The Western movie YELLOW ROCK has won international
awards, national awards, film festivals, awards from cowboy organizations and awards
from Indian organizations (you can read my review HERE if you missed it).
Starring Michael Biehn, James Russo and Lenore
Andriel, directed by Nick Vallelonga, co-written and co-produced by Lenore
Andriel and Steve Doucette, the making of this small but powerful movie should
be an inspiration for anyone trying against all odds to get a film made. It’s also a damned good movie, and
thought-provoking. Recently, composer
Randy Miller’s score, by turns beautiful, haunting and
relentless, was released on CD by Intrada. It’s a worthy addition to your western
soundtrack collection, as you’ll hear from the audio clips you’ll find at the
end of this article.
I recently had the pleasure of talking in-depth to
Randy Miller about YELLOW ROCK, his other soundtracks, his favorite composers
and scores and, perhaps most enlightening, the nuts and bolts of how motion
picture scores, big-budget and small, are created.
HENRY PARKE: Many
times I’ve been in a cutting room, looking at dailies or a rough-cut, and
everything looks stilted and hollow, and you think, this is not a movie. This is obvious actors speaking lines. Then you put a temporary piece of music
behind it, and it suddenly comes to life, and you think, “Oh my God, it is a movie!” What is it that music brings to film, that
makes such a difference?
Randy Miller conducting during the recording of
the 'CONTAGION' score
RANDY MILLER:
That’s a good question. And that
music – by the way, we call it ‘temp’ music – is really important. This is not the answer to your question, but
I’ll get to that. The temp music is
probably the last creative element that’s brought to a movie. The story’s been written, the actors have
acted, the editing’s underway. But a
whole new element is created, and that’s the score. And that brings so much; it can bring
something that’s not at all on the screen.
For example, there might be a scene where it’s very quiet, it might be
just the peaceful forest. But if you put
in threatening music, then something scary’s in the forest. That’s bringing something that doesn’t even
exist into the scene. That would be one
extreme; the other extreme would be giving exactly what you see, just highlighting
it. Give you an example; in YELLOW ROCK,
there were wolves. You see the wolves,
and if you bring threatening music along with the wolf, it’s going to heighten
the feeling that’s there. And the other
thing you can do would be where you intentionally do the opposite, for
comedy. For example, you have a comedic
scene, and you play serious music against it; it’s the opposite of what you
see, but it becomes funny. It’s a
contrasting. The music coming in at the
end, by the composer, gives the director a whole other ‘color’ to work with,
along with the dialogue and sound effects; it’s a whole ‘nother sort of palette to bring to the film. And it’s huge, as you know.
HENRY: At what age did you become interested in
music?
RANDY: I started piano lessons around 8 or 9, and
played through high school; picked up clarinet somewhere in junior high, 6 or 7th
grade. My mom was a professional singer,
so I was always around it, and she was always performing different places up in
the Catskill Mountains of New York.
HENRY: What
kind of music did she sing?
RANDY: She did show music; semi-legit Broadway. Mostly show songs, but some opera, some
operetta. And when she settled down to
have a family, she still worked. She
worked all over the country when she was younger. But when she settled down in upstate New
York, she worked in the hotels around the area.
So I was always around that, and at some point in my early twenties I
actually started accompanying her. I
went to music school when I was 18; I went to Berkeley Music School in
Boston. At that time I was more
interested in theatre music, Broadway music, as an orchestrator.
HENRY: So you’re an East-coaster like myself.
RANDY: Yuh, I’m from Ellenville, New York, near the
Catskills. It’s an hour and a half from
New York City, near Kingston and Woodstock and all that. I have a degree in composition from
Berkeley. Then I started arranging some
show-things, but I got into more contemporary arranging for records, and a
little bit of film work. I was working
on a record in Miami, as the string
arranger and conductor; then I came out here.
I had the opportunity to do some work in the film end of things, and I
ended up moving here (to Los Angeles).
HENRY: So you
weren’t planning initially to be a film composer.
RANDY: No, I
wanted to be an arranger for Broadway.
HENRY: Is
that something you’d still like to do?
RANDY: I have
had a chance to do it, which has been fun.
Occasionally projects come by that are based on the Broadway tradition,
and every chance I get to do it, it’s just a lot of fun. It’s very limited; if that’s all you do, you
really have to be in New York, fight your way into the inner core of that
stuff. I never tried to do that. I got involved with film music, I stayed with
it, and I’m glad I did. Once in a while I
do get to do that kind of (Broadway) stuff, and it’s always a blast.
HENRY: What were big musical influences on you as a
young guy? Whose music impressed you?
RANDY: When I
was probably nineteen, The Rite of Spring,
by Stravinsky. I remember putting
headphones on, and listening to that, and going, “I have no idea what I’m listening
to.” I have no idea how Stravinsky
composed that. I don’t understand it,
but it’s just unbelievable, amazing music.
HENRY: It
caused riots when it was originally performed.
RANDY: It did; and as you know, this is the
centennial, this year. It was a hundred
years ago this spring when it was performed in Paris. There are a lot of performances all over the
country right now, because of that. The Rite of Spring had a big effect on
me. Actually, a couple of years before,
I went with my mother and father to see a revival of THE KING AND I on Broadway. Yul Brynner was in it, and most of the people
(from the original cast) were in it, although they were quite a bit older than
when they first did it. And that really
hit me; that was amazing. I was listening
to my hero back then, who was Robert Russell Benet, an orchestrator for all of
Rogers and Hammerstein and many other people, and I got really interested in
what he was doing. The music of THE KING
AND I is still among my favorites, probably because it imprinted such a strong
impression on me, what he was doing as an orchestrator of Richard Rogers’
music. The simple themes of the songs
that he turned into this beautiful score.
When I was a real kid, from ten
to eighteen, I was mostly into show songs, with my mother playing these things. I wasn’t that much into it until I went down
to Broadway. But I was listening to the
contemporary rock of the day, a little jazz.
But it really didn’t hit me until those two events guided me. I’m trying to think what film music influenced
me – you were mentioning DR. NO,
which of course had the James Bond Theme, that great theme. I guess it would be John Williams and Jerry
Goldsmith. Those two guys in the ‘70s
and ‘80s just made so much great music. PLANET
OF THE APES for Goldsmith, and then STAR TREK; and for Williams, everything –
STAR WARS and JAWS. So once I started
hearing that stuff, that was something I got really interested in, even though
I understood when I heard those things, what they were and how to do it. I’m not saying I could do it, but I
understood it, where with Stravinsky I couldn’t understand what he was doing,
and it took music school for me to figure it out, from a compositional point of
view.
HENRY: That’s interesting. It’s sort of like, as a writer, you read
novels, and you can follow what’s going on.
And then you read Hemingway, and suddenly it’s like you’re starting from
page one all over again.
RANDY: Yeah,
it’s the best! Even to this day, when I
hear things that I don’t understand, how is this composer doing this, that’s
the most interesting stuff. Even if it’s
not sophisticated, difficult music. It
could be just a rap guy that’s doing really cool rhythms; whatever it is, when
it’s something that I don’t really know how to do, that’s the kind of thing
that kind of draws me to try and understand it.
HENRY: What
was the first film or TV project that you composed for?
RANDY: I did
a lot of student films in Boston, at Berkley, but when I came out here on that
CD project, as a string arranger, I ended up going to school at SC for graduate
studies in film scoring, so at that point I started doing a lot of student
films at USC, UCLA, and AFI. I learned a
lot there, but as important, I met filmmakers, and I’m still doing things for a
few of them; a few of them have had real careers, and I’m happy to have met
them at that period. I met a French horn
player on a student film, and she was working for a big Hollywood composer
named Robert Folk at the time. She hired
me as a courier to bring him some CDs and things. I only worked for her for one day, because I
went to his house, and it was such great timing. He happened to be working on a film, and he
needed someone to do some pop music, and he hired me that day to work on the
film, CAN’T BUY ME LOVE. That was the
first time. I was doing ‘source music’,
which means it’s coming from an (on-screen) source, like a radio, TV,
CD-player. That was a fairly big studio
film, so that was a great experience, even though it was source music. I think the first time I did my own score, not
working for someone else, was probably a horror film – THE BOY FROM HELL or DR.
HACKENSTEIN or WITCHCRAFT (laughs), they were all from 1988. I think THE BOY FROM HELL was the first. It was a low-budget horror film that had a
satanic edge to it. Not much money, but
it was great, to get your own project, and be the person responsible for all of
it. I had some experience at that point
working for Robert Folk and other composers, so I was coming in prepared. But very little money and very little time,
and unfortunately it wasn’t a great film, but I always do the best I can with
the music, and that’s an interesting thing, because you can do your best, no
matter what; even if the film is not a great film, you can still turn in your
best effort.
HENRY: And
you can certainly take a film that is not ideal, and improve it tremendously
with the music. Especially genre stuff;
horror and noir things, what you can
do with the suspense and tone.
RANDY: Absolutely.
You’re absolutely right. And what
we were saying before, that the music comes so late in the process, and it
really can make a difference. With
YELLOW ROCK, which is a good film, but an underfunded film – they didn’t have a
lot of money to work with. Steve Doucette
and Lenore Andriel really stepped up to the plate, as they say, and funded the
music much more than you would expect from the small budget that they had. Because they agreed with me that the film was
really great, and could be that much better if we had the resources to record a
score that sounded theatrical, instead of a score that might be okay on TV, but
wouldn’t really play in movie theatres. I
think that was a great example of them agreeing that music could really elevate
the film. And in a relatively inexpensive
way. When you think about it, you can bring
in some more name actors, that’s going to help sell a film of course, hopefully
they do great performances; but the cost of the score isn’t that much when you
look at all the other elements of filmmaking.
HENRY: How
did you get involved with YELLOW ROCK?
RANDY: Lenore
and I met through a mutual friend who lived where we live in Old Topanga, maybe
ten years ago. Lenore had written a
couple of scripts, not YELLOW ROCK, and was actively trying to get the films
made. She ended up getting this one
made, and I think she wrote the script fairly quickly. When she got this one underway, she called
me, because we had talked about doing something together, and asked if I wanted
to do it, and I said, “Yes, sounds great!”
I mean, to combine Westerns and Native Americans and the supernatural,
all these things – it’s a great project to work on. And that’s how it started. She had something of a rough assembly (a
rough-cut); she sent it over, and we started working together.
HENRY: I was wondering if YELLOW ROCK is your first
western score. You scored PIRATES OF THE
PRAIRIE – is that a western?
RANDY: It’s
not, but it had western elements. It’s a
pirate movie, but due to an unusual twist in the story, it ends up in Nebraska.
So there was western music in there, quite a bit, even though it was a comedy
really, an action comedy for kids. There
was western music in AMARAGOSA, which was a beautiful documentary that takes
place in the Mojave Desert. DREAM RIDER
had some western music in it because it took place in Colorado. But this is the first full-on western I’ve
ever done. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but hasn’t there been a resurgence of
westerns in the last five or six years?
HENRY: I
certainly think so. Of course I’m so
focused on it that it’s a little hard to judge.
But I do think there really is resurgence. And there’s a huge loyalty; there are many
people who are terribly eager for the next western project, which is very
encouraging as I keep trying to write it.
(laughs)
RANDY: When
TRUE GRIT came out a couple of years ago, and 3:10 TO YUMA, it seemed like a
couple of them in a row; I don’t think Lenore did hers thinking about this at
all. I think it’s just the way it
happened. I didn’t really expect to do a
western because there weren’t really that many of them for the last ten or fifteen
years. And then good luck came my way,
and I got a chance to work on one. It’s
a pleasure.
HENRY: While
I’m a very big fan of movie music, I don’t know much about the process. So you were sent a rough cut, and what do you
do then? How do you approach it? Do the filmmakers tell you what they want, or
do you tell them what they need?
RANDY: All of
those. We mentioned temporary
music. The temp score; in the case of
YELLOW ROCK, the film came in with some music placed in some scenes, and not in
others, where we all though there needed to be music. So the rough cut comes in. When you’re sitting down with the producer or
the director, you’re discussing the music as it relates to the film, and the temporary
music is very useful, even if it’s wrong.
If the music doesn’t fit, it’s instructive: you know what doesn’t work. If it works really well, that’s instructive
as well, but at the same time filmmakers say, don’t be tied into that. Bring your own creative expression to
that. And of course I appreciate that,
as most composers do. That’s not always
the case; some filmmakers tell you just do what’s there, and that’s a scenario
that nobody likes. When there’s no
music, it’s almost the best situation, because then you’re free to do what you
feel should be in the scene without any bias towards hearing something, getting
used to the temp music. It’s also pretty
dangerous, because then you’re really taking a stab at it. You don’t know what the filmmakers really
intend for music. So in that kind of
scenario, when there’s nothing there, I would ask Lenore, what do you want the
audience to feel? I wouldn’t ask her what
kind of music should it be. Should it be
guitars or strings? I would never ask that. I would ask what you want the audience to
feel in the scene. If there’s temp music
there, I would play the scene without music.
And suggest entrances -- entrances and exits are incredibly important in
music. Because you may not want the audience to feel
the music is coming in. Just slowly
creep it in. Or you may want them to
feel it coming in. It takes a lot of
skill and a lot of experience to get that right. Same thing when the music goes away at the
end of a scene. So we would sit down and
have lengthy discussions.
With YELLOW ROCK we spent two or three seven-hour
days going through the movie, because you can speak about one scene for an
hour. And if there are fifty scenes
(that need) music, it can take many hours to go through. After
we’ve discussed the scenes, I start working on the music. I can away from the
film and working on scenes, main title scenes and sub-scenes; it could be a
theme that deals with a romantic angle, or a chase motif. Sometimes I will just work on these themes or
angles or motifs, away from the film, but with the film in mind. Other times it’s write-to-picture. It depends on the schedule. If you have no time, sometimes you have to
get right into working on a scene. So
however you decide to work on the music, you end up demo-ing – and when I say
demo I mean synthesizers; the keyboard has any instrument you can play, to make
a demonstration. Recordings of what either the themes are, to
play away from the picture, or actually score the scene, with music you’re
writing for that specific moment. You turn
them in to the filmmakers; get some sense of if this is what they like. And they may love it, they may hate it.
HENRY: Now
speaking of synthesizing them, in lower budget films, it’s rare to have
original scores these days. I’ve come to
expect a lot of synthesized music when you have one. But your score is clearly ‘real’ and full
orchestra. How many people were involved
in playing your music?
RANDY: You’re
right. There was a full string section,
which is maybe fifteen. Which is
actually not a full string section,
but it’s good-sized. Four wood-winds,
two French horns, trumpet, trombone, a lot of guitar parts, many different
kinds of guitars; everything from mandolas, mandolins, acoustic guitars, steel
and nylon strings. A lot of authentic
Indian percussion, orchestral percussion, piano.
HENRY:
Speaking of Indian instruments, what were you using, to give the Indian
feel to the music?
RANDY: Mostly
it was percussion and woodwinds. And in
the woodwind area we used native American wood flutes, which are transverse
flutes, ones that go sideways, made of bamboo and wood. We used ocarinas, which are South American
woodland-type sounds. Even things from
India, real India, called a bansuri, but it kind of has a Native American sound. In the percussion we used frame drums, which
are the main instrument of many native cultures. It’s basically a frame around a drum with a
skin in the middle, in all kinds of sizes.
Wind chimes, shaker-type sounds, rattles. Everything was acoustic, along with
western-sounding instrument, which also blended nicely; like a concert bass
drum, or tympanis. I also used Japanese taiko
drums, which is a giant drum with a frame around it. It’s a great sound that blends in nicely with
the real Native American sounds. We went
to great lengths, and the producers, Lenore and Steve, said your samples sound
great, the percussion. I said it would
sound that much better if we replaced it with real percussion, and they went for it. And my God, I’m so appreciative of that. So we ended up replacing everything. I don’t think there’s any synth; just a few
little sound effects.
HENRY: You’ve
worked on very large, and small, budget movies.
From a music point of view, what difference does the budget make – how
do you approach them differently?
RANDY: That’s
a good question. There’s no difference
in the amount of effort I put in.
Because the score has to stand on its own, and be well-written and
hopefully well received. In
smaller-budget films I tend to have to do everything myself, just because
there’s no money. Even in the case of
YELLOW ROCK I ended up orchestrating everything, and I did have a copyist,
which is great, but a lot of times I may have to do some copying myself -- copying
of the music for the musicians. So
you’re time-crunched because the work-load is bigger, because you don’t have
the funds to hire some support people, like other orchestrators or
arrangers. On the small-budget projects,
if you know it’s heading right towards home-video, or even the TV, you can do
all the work on synth, and you’re kind of writing that way; writing music that
you know will sound pretty good on synth, or good enough. On a bigger-budget project, if you think it’s
going to go theatrical, you have to start thinking, how am I going to make this
music sound right in a theatre? How is
it going to support a big space with several hundred people watching it at the
same time?
HENRY: You’ve
composed in a lot of genres. You’ve done
a lot of horror, a lot of comedy. Do you
have any particularly favorite scores that you look back on and think, that’s
my best, or my favorite genre you like to work in?
RANDY MILLER:
Here’s the negative side. I won’t
say names, but there was a certain horror movie. The first one had got some attention; on the
second one they put a lot of money in, because they wanted to go
theatrical. And as is typical with sequels,
you know how they really go over the top?
This one was really awful; it was just disgusting. It was just spectacle for the sake of
spectacle. And it was not a pleasant
experience for any kind of creative filmmaking, for me to watch this kind of
filmmaking being done. It was disgusting
– and I like good horror films. Scary
films, like the original ALIEN; now that’s scary.
HENRY:
There’s a huge difference between scary and revolting.
RANDY: That’s
a great word – this was revolting; and I’m proud of what I did with the
music. I think I did a really good
score, it was well received. But I felt
like I would never want to work on another film that disgusting. I felt like I was putting something out in
the world that’s just so negative.
HENRY: And
you have to watch it so many times.
RANDY: On the other extreme of that was AMARGOSA;
Todd Robinson was the director of that, and it’s a beautiful film, beautifully
shot; Kurt Apduhan the DP, got an Emmy for it.
Real positive, interesting story, and I was real proud of what I did on
that. And there were several like that,
YELLOW ROCK included. That had a lot to
do with the genre, which was such a different combination. SHANGHAI RED, another small film, dealing
with issues in China.
HENRY: Tell me, would you like to do another
Western?
RANDY: I’d
love to. Maybe one of your filmmaker
friends out there will email me.
HENRY: As we
jumped right into this interview, I don’t think I told you how much I enjoyed
your score. I think it’s terrific. And because I collect western soundtracks, I’d
heard so much. Rarely do I hear
something that I like, where it’s not derivative of Elmer Bernstein or Ennio
Morricone. But yours doesn’t sound like
other people’s work.
RANDY: Thank
you, I really appreciate that. And as
you just mentioned, there’s a real strong history of excellent film composers
doing great scores – and those are two of the best, that you mentioned. Even to be in the same paragraph is quite a
compliment – thank you for that.
HENRY: Who did
you consider the great film composers, that we haven’t talked about?
RANDY: Some
of the original ones, going way way way back.
People like Max Steiner, with KING KONG: that was one of those scores
that really affected me; oh my God, this is someone who’s done something from nothing. He was fantastic – he did so many great scores. Bernard Herrmann, all the amazing things he
did with PSYCHO and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. I mentioned Jerry Goldsmith of course. Most of the film composers of the golden age,
back in the forties, they were all so good, they were classical composers. Franz Waxman, that whole bunch that came over
from Europe, during World War II and settled in Los Angeles. These were serious concert composers,
enormous talents. Really an amazing
period of time, because they were all so good.
Even people like Leonard Bernstein, who was American, but that whole
period of time in the forties and fifties, there was unbelievable talent.
HENRY: Do you
have any particularly favorite Western scores?
RANDY: From
the last twenty years, I’ve always been very fond of SILVERADO, by Bruce Broughton. I think that score brought a resurgence for
composers to go hey, this is a contemporary Western score. It had nothing to do with a contemporary
setting, it’s just that it was a composer writing in the ‘80s as compared to the
‘60s or ‘70s; his take on Westerns, and it’s a great score. I know Bruce, and was always a big fan of
his, and that score. Tremendous,
fantastic score.
HENRY: Is
there a major difference approaching a score, if the movie has not yet been
shot, versus when you’re working with a rough cut?
RANDY: That’s
a really good question. I’m not sure if
it’s a really big difference, but it’s
an interesting one. On a big film that I
worked on, an Oliver Stone film called HEAVEN AND EARTH, Kitaro, who is a
recording artist, brought me in to work with him on the music; and he wrote 90%
of the music, I wrote 10%. But I worked
on all the music. Kitaro really was not
a film composer at that time; he was a Japanese recording artist. And Oliver was very smart; he got us together
before the film was even put together – they were shooting a little bit, but
there was nothing to look at. And he
gave us a year to write the score, instead of three weeks, which can
happen. He figured, let’s get these guys
working on the music. So Kitaro would
write a theme, some kind of a motif. And I would take it and develop it into
more of a film score; extend it, orchestrate it, and give it contours that a
scene might need. And we would send it
to him, and he would comment – he likes this, he doesn’t like this – so eventually,
when the film started coming in, we would take those pieces and start contouring
them for the scene. Sometimes we had to
start from scratch, but other times they would just fit in. It was nice because it gives you more freedom
not to look at anything, to kind of use your imagination. Oliver was a big fan of the usage of music in
film. He actually had Warner Brothers
finance a huge recording session with us, probably a 100 piece orchestra --
that’s very rare -- just to experiment with themes. You practically never hear of that. They had nothing close to a final cut, and he
just wanted to hear what these things would sound like in their biggest,
fullest form.
HENRY: I take
it you liked working with Oliver Stone.
RANDY: Yeah;
well, he’s an interesting character, terribly smart, but when you sit down to
work with him you have to follow his every thought process; he’s going from one
thing to the next very quickly. It could
have to do with the film, it could have to do with his daily life, with his experiences
in Vietnam, or anything – you just have to go with him. He’s quite an amazing filmmaker. Even when I’m working away from film, when I’m
working on a record, or something that’s not visual, I find it kind of
refreshing not to constantly sit there and look at something. Closing your eyes and just doing music for
music’s sake.
HENRY: You know what Sergio Leone had Ennio
Morricone do for THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY? He composed the score before they shot
anything, and he played it on the set to pace the actors.
RANDY: Boy,
that’s a filmmaker who has a deep appreciation of music. And what a great story! What a great composer that he picked to do
that with. I didn’t know that. Studios really do bring in composers way too
late. What we get paid, whether it’s a
dollar or a hundred thousand dollars, we’re getting paid to do a job. And sometimes we’re paid to do it in three
weeks; we would be more than glad to get the same amount of money and have four
months. It would only make it all the better,
but unfortunately post-production schedules are not structured that way. It would be great if we could be hired months
before, come up with some music – all composers would jump at the chance to do
it that way. Lenore brought me in as
early as she could, which was really nice and early, and I was very pleased
about that – she gave me time to complete the score, and do the best job I
could. As a matter of fact she pushed
back some of the schedule to give me time.
HENRY: Is the
YELLOW ROCK score you’re first soundtrack to be put out on CD?
RANDY: No, I’ve
had several. Intrada.com, they’re the
website that specializes in film scores, and they’ve released several others of
my scores, including the one I mentioned, AMARGOSA. There was a miniseries
called SPARTACUS – not the new one. This
was from Universal and high quality.
HELLRAISER 3 has come out; PIRATES OF THE PLAINS has come out. THE SOONG SISTERS, a very big Chinese film,
it won a lot of awards – the score won awards – that’s out as well. That’s another score I did with Kitaro. I’ve probably had ten CDs out.
HENRY: It
must be nice to know that people are sitting down to listen to your music, on
purpose, and not just hearing it while watching the movie.
RANDY: I hope so; you always hope people feel that
way. Hopefully they do enjoy it away
from the movie.
To hear samples of music from Randy Miller’s YELLOW
ROCK score, visit the Intrada Website HERE.
And here’s the trailer for YELLOW ROCK, which is
available at Amazon.com and elsewhere.
CONFIRMATION ON JAMES FENIMORE COOPER’S HOME
If you read last week’s Round-up, you know that
while back in New York City last week, I tried to find the home of the LAST OF
THE MOHICANS author, and could not locate the plaque I had so often seen in the
1970s, at the St. Mark’s Baths. I sent
an inquiry to the James Fenimore Cooper Society, and have just received a response
from Hugh MacDougall, Corresponding Secretary:
“You are quite
correct. Cooper lived at 4 St. Marks Place (pictured in your attachment) for a
time after his return from Europe in 1833. Specifically, he lived there from
May 1, 1834 until May 1, 1836 (May 1 was the standard period for leases in New
York to begin and end). He, and sometimes his family also, made a number of
trips to Cooperstown during that period, as he arranged to buy back and remodel
his old family home (Otsego Hall) originally built about 1800 by his father
William Cooper.
“Below is a
picture of the building from p. 272 of Mary Phillips, “James Fenimore Cooper”
New York: John Lane, 1913. It is clearly the one you photographed.”
In 1913
A century later, in 2013
I’ll have to contact
them again, to see if they know what happened to the plaque, and what its text
said.
CINECON 49 OPENS THURSDAY
The 49th Annual Cinecon Classic Film
Festival will open on Thursday, August 29th, with the first
screening at 2 pm at the Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre. They feature a wonderfully eclectic schedule
of movies, with plenty of silent shorts and features, Our Gang comedies in
French, musicals, comedies and dramas.
The special guest for this year’s festival is Shirley Jones. Among the screenings of particular interest
to Western fans is Friday’s 4:55 pm showing of RAMROD (1947), from Luke Short’s
story, directed by Andre de Toth, and starring Joel McCrea and Veronica
Lake. And Sunday at 10:50 am it’s SUTTER’S
GOLD (1936), about the 1849 discovery of gold in California, starring Edward
Arnold as Sutter, with Lee Tracy and Binnie Barnes. For details, visit the website HERE.
3-D EXPO KICKS OFF WITH 60TH ANNI.
SCREENING OF ‘HONDO’
From September 6th through the 15th,
the 2013 WORLD 3D FILM EXPO III will be held at the glorious Hollywood Egyptian
Theatre. The first movie to be screened will
be the terrific HONDO, starring John Wayne, Geraldine Page (nominated for an
Oscar) and Ward Bond, and directed by John Farrow. The Duke’s daughter-in-law and Batjac
Executive Gretchen Wayne will do a Q & A about the film’s
preservation.
On Friday, September 13th at 3:30 pm, WINGS
OF THE HAWK, Budd Boeticcher’s western set against the Mexican Revolution,
starring Van Heflin, Julie Adams and Noah Beery Jr. will screen, and Julie
Adams will be present for a Q&A and book signing.
Among the actors making personal appearances during
the expo will be Piper Laurie, Lea Thompson, Louis Gossett Jr., and producer
Walter Mirisch. Go HERE for a complete schedule.
DON'T MISS THE 'LONGMIRE' SEASON FINALE ON MONDAY
NIGHT!
Is it just me, or does it seem like season two had
just started, and it's already finale time? LONGMIRE, like HELL ON WHEELS, has a ten-episode season. I was just checking the numbers on shows in the old golden days, for comparison
purposes. CHEYENNE only had fifteen
episodes its first season, RAWHIDE had 22.
WAGON TRAIN had 39, which I think was the average, and THE REBEL only
ran two seasons, but produced 76 episodes!
Not that I’m complaining – I just want more of a good thing!
DEFENSE OF 'THE LONE RANGER' FROM ACROSS THE POND
Davy Turner is a British Round-up Rounder who keeps us up-to-date on what Westerns are playing on TV and in theatres in his country. Having heard the complaints about THE LONE RANGER, when he finally got to see the movie, he filed the following report:
"WHAT the blazes were the US film
critics moaning about!!! The Lone Ranger is EPIC...it contains, classic western
scenarios, fabulous western settings (you can't beat Monument Valley....ask The
Duke)...superb special effects, the work with the two railways is incredible...and the script is both
serious and funny. Johnny is terrific and 'not' just another Cap'n Jack
parody..Armie is playing the role fine in the Destry becomes tough role and the
message about how the Native Americans were so poorly treated is also covered
in the movie plot. The 'how' John Reid became 'The Lone Ranger' is almost
original to the TV series...BUT...this film deserves to be seen by
everyone...western fans and Johnny Depp aside...it's a great summer blockbuster
movie with 'heart'.When the William Tell overture kicks in (the second 'real'
time)..your heart just soars. Two thumbs up pardners Thanks
to my daughter Em for coming specially to take me ...the horses were enough for
her I guess (OK so the rabbits were a bit weird! )"
Incidentally, when I shared his comments on Facebook, they were echoed by others in England, the U.S. and Germany. It was a very enjoyable film. It's a pity the critics had their knives out before they even saw it.
THE WRAP-UP
That's it for this week! Next week I'll be telling you about the coming RAMONA DAYS celebration, and either book or DVD reviews -- depending on what I manage to finish! Have a great week!
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright August 2013 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved
