence of Grieg and Macdowell on these pieces and that parallel is spot-on. The final Novelette is almost complicated enough to be Medtner but stops well short of that most of the time.
Coaxing The Piano starts storm-goaded and soon settles into the hectic fists of notes we know from Kitten on the Keys. The largely placid Stumbling was much admired by Copland who wrote of it that it typified the jazz age with its independent rhythms spread over more than one measure.
Moods of a New Yorker's At Dusk is a tentative exercise in half lights, rather like some uncertain grey evening by Frank Bridge. Movie Ballet reminds us of some Russian ballet, perhaps by Glazunov. Relaxation is a tender golden dream (which I recommend as a sample track). The final Tango is slinky with a slippery reference to the Carmen 'Habañera'. The Rhythm Venture is earnestly jazzy - an escapee from Constant Lambert's Rio Grande. The final Fourth Dimension jumps with electricity.
The Three Little Oddities and Moods of a New Yorker are much more serious than Kitten on the Keys and Confrey's reputation might hint. For anyone who thinks they might be allergic to 'home fires' piano stool virtuosity try these two suites first. They are not desperately profound, but no matter; this music entertains and delights.
Confrey would, I am sure, be delighted with Eteri Andjaparidze's zippy and zestful performances which, in addition to their glitter, also articulate the poetry of a number of the pieces.
I suspect there will be a band of Confrey enthusiasts who will be buying this disc in quantity. Quite how the performances stack up against Confrey's own 78s I do not know. I had not heard Confrey's music until I put this disc in the player. Now at least I know that Confrey has a place in the history of music. It may not be a very exalted one but he is a composer who has genuine humour, zest and feeling for people and place. A definite discovery.
The English only notes are by Marina and Victor Ledin. They are specific, informative and generally add to the musical experience.
The treasure of a thousand thousand piano stools! Recommended.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
VIDEO REVIEW
THE SECRET POLICEMAN'S THIRD BALL - Amnesty International (UK)
Rhino is well known for its film soundtrack and pop CD releases but the Company also releases the occasional video. This programme, in aid of Amnesty International, and originally filmed in 1987, features many stars from the pop, TV and film worlds. It is well worth considering. Rhino is releasing it now to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the human rights organisation.The line-up of talent from the Pop world is impressive: Kate Bush; Joan Armatrading, Duran Duran; Mark Knopfler with Chet Atkins; Bob Geldorf; and Peter Gabriel.
The there are the comedians. John Laurie and Stephen Fry swop roles as shopkeeper and customer over a transaction involving a hedge (small, standard or Imperial, sir?), because they keep forgetting their lines and get hopelessly muddled when they try to prompt each other. John Cleese receives the Rubber Duck Award, and Ruby Wax is ticked off by Sir Bob Geldorf for not curtsying to him. But it is Lenny Henry who steals the show. He is absolutely hilarious in mile-wide padded shoulders, heavy shades, loud check suit and wide brimmed pork-pie hat as 'Low Down, Left-Handed, Hound-Dog, Blues Singer' "…abandoned on a doorstep by my foster parents…' '…singin' on vocals.. with Mike 'no-fingers' McGinty on piano…in a group called the beautiful people…' His song includes such fine classical lines as "…cabbage- patch baby, I've got a great big hose for you.."
Reviewer
Ian Lace
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