Jim Thorpe "All American"

 ~         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

           

            

            

 

 

 

Jim Thorpe - 1910 

photographer unknown 

 

Today is the birthday of  Jim Thorpe, who was an American athlete who won Olympic gold medals and played professional football, baseball, and basketball. He was a citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation, his Sauk name was Wa-Tho-Huk, which translates as "Bright path the lightning makes as it goes across the sky".  

 

Thorpe was the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics (one in classic pentathlon and the other in decathlon). Only matched by Bruce (now Caitlyn Marie) Jenner in 1976.               

 

 

Bruce Jenner -1976
 

 

He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the contemporary amateurism rules. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals with replicas, after ruling that the decision to strip him of his medals fell outside of the required 30 days. Official IOC records still listed Thorpe as co-champion in decathlon and pentathlon until 2022, when it was decided to restore him as the sole champion in both events.             

Thorpe received numerous accolades for his athletic accomplishments. The Associated Press ranked him as the "greatest athlete" from the first 50 years of the 20th century, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted him as part of its inaugural class in 1963. The town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, was named in his honor. It has a monument site that contains his remains, which were the subject of legal action. Thorpe appeared in several films and was portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the 1951 film Jim Thorpe – All-American.        

 

               

            

            

Viewfinder links:         

        

Bruce Jenner        

Burt Lancaster        

Jim Thorpe        

        

Net links:          

        

ESPN ~ Thorpe preceded Deion, Bo      

Oklahoma Historical Society ~ Thorpe, James Francis (1888–1953)    

Olympics.com ~ Jim Thorpe            

Profootball Hall of Fame ~ Jim Thorpe - Class of 1963               

University of North Carolina ~ Jim Thorpe’s Olympic wins restored — 110 years later     

         

YouTube links:         

         

Jim Thorpe ~        

         Facts That'll Change Everything         

         All American Athlete, Olympian, Hero            

         The Top 100: NFL’s Greatest Players       

         The only running clip of jim thorpe           

         The Greatest Athlete of All Time (9 mins., 46 secs.)         

         The Baseball Career of Jim Thorpe       

         Jim Thorpe Movie         

         Jim Thorpe: All American (movie trailer)     

         Jim Thorpe: Quit Complaining (movie clip)    

SportsCentury ~ Jim Thorpe Part 1 (15 mins., 20 secs.)         

SportsCentury ~ Jim Thorpe Part 2 (15 mins., 20 secs.)        

        

        

         

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, May 28, 2025       

       

          

         

         

         

         
         

         

          

         

          

 

 

 ~ 

MAIN MENU - Blog Articles

 ~ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         

Burt Lancaster articles/mentions

~ 
   
The King and I ~ when Debora danced   
Orson Welles ~ Voodoo Macbeth           
   
             
    
        
   
   
             
   
                  
Burt Lancaster         
date & photographer unknown         

~

Movie/TV people 
MAIN MENU - Blog Articles
~

Orson Welles ~ Director Extraordinaire: Voodoo Macbeth

~

Orson Welles - January 29, 1939

The Campbell Playhouse

photo by Warneke and Elkins 

     

Yesterday was the birthday of Orson Welles; I missed posting this by a few hours yesterday; whatever! There are several Viewfinder links with tons of information about him at the end of this article.      

During the Great Depression, as a part of a New Deal federal stimulus package (sound familiar?), the federal government wrote a 20-year-old director a check to stage Macbeth to fight Jim Crow! It gets weirder. This young director set his version of the Shakespeare masterpiece in Haiti, and based it loosely on the life of a former slave-turned-revolutionary-turned-king named Henry Christophe, and cast only black performers. The year was 1936, the director was Orson Welles who two years later would frightened the nation with his radio dramatization of the War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (complete info, links below).    

 

Voodoo Macbeth - program - 1936 

 The Voodoo Macbeth is a common nickname for the Federal Theatre Project's 1936 New York production of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Welles adapted and directed the production, moved the play's setting from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean island, recruited an entirely Black cast, and earned the nickname for his production from the Haitian vodou that fulfilled the role of Scottish witchcraft. A box office sensation, the production is regarded as a landmark theatrical event for several reasons: its innovative interpretation of the play, its success in promoting African-American theatre, and its role in securing the reputation of its 20-year-old director.       

The production opened April 14, 1936, at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. A free preview two days before drew 3,000 more people than could be seated.                

 Opening night at the Lafayette Theatre (April 14, 1936)

"By all odds my great success in my life was that play," Welles told BBC interviewer Leslie Megahey in 1982. "Because the opening night there were five blocks in which all traffic was stopped. You couldn't get near the theater in Harlem. Everybody who was anybody in the black or white world was there. And when the play ended there were so many curtain calls that finally they left the curtain open, and the audience came up on the stage to congratulate the actors. And that was, that was magical."              

Voodoo Macbeth - 1936

The Works Project Administration provided economic stimulus during the Great Depression, and under its aegis was Federal Project Number One, responsible for generating jobs in the arts for which the Federal Theater Project was created. The Negro Theatre Unit was split into two halves, the "Contemporary Branch" to create theater on contemporary black issues, and the "Classic Branch", to perform classic drama. The aim was to provide a point of entry into the theater workforce for black writers, actors and stagehands, and to raise community pride by performing classic plays without reference to the color of the actors.        

I found no evidence to support it but it seems to me that the influence of the Harlem Renaissance (link below) of the previous decade was felt by the group.      

Jack Carter as Macbeth 

Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth 

Lafayette Theatre, Harlem

Edna Thomas as Lady Macbeth 

Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth 

Lafayette Theatre, Harlem

 Macbeth's bodyguard 

Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth 

Lafayette Theatre, Harlem

Virginia Girvin as the Nurse 

with Wanda Macy and Bertram Holmes as 

Macduff's daughter and son

Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth 

Lafayette Theatre, Harlem

Many of the notable artists of the time participated in the Federal Theatre Project, including Susan Glaspell who served as Midwest bureau director. The legacy of the Federal Theatre Project can also be found in beginning the careers of a new generation of theater artists. Arthur Miller, Orson Welles, John Houseman, Martin Ritt, Elia Kazan, Joseph Losey, Burt Lancaster, Marc Blitzstein and Abe Feder are among those who became established, in part, through their work in the Federal Theatre. Blitzstein, Houseman, Welles and Feder collaborated on the controversial production, The Cradle Will Rock.      

Burt Lancaster & Nick Cravat 

Federal Theatre Circus (1935–38) 

Viewfinder links:       
  
Marc Blitzstein         
Burt Lancaster        
William Shakespeare       
Carl Van Vechten & the Harlem Renaissance       
Orson Welles       
       
Net links:       
      
Inverse ~ The Forgotten Story of Orson Welles' All-Black Macbeth Production  
Internet Archive ~ The War of the Worlds              
      
YouTube links:       
       
Voodoo Macbeth      
Voodoo MacBeth battle over Citizen Kane        We Work Again ~ Voodoo Macbeth Footage       
Orson Welles interview on Voodoo Macbeth (1936)       
       

~

Radio
Music Notes Articles
MAIN MENU - Blog Articles

~

20,000 Vinyl LPs 105: 110 In the Shade

 110 In the Shade - musical 

vinyl LP album cover 

photo by Styrous®

On hot days like we've been having I always think of this album/musical comedy. It is about a flim-flam man who has spent his life bilking innocent farmers out of what little money they might have; then love shoots his sensual arrow deep into the scoundrel's heart.     

110 In the Shade - musical 

vinyl LP, side 1 

photo by Styrous®

It is a musical with a book by N. Richard Nash, lyrics by Tom Jones (not the crooner), and music by Harvey Schmidt. After the success of The Fantasticks (link below), the project was the composing team's first for Broadway. There are some of the most wonderful Broadway tunes from it. Many long forgotten but truly wonderful. Another Hot Day is one of those songs; it sets the tone for the rest of the show. A slow and languid harmonica intro captures the oppressive heat of the drought.  

Little Red Hat is a delightful romp with the romantic Snookie singing of his sweeite. The coule of kids are adorable. While Lizzie pulls out all the stops with the hysterical, Raunchy; a mock strip song performed totally clothed. It's just great!       

RCA Victor released an original Broadway cast recording of this production on November 3, 1963, one recording in stereo; one in mono. This copy is the mono version. Both recordings were identical; each having 16 tracks.   

110 In the Shade - musical 

vinyl LP label, side 1 

photo by Styrous®

Based on Nash's 1954 play The Rainmaker, it focuses on Lizzie Curry, a spinster living on a ranch in the American southwest, and her relationships with local sheriff File, a cautious divorcé who fears being hurt again, and charismatic con man Bill Starbuck, posing as a rainmaker who promises the locals he can bring relief to the drought-stricken area. Nash's book is faithful to his original play, although all the interior scenes were moved outdoors to allow for the addition of townspeople for ensemble numbers and dances. Many of Jones' lyrics come directly from Nash's play.         

The cast included Robert Horton as Starbuck, Inga Swenson as Lizzie, and Stephen Douglass as File, with Will Geer, Lesley Ann Warren, and Gretchen Cryer in supporting roles.       

110 In the Shade - musical 

vinyl LP, side 2 

photo by Styrous®

 

The play was previously made into a movie in 1956. It stars Burt Lancaster, Katharine Hepburn, Wendell Corey, Lloyd Bridges and Earl Holliman. Holliman won a Golden Globe Award for his performance. The film was later remade in Hindi as Thodasa Roomani Ho Jaayen.  

110 In the Shade - musical 

vinyl LP label, side 2 

photo by Styrous®

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1 – Stephen Douglass And Townspeople*     Gonna Be Another Hot Day – 4:04
A2 – Will Geer, Steve Roland And Scooter Teague     Lizzie's Comin' Home – 2:12
A3 – Inga Swenson     Love, Don't Turn Away   – 1:59
A4 –  Stephen Douglass, Will Geer And Steve Roland     Poker Polka – 2:02
A5 – Townspeople*     Hungry Men – 2:24
A6 – Robert Horton (5) And Townspeople*     Rain Song – 3:52
A7 – Inga Swenson And Robert Horton (5)     You're Not Foolin' Me – 4:00
A8 – Inga Swenson And Will Geer     Raunchy – 2:46

Side 2:

B1 – Inga Swenson And Stephen Douglass     A Man And A Woman – 3:25
B2 – Inga Swenson     Old Maid – 3:22
B3 – George Church, Scooter Teague, Lesley Warren And Townspeople*     Everything Beautiful Happens At Night  – 1:55
B4 – Robert Horton (5)     Melisande – 4:25
B5 – Inga Swenson     Simple Little Things  – 3:29
B6 – Lesley Warren And Scooter Teague     Little Red Hat – 2:24
B7 – Inga Swenson And Robert Horton (5)     Is It Really Me? – 2:04
B8 – Stephen Douglass, Robert Horton (5) And Inga Swenson     Wonderful Music    
B9 – Full Company*     Rain Song Finale – 3:19

Companies, etc.

    Copyright (c) – Radio Corporation Of America
    Recorded At – Webster Hall

Credits:

    Directed By – Joseph Anthony
    Engineer – Ernie Oelrich*
    Illustration – Oscar Liebman
    Lyrics By – Tom Jones (5)
    Music By – Harvey Schmidt
    Producer – Andy Wiswell
    Supervised By – George Marek*
    Written-By – N. Richard Nash

Notes:

Recorded At – Webster Hall, New York City
Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Matrix / Runout (Side A): PPRS-6184-1S
    Matrix / Runout (Side B): PPRS-6185-1S

The Original Broadway Cast*, Robert Horton (5), Inga Swenson And Stephen Douglass ‎– 110 In The Shade - The Original Broadway Cast
Label: RCA Victor ‎– LSO-1085
Format: Vinyl, LP, Stereo
Country: US
Released: 1963
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Musical
     
   
    

Viewfinder links:      

       

The Fantasticks     
Golden Globe Award              

      

YouTube links:      

 

Gonna Be Another Hot Day          

Little Red Hat            

Raunchy           

           

             

           

         

Styrous® ~ Sunday, September 3, 2017       

          

~

20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive

 101 Reel-to-Reel Tapes Archive
MAIN MENU - Blog Articles

~

20,000 Vinyl LPs 99: Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound by 10"

                              

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

10" vinyl LP album, cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Miklós Rózsa (Hungarian: [ˈmikloːʃ ˈroːʒɒ]; died on this day, Thursday, July 27, in 1995. He was a Hungarian composer trained in Germany (1925–1931), and active in France (1931–1935), England (1935–1940), and the United States (1940–1995), with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953.   

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

10" vinyl LP album, back cover detail 

album photo by Ned Scott

detail photo by Styrous®

Rózsa is best known for his nearly one hundred film scores, with Spellbound one of the top; however, he maintained an allegiance to absolute concert music throughout what he called his "double life."   

      

 

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

 10" vinyl LP album cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

 

The 1945 Alfred Hitchcock mystery/suspense film, Spellbound, dealt with the new field of psychoanalysis and the inner workings of the human mind. It opens with a quote from the 1599 Julius Caesar (play), by William Shakespeare, "The Fault... is Not in Our Stars, But in Ourselves..." and announces that it wishes to highlight the virtues of psychoanalysis in banishing mental illness and restoring reason.   
 

 

 Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

10"vinyl LP album cover detail 

detail photo by Styrous®

   

The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov and Leo G. Carroll. It is an adaptation by Angus MacPhail and Ben Hecht of the novel The House of Dr. Edwardes (1927) by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer.  

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

10" vinyl LP album cover 
   Artwork by Gunall

detail photo by Styrous®

 

There was major contention between director Alfred Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick. Selznick wanted Hitchcock to make a movie based upon Selznick's own positive experience with psychoanalysis.  Selznick brought in his therapist, May Romm M.D., who was credited in the film as a technical adviser. Romm and Hitchcock clashed frequently. Further contention was caused by the hiring of surrealist artist Salvador Dalí to conceive certain scenes in the film's key dream sequence. However, the sequence conceived and designed by Dalí and Hitchcock, once translated to film, proved to be too lengthy and too complicated, so the vast majority of what was filmed was cut from the film during editing. About two minutes of the dream sequence appear in the final film, but Ingrid Bergman said that the sequence had been almost 20 minutes long before it was cut by Selznick. The cut footage apparently no longer exists, although some production stills have survived in the Selznick archives. Eventually Selznick hired William Cameron Menzies, who had worked on Gone With the Wind, to oversee the set designs and to direct the sequence. Hitchcock himself had very little to do with its actual filming.  

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

dream sequence based on designs

by Salvador Dalí

(as Salvador Dali) 
movie still

Selznick originally wanted the brilliant Bernard Herrmann, but when Herrmann turned it down, Rózsa was hired and won the Academy Award for his score. Although Rózsa considered Spellbound to contain some of his best work, he said "Alfred Hitchcock didn't like the music — said it got in the way of his direction. I never saw him since."   

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound
 10" vinyl LP album back cover 

album photo by Ned Scott

photo of album cover by Styrous®

 

 

During the film's protracted post-production, considerable disagreement arose about the music, exacerbated by a lack of communication between producer, director, and composer. Rózsa scored another film, The Lost Weekend, before Spellbound was released, and he again used the theremin in that score. This led to allegations that he had recycled music from Selznick's film in the Paramount production. Meanwhile, Selznick's assistant tampered with the Spellbound scoring by replacing some of Rózsa's material with earlier music by Franz Waxman and Roy Webb.     

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

 10" vinyl LP album cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

 

 

The film orchestral score by Miklós Rózsa is notable for its pioneering use of the theremin, performed by Dr. Samuel Hoffmann. The score features one of the earliest uses of the theremin. The sound of the instrument, which had been invented in 1928, would become associated indelibly with science fiction thanks to its use in films like The Day The Earth Stood Still. But the instrument originally got its start in Hollywood (it had been used in the scores to some Russian films like the 1931, Odna) thanks to the score for Spellbound. It was played by Dr. Samuel Hoffman, a medical doctor who had a sideline as one of the most important practicioners of the instrument, later playing on the scores for The Thing From Another World, It Came From Outer Space, The 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T and The Ten Commandments.     

Leonard Slatkin did a stellar performance of the Spellbound Concerto with the BBC Orchestra, Simon Mulligan on Piano, and Celia Sheen playing the theremin (link below). It's over 12 minutes but worth every second! It's fantastic!      

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

 10" vinyl LP album cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

In a nutshell, Ingrid Bergman (link below) stars as Dr. Constance Petersen, a psychoanalyst, and Gregory Peck (link below) plays Dr. Anthony Edwardes who has come to replace the director, (Leo G. Carroll), of  Green Manors, a mental hospital, who is being forced into retirement. However, Petersen (Bergman) suspects Edwardes (Peck) is an imposter and the plot thickens. 

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

 10" vinyl LP album back cover detail

album photo by Ned Scott
detail photo by Styrous®

Miklós Rózsa was born on the 18th of April, 1907, in Budapest to Jewish parents. He achieved early success in Europe with his orchestral Theme, Variations, and Finale (Op. 13) of 1933 and became prominent in the film industry from such early scores as The Four Feathers (1939) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). The latter project brought him to America when production was transferred from wartime Britain, and Rózsa remained in the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1946. His notable Hollywood career earned him considerable fame, including Academy Awards for Spellbound (1945), A Double Life (1947), and Ben-Hur (1959), while his concert works were championed by such major artists as Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky, and János Starker.

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

 10" vinyl LP album back cover detail

album photo by Ned Scott
detail photo by Styrous®

 
Rózsa was introduced to classical and folk music by his mother, Regina Berkovits, a pianist who had studied with pupils of Franz Liszt, and his father, Gyula, a well-to-do industrialist and landowner who loved Hungarian folk music. Rózsa's maternal uncle Lajos Berkovits, violinist with the Budapest Opera, presented young Miklós with his first instrument at the age of five.

He enrolled at the University of Leipzig in 1925, ostensibly to study chemistry at the behest of his father. Determined to become a composer, he transferred to the Leipzig Conservatory the following year; there, he studied composition with Hermann Grabner, a former student of Max Reger. He also studied choral music with (and later assisted) Karl Straube at the Thomaskirche, where Johann Sebastian Bach had been organist.        

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound
 10" vinyl LP album back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Rózsa's first two published works, the String Trio, Op. 1, and the Piano Quintet, Op. 2, were issued in Leipzig by Breitkopf & Härtel. In 1929 he received his diplomas cum laude. For a time he remained in Leipzig as Grabner's assistant, but at the suggestion of the French organist and composer Marcel Dupré, he moved to Paris in 1932.    

The Trio is beautiful and flows just by virtue of the strings. The quintet is as hard and disjointed as the Trio is soft and almost dreamy; they make a nice pair (links below).   

Rózsa was introduced to film music in 1934 by the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. Following a concert which featured their respective compositions, Honegger mentioned that he supplemented his income as a composer of film scores, including the film Les Misérables (1934). Rózsa went to see it and was greatly impressed by the opportunities the film medium offered, and thought, "A HA!"    

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound
 10" vinyl LP album back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

His first film score was for Knight Without Armour (1937), produced by fellow Hungarian, Alexander Korda. After his next score, for Thunder in the City (1937), he joined the staff of the Korda London Films, and scored the studio's epic The Four Feathers (1939).        

In 1939, Rózsa travelled with Korda to Hollywood to complete the work on The Thief of Bagdad (1940) The film earned him his first Academy Award nomination. A further two followed with Lydia (1940) and Sundown (1941). In 1943, he received his fourth nomination for the Korda film, Jungle Book (1942).      

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound
 10" vinyl LP album back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Rózsa earned another Oscar nomination for scoring The Killers (1946) which introduced Burt Lancaster to film audiences. Part of the famed theme for the Dragnet radio and TV show duplicated part of Rozsa's The Killers main theme; Rózsa sued for damages, and subsequently was given co-credit for the Dragnet theme.    

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

 10" vinyl LP label, side 1

detail photo by Styrous®

    
    
          

His popular film scores during the 1970s included his last two Billy Wilder collaborations The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and Fedora (1978), the Ray Harryhausen fantasy sequel The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), the latter-day film noir Last Embrace starring Roy Scheider, and the time-travel fantasy film Time After Time (1979) for which Rózsa won a Science Fiction Film Award, saying in his televised acceptance speech that owith f all the film scores he had ever composed, it was the one he had worked on the hardest.     

   

Miklós Rózsa ~ Spellbound

 10" vinyl LP label, side 2

detail photo by Styrous®

Miklós Rózsa died at the Good Samaritan Hospital in  Los Angeles, California, on Thursday, the 27th of July, 1995. He was 88 years old.     

  

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1     Spellbound Concerto - 12:19 

Side 2:

          The Red House    
B1     Prelude - 3:15  
B2     Screams In The Night - 2:54  
B3     The Forest - 3:37  
B4     Retribution - 3:33  

Credits:

    Artwork – Gunall*
    Salvador Dalí dream sequence based on designs by (as Salvador Dali).     
    Conductor – Erich Kloss (tracks: A1), Miklós Rózsa (tracks: Miklos Rozsa)
    Orchestra – Frankenland State Orchestra Of Nürnberg* (tracks: A1)

Notes:

Dark red label with silver print.

Miklós Rózsa* ‎– Spellbound Concerto -- The Red House
Label: Capitol Records ‎– L-453
Format: Vinyl, LP, 10", Album
Country: US
Released: 1953
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Score

Viewfinder links:    

            
Gregory Peck ~ Mr Suave       
Ingrid Bergman ~ The shy lion          
          

Net links:    

           

Spellbound:
             Plot                 

             Cast               

New York Times Spellbound review              

Rózsa film scoring career       
New York Times Rózsa obit            
     
            

YouTube links:    

            

Miklos Rozsa: Spellbound -     
         Spellbound (1945) (complete movie)   
                Main Theme      
                Official Trailer      
                Salvador Dali Dream Sequence        
                Skiing Breakthrough   
Leonard Slatkin ~ Spellbound Concerto (time: 12' 12")     

Miklos Rozsa        
              Theme, Variations, and Finale (Op. 13)     
              String Trio, Op. 1     
              Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 2    

The Fault... is Not in Our Stars,
But in Ourselves...

                      — William Shakespeare

         

              

               

Styrous® ~ Thursday, July 27, 2017      

~

20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive

 101 Reel-to-Reel Tapes Archive
MAIN MENU - Blog Articles

~