Viewfinder links:
Halloween 45 RPM picture disc
The Story Of Star Wars picture disc
YouTube Links:
The Real History of Halloween Styrous® ~ Thursday, October 31, 2024
Showing posts with label The War of the Worlds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The War of the Worlds. Show all posts
October 31, 2024
March 27, 2024
20,000 vinyl LPs 359: Ferde Grofé ~ Rocketship X-M
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Today is the birthday of American composer, arranger, pianist and instrumentalist, Ferde Grofé, who was born on March 27, in New York City in 1892 to German immigrants. He is best known for his 1931 five-movement symphonic poem, Grand Canyon Suite, and for orchestrating Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin for its 1924 premiere.
To honor him, I chose his score for the rarely seen film, Rocketship X-M, because I remember this as the first Sci-Fi film I ever saw when I was not yet in my teens. I was completely blown away by it.
Desperate to see more films of this type, I eagerly flew to the theater the following year to see The Man from Planet X and was heartbroken to find it a cheesy "B" movie whose cheesiness was only surpassed in 1957 by Plan Nine from Outer Space by Ed Wood. My faith in Sci-Fi films was restored by films such as When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, Destination Moon, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing from Another World.
The score by Grofé included a theremin played by Dr. Samuel Hoffman who played the instrument in the orchestral score of the Alfred Hitchcock 1945 film Spellbound.
Rocketship X-M (a.k.a. Expedition Moon and originally Rocketship Expedition Moon) is a 1950 American black-and-white science fiction film from Lippert Pictures, the first outer space adventure of the post-World War II era. The film was produced and directed by Kurt Neumann and stars Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery Jr., Hugh O'Brian, and Morris Ankrum. The film is in black-and-white except when they are on the planet Mars when the film is tinted red, very red. I thought that was totally cool.
Rocketship X-M (1950)
There is fascinating information on producers Robert L. Lippert and Murray Lernet on the Beware the Blog blog (link below) as well as a plethora of information on the film on several blogs on the Net (links below).
Rocketship X-M tells the story of a Moon expedition gone awry. Through a series of unforeseen events, the expedition's crew find themselves on the red planet, Mars.
During their time on the planet they go on to discover the remnants of a
Martian civilization destroyed long ago by atomic war and now reverted
to barbarism.
Tracklist:
Side 1:
Side 1:
A1 - Main Title
A2 - Countdown; Launch; Into Orbit
A3 - Floating Free
A4 - Interrupted Mission
A5 - Romance In Space (Lisa's Theme)
A6 - Approaching Mars
A7 - Theremin Solo
A2 - Countdown; Launch; Into Orbit
A3 - Floating Free
A4 - Interrupted Mission
A5 - Romance In Space (Lisa's Theme)
A6 - Approaching Mars
A7 - Theremin Solo
Side 2:
B1 - Exploring The Red Planet
B2 - The Martian Mutants
B3 - Homeward Bound
B4 - None Came Back
B5 - End Title
Credits:
Composed By – Ferde Grofé
Orchestrated By – Albert Glasser
Theremin – Dr. Samuel Hoffman*
Notes:
Original pressing with orange labels and matrix numbers stamped in the runout grooves. This edition lists Starlog's New York address on the back cover.
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Matrix / Runout: S R 1000 A-1A
Barcode: S R 1000 B-1A
Barcode: S R 1000 B-1A
Ferde Grofé – Rocketship X-M (The Original Soundtrack Score)
Label: Starlog Records – SR - 1000
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1977
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Soundtrack, Score
Label: Starlog Records – SR - 1000
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1977
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Soundtrack, Score
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
Beware the Blog ~ Anatomy of a Cult Science Fiction Classic
KQEK ~ CD: Rocketship X-M (1950) review
Monster Movie Music ~ Ferde Grofé Sr. - "Walkin Around On Mars" (1950)
Monstrous Movie Music ~ Rocketship X-M
Scifist ~ Rocketship X-M
YouTube links:
May 21, 2021
May 6, 2021
Orson Welles & his productions
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film still
photo: Cohen Media Group
Today, May 6, is the birthday of Orson Welles who was born in 1918. He was an American actor, director, screenwriter and producer who is
remembered for his innovative work in radio, theatre and film. He is
considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
Orson Welles is primary remembered for his infamous radio broadcast on October 30, 1938, when he and his Mercury Theatre actors terrified the nation with their broadcast on CBS of a dramatization of the H. G. Wells 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. The Mercury Theatre on the Air became The Campbell Playhouse in December 1938.
The event has been documented, written about and recreated on radio with the production by The Lux Radio Theater as well as on television with a production by Studio One on CBS (link below).
But Welles produced and directed many other brilliant shows for theater with an amazing variety of talent!
Viewfinder links:
Horse Eats Hat - 1936
Voodoo Macbeth - 1936
Faustus - 1937
The Columbia Workshop broadcast of the Archibald MacLeish radio play The Fall of the City (April 11, 1937) made Welles an overnight star.
The Fall of the City - 1937
Citizen Kane - 1941
The Magnificent Ambersons - 1942
Journey into Fear - 1943
The Stranger - 1946
The Lady from Shanghai - 1947
Macbeth - 1948
Viewfinder links:
The Boston Globe ~ Magician
Styrous® ~ Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Mercury Theater articles/mentions
~
The War of the Worlds in music
The War of the Worlds ~ Orson Welles @ 100
Jeff Wayne ~ The War of the Worlds
May 3, 2021
March 27, 2021
Tim Rice articles/mentions
~ Michael Damian ~ Rock On with 12"
Harold Prince ~ Flora the Red Menace
March 23, 2021
Andrew Lloyd Webber articles/mentions
mentions:
Michael Damian ~ Rock On with 12"
Harold Prince ~ Flora the Red Menace
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