Film and TV music (1956)

CURRENT SCORES THE PAJAMA GAME The Richard Adler-Jerry Ross musical comedy, THE PAJAMA GAME, has been grafted into a colorful and creditable movie musical by that old Luther Burbank of the stage, George Abbott. Their using many of the pro- duction numbers pretty well inua from the stage means there is a larger crop of songs and dances than is usual in pictures. The big songs, Hey There!" and "Hernando's Hide- away", suffer from a not too unpleasant blight: they were such hits when the show opened that their fresh- ness is a bit faded. "Seven and a Half Cents" and 'There Once Was A Man" bubble well and the topper is still the same. "Steam Heat", of course. Carol Haney leads a trio through an old soft tap recalling vaudeville days. Miss Haney, Eddy Foy Jr., and Reta Shaw deliver their songs and dances with the zest of old pros. Jcrfin Rait sings well in familiar musical-comedy-male-lead style. With typical, rather thin, stage orchestrations for Broadway flavor, THE PAJAMA GAME is a successful transplanted stage hit that retains in sight and sound much of the theater feeling. Seven and a half cents won't buy a ticket to "Pal Joey' or "Guys and Dolls", but it can be a fine start. Thomas Talbert THE PAJAMA GAME ... Warner Brothers. Doris Day, John Raitt. Produced and directed by George Abbott and Stanley Etonen. Music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. Orchestral arrangements. Nelson Riddle, Buddy Bregman. Vocal arrangements, Charles Henderson. Record: "The Pajama Game" biaOL5210. Sound track album, Colum- THE SUN ALSO RISES The story is a film version of Ernest Hemingway's novel about the lost generation of the 1920s, leading a purposeless existence in Paris on the Left Bank, after the "Great War". Hugo Friedhofer has written a short or- chestral score — a prologue and coda, some bridges, and variations on Cole Porter's "You Do Something to Me" as the background love theme. The bulk of the music is played by a three piece dance combo, an accordion in a French Cafe, a lone guitar strumming in atmospheric Spanish cantinas, and various marching and concert bands at the bull fights. The non-orchestral music is authentic, and greatly increases the feeling of being on the spot. This, coupled with the orchestral sections, makes a most interesting score, whose color shifts in suppon of the changing scenes of the big film. Credit for the fine orchestrations goes to Edward Powell. Lionel Newman conduas with finesse, and Vincente Gomez does a su{>erb job playing the solo guitar background. Willis Schaefer THE SUN ALSO RISES . . . 20th Century Fox. Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner. Direaor, Henry King. Music, Hugo Friedhofer. Orchestrations, Edward B. Powell. Guitar Music, Vicente Gomez. Sup>ers'isor of Spanish Music, Alexander Courage. Conduaor, Lionel Newman. 17 SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS Elmer Bernstein and the Chico Hamilton Quintet have combined to give the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster produc- tion of SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS a background score conveying the sound and the feel of modem urban life. Modern jazz, in its very essence, contains the tense rhythms and bursts of melody that fit with a story of a people whose hearts begin to beat, with however thin a blood, only as the night falls on the town. And the sun comes up in the town's saloons. Up-tempoed jazz, with wire brushes putting it down for a guitar or a muted trumpet, plays against the hurry- ing taxis and the hurrying young man, (an ambitious combination of Horatio Alger, Uriah Heep and Pretty Boy Floyd) who is the protaganist of the Ernest Lehman story. There is a fine sjx)t where Sydney is feverishly searching a papjer's gossip column while standing at a Broadway newstand. Mr. Bernstein is jjartial to this idiom and has used it to advantage before. The use of an organized group serves a more than casual function. The quintet's recur- ring sound pulls the action together with tone rather than theme. By fit and by start, it's true, but that is the frenetic tuture of the story. Fred Katz and Mr. Hamilton have pnit together some anraaive melodies. Some more jazzy than need be, but of a general piece. And, rest easy. You need not suffer through an offensive crooner doing the town-crier bit behind the credits. (Or, in front of?). A good piece of work. Thomas Talbert SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS ... Hecht-HiU-Lancaster, United Artists. Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis. Direaor, Alexander Mackendrick. Music scored and conducted by Elmer Bernstein. Songs by Chico Hamilton and Fred Katz. Featuring the Chico Hamilton Quintet. Records: "Jazz Themes from Sweet Smell of Success". Chico Hamilton Quintet, Decca DL 8614; "Sweet Smell of Success". Sound track album, Decca DL8610.