Not a great movie, but I was thinking about Sharon Farrell earlier this week -- she plays the unfortunate mother of the Davis baby -- and I flashed on it. In any case, I had forgotten that Herrmann had written one of his eeriest scores for it.
I should also add that Alfred Hitchcock, who knew from this stuff, once described Herrmann as "pound for pound the most eccentric person I ever met."
5 comments:
yeesh. ee-ow.
There was a time, in our mid 1970's college years, that Sandy and I really got into soundtrack music. We had insane hallucinogenic parties with soundtrack music on an endless reel. For normal peeps, these affairs were Ballad of a Thin Man on steroids. Occasionally, not often, we'd insert a little Herrmann onto these tapes. The guy's music could be a little too intense when you're frying, as we found out. It was like "This is your brain on drugs contrasted with This is your brain on Herrmann!"
Re: It's Alive. Yeah, stupid flick. What else would one expect from Larry Cohen? Ever see Bone? It's awful, but it still kept me watching.
Sharon Farrell was ever-present on the TV dial. She looked the best during the Sixties. She was one of those actresses that brought out the bi in me with a rage. There were many others.
I used to watch Wild Wild West because I found Robert Conrad gorgeous in those little gaucho-cut outfits. But the female characters woke me up to something else. That western spy series may have been comic-bookish, but man was it sensual. It was better with the sound off and my imagination at full throttle as I worked out those young girl blues.
VR
I think you can safely retitle that piece of music to "Using Synthesizers To Creep You Out In A Major Way."
Incidentally, from 1:59 onwards it reminds me of Bernard's earlier work on Citizen Kane.
Hey--don't knock Larry Cohen, he's one of my all time heroes. Seriously.
Just because I said his movies are awful doesn't mean I'm knocking him. Quite the reverse, actually.
VR
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