Triceratops wrote:

Vaughn Williams Symphony No 6 used for the theme music for the 1970s drama A Family at War

Probably the most prestigious piece of music ever used for a television drama series Trike. And from the same composer, his Symphony No 7 Sinfonia antarctica which was written for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic. Released 70 years ago this week, it remains one of the most haunting film scores ever composed:



P.S. Does anyone know who played the role of Fridtjof Nansen in the film? I've never been able to find out who that cast member was.

Vizzer wrote:

Triceratops wrote:

Vaughn Williams Symphony No 6 used for the theme music for the 1970s drama A Family at War

Probably the most prestigious piece of music ever used for a television drama series Trike. And from the same composer, his Symphony No 7 Sinfonia antarctica which was written for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic. Released 70 years ago this week, it remains one of the most haunting film scores ever composed:
P.S. Does anyone know who played the role of Fridtjof Nansen in the film? I've never been able to find out who that cast member was.

Vizzer,

can it be that the visit to Fridtjof Nansen was a piece of old footage inserted in the film? And as such no cast member?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040761/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_of_the_Antarctic_(film)
"no actual scenes were made in Antarctica, though some pre-war stock footage from Graham Land may have been used."
Oops, now I see that it was landscape footage? Have you seen the film? Is the visit to Nansen included as footage?

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Is the visit to Nansen included as footage?

Hello Paul. Yes, it's a memorable scene in the film. While preparing for the Terra Nova Expedition, Robert Falcon Scott (John Mills) goes to Norway to test his motorized sledges and asks Nansen for his opinion.

Nansen: "Captain, a friend in need is a friend in deed. This Antarctic of yours is a cold and cruel place - even worse than the North. A dog is a animal. When a dog is finished he is still some use to other dogs and even to man if need be. That machine of yours, when it is finished, is just a heap of metal in the snow. You can not eat it."

Scott: "Well that’s true. And I’m not forgetting the lessons of the past. But I want to take the new things as well. I shall take dogs, ponies and motors."

Nansen: "Well I would take dogs, dogs and dogs."

This turns out to be prophetic when, later, Nansen's compatriot Roald Amundsen, using dogs, reaches the South Pole before Scott - and crucially also manages to successfully make the journey back. The actor who played Nansen, however, is not listed in the end credits of the film. Neither is he listed on the Internet Movie Database (even uncredited) nor is he listed on Wikipedia or anywhere else that I can find. It's a minor cinematic mystery.

Vizzer, according to this site, the actor who played Nansen was a Norwegian actor named Stig Egede Nissen.

Screenonline

Rather strangely, checking Nissen's entry on Wiki ( Norwegian) these is no mention of Scott of the Antarctic on his filmography.

If I've read it right, Nissen was in the Royal Navy in WW2. May have still been in this country when the film was made, or perhaps not;

Stig Egede Nissen

Were Scandinavian actors/actresses (outside of people such as Greta Garbo) considered much in the USA/UK before Ingmar Bergman's films became recognised?  Max von Sydow (Swedish) is a household name, I believe.  I became interested in some of the "cult" BBC4 European shows (largely thrillers) a few years and admired the work of some of the Swedish actors in the adaptation of the Arne Dahl "Mysterioso" novels.  I'm not familiar with very many Norwegian actors though I'm sure there are several of repute.  Temperance may recognise Kristofer Hivju who plays Torment in Game of Thrones who is Norwegian.  

I don't want to derail the thread too much - I like the Skye Boat Song but for some reason in Outlander (story about a time-travelling nurse who goes back to the Jacobean Rebellion time (don't ask)) the show runners changed the words.  The lady who sings it does have a nice voice 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBmDg-CNFqY

One of my faves.
Note the mistake in spelling - Bruddah Iz's name was Kamakawiwo'ole


Another one (where the film, "Unfaithful", skews people's perception of the song )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLVdrgd8w_s

Triceratops wrote:

according to this site, the actor who played Nansen was a Norwegian actor named Stig Egede Nissen.

Screenonline

Thanks so much for that Trike. On further investigation I've also found out that Stig was one of 7 acting brothers and sisters from the Egede-Nissen family.

Triceratops wrote:

no mention of Scott of the Antarctic on his filmography

Let's just hope that they've got the right Egede-Nissen. In the meantime - Stig it is!

I quite liked Richard Rodney-Bennett's score for the 1967 version of Far From the Madding Crowd (even though I spent some of my time watching seething through my teeth that Bathsheba was supposed to have black hair (though Julie Christie was a good actress and a nice-looking lady - to my knowledge she's still alive but I don't know if she acts any longer).  I would have preferred a more book accurate Bathsheba though.  

I'm intrigued why the film's portrayal of Bathsheba's hair colour annoys you so, LiR. I studied 'Far from the Madding Crowd' for O level English Literature and to be honest wouldn't know what colour Hardy described it as: it's not as if it's a a key part of the story in any way.

Maybe because I was a brunette (brown-haired though not black-haired) before I went grey, MM, and there seemed to be a plethora of blonde heroines (nothing against blondes I hasten to add) so if I came across a dark-haired heroine in literature I was keen for the hair colour to be kept in adaptation.  They could have stuck a wig on Julie Christie after all.  Brown-eyed black-haired Bathsheba is etched on my memory.  When I was a child and a teenager in the 1950s/1960s of course there were a lot of brunettes who dyed their hair blonde especially in entertainment.  I don't think that happens so much now and there have even been a few ladies who have darkened their hair.

Meles meles wrote:

I'm intrigued why the film's portrayal of Bathsheba's hair colour annoys you so, LiR. I studied 'Far from the Madding Crowd' for O level English Literature and to be honest wouldn't know what colour Hardy described it as: it's not as if it's a a key part of the story in any way.

So did I, along with the Nun's Priests Tale and a Wobbler - Macbeth or Cheeser, could have been either. The other stream (the one with Jeremy Corbyn in it) got A Man for All Seasons and The N1993r of the Narcissus instead of Chaucer.

We did "The Scottish Play", although not in any great depth, a year earlier (aged 13 to 14), together with a bit of Chaucer. I think they were endeavouring to soften us up ready for the full O level Eng. Lit experience due to start the following year (when aged 14). For my O level, as well as Hardy's FFRMC, we did "Romeo and Juliet", Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood" and an entirely forgettable collection of American short stories of which the only one I can vaguely recall is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by Thurber. But it is funny that, having basically been forced rather against my 14-year-old will, to read all these books in depth, I still have my treasured, well-thumbed copy about the poetic doings in "Llareggub", have read with pleasure nearly all of Hardy's novels, and do enjoy a good Shakespeare play.

I can't think offhand what work of Master Wobbleweapon's I studied at O level.  We did the "Pardoner's Tale" for O level.  We did study other works but I just can't remember them.  There aren't many of my schoolfellows that I keep in touch with but there's one lady I usually exchange Xmas cards with so I might ask her and see if her memory is any better than mine.

Going back to my earlier post which puzzled MM, would it have been impossible for Ms Christie to have worn a dark wig?

In "Broken Arrow", where she played opposite James Stewart, Debra Paget wore brown contact lenses. Filming had to be stopped one day when one of them fell out and was lost. Legend has it that the diary kept recorded this as "Miss Paget's eye fell out"

Green George wrote:

Meles meles wrote:

I'm intrigued why the film's portrayal of Bathsheba's hair colour annoys you so, LiR. I studied 'Far from the Madding Crowd' for O level English Literature and to be honest wouldn't know what colour Hardy described it as: it's not as if it's a a key part of the story in any way.

So did I, along with the Nun's Priests Tale and a Wobbler - Macbeth or Cheeser, could have been either. The other stream (the one with Jeremy Corbyn in it) got A Man for All Seasons and The N1993r of the Narcissus instead of Chaucer.

Gil,

had already a lot of trouble with that O level and now you come with a "Wobbler". I see that Lir referred to "wobbleweapon" and that I encountered yet, but I always thought that was an English joke...is that occasionally some English literature?
And yes that Nun's priest I found on the internet and yes Chaucer I know and read some extracts of the Canterbury tales...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nun%27s_Priest%27s_Tale

The other stream with Jeremy Corbyn...Does that mean that you were at the same school as Jeremy? Or did I misunderstand it for the umpteenth time...?
For the N1993r I found on internet:

[url=https://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=N1993R GUY]https://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=N1993R%20GUY[/url]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J87c2NA3ds

And that Narcissus is that the one of Conrad with his "Heart of darkness". I met him for the first time in the discussion now some 12 years ago I guess in a discussion on the BBC when Tim of Aclea asked me to do once our Belgian Congo and Leopold II. Read nearly ten books from the local library to answer Tim. Those were the times. I don't know if I nowadays would have that much time.
And "A man for all seasons" I saw  in the Seventies in the theatre of Bruges by a London theatre society and in the time it was all English and no translation in a band above the theatre as with the operas nowadays and nevertheless there was a full theatre...
Yes that were pieces that we studied as for the tragedy and human questions, as the "Antigone" of Jean Annouilh and yes the "Hamlet" of Shakespeare in Dutch translation.

Kind regards from Paul.

Green George wrote:

In "Broken Arrow", where she played opposite James Stewart, Debra Paget wore brown contact lenses. Filming had to be stopped one day when one of them fell out and was lost. Legend has it that the diary kept recorded this as "Miss Paget's eye fell out"

Yes "Broken Arrow" one of my favourites, perhaps because I saw it in the childhood in Ostend with our parents, I some ten or eleven years, my sister even younger...with subtitles: French above and Dutch under it...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Arrow_(1950_film)

I had the film here but when I click to paste it overhere it says in a frame: "invalid video"...

Kind regards from Paul.

"Wobbler" - Shakspear. From Nordmann's habit of referring to him as "wobbleweapon".

Yes that is indeed the story by Joseph Conrad. Of course, "Heart of Darkness" was only one of his Congo stories, along with "An outpost of Progress" and the posthumously-published (heavily edited by Curle) "The Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces"

I was indeed at the same school (and the same year but not the same class) as Jeremy Corbyn, though I had more to do with his elder brother Piers, as we were both canoeists.

G, that's a great tale about the contact lens falling out.  There don't seem to be as many westerns made these days.  I liked Broken Arrow (which I saw on TV - the film that is, though there was a TV series also).  I wonder if nowadays there would be an outcry because actors who were not native American (what used to be called Red Indian) played the parts of native American characters.  The couple of Joseph Conrad books I was forced to study at school put me off his work for life so I've never had any desire to read Heart of Darkness.  Wasn't the 1979 film Apocalypse Now (set in the Vietnam War) based at least in part on Heart of Darkness?  I've not seen the 1979 film either.

Green George wrote:

"Wobbler" - Shakspear. From Nordmann's habit of referring to him as "wobbleweapon".

Yes that is indeed the story by Joseph Conrad. Of course, "Heart of Darkness" was only one of his Congo stories, along with "An outpost of Progress" and the posthumously-published (heavily edited by Curle) "The Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces"

I was indeed at the same school (and the same year but not the same class) as Jeremy Corbyn, though I had more to do with his elder brother Piers, as we were both canoeists.

G, thank you for your immediate reply and your clarification. I entered yesterday only late on the board and even then lost a lot of time to watch the "Broken Arrow" from sixty years ago. And then by the additional youtubes lurred to watch my addiction: the opera tenors singing the well know arias and all...
Then lost my message to you, while I was on an advertisement of I suppose that that are "wobblers". But couldn't leave the advertisement anymore and was condemned to close the computer and to lose my message...

And I had a lot of trouble to come to this, while we call it in our Southern Dutch: "lokaas" translation in English: bait...and then in Nothern Dutch they seem to say "plug" and "kunstaas" (artificial bait?) or is that the English wobbler?
My father and I in the only season that we got fishing, used real worms as bait...only one season as it was too boring for me and even for my father...in searching about all this I came on the sofisticated preparation of bait, it seems to be even more difficult than to prepare meals...
But what a wobbler has to do with Shakespeare, a Shakespeare wobbler is beyond me??? Perhaps a Shakespeare worm as in the Hamlet scene of the grave diggers...?

Kind regards from Paul.

And G, to not complicate the former message, an addendum:

As I watched now the "Broken Arrow" for the second time, some more than sixty years later, it comes over as a typical film of the American Fifties with a rather innocent approach of good and bad, not the spectacle films, but yes the ordinary cowboy films, but yes nevertheless an A-side. But thanks to your mentioning of the film I came also to the 1954 film that I also saw, but as already nearly an adult then: "On the Waterfront", which I didn't saw as in the same range as the others and now I learned for the first time in my life the story of the author and the "unamerican acts", it is nearly a story as the film itself...
http://onemovieblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/on-waterfront-1954-analysis.html


Kind regards from Paul.

G, OOPS I forgot to ask: what is N1993r?
When I tried to post explanations the Norton security said Dangerous site and my access to Res historica was blocked and I had to close the computer...I don't try again...but of course by all this I get "curious" ...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

Paul, the Shakespeare (Shakespearean?) nickname is a play on the sounds of the components of the word.  "Shake" the first syllable sounds the same as the word to shake - https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/shake which can mean to tremble or to vibrate etc and by extension to wobble.  "Speare" sounds like spear which is a sort of a weapon.  So put wobble and weapon together and you get "Wobbleweapon". "Willie" is a short form of William - so Willie Wobbleweapon is alliterative.  Of course, I didn't think of it, nordmann did but it is funny.

PaulRyckier wrote:

G, OOPS I forgot to ask: what is N1993r?
When I tried to post explanations the Norton security said Dangerous site and my access to Res historica was blocked and I had to close the computer...I don't try again...but of course by all this I get "curious" ...

Kind regards from your friend Paul.

I thought you'd understood that as you've already made mention of it above as another novel by Conrad ... the 'code', or rather cipher, is George's attempt to avoid using a certain word:



I think nowadays it is usually known by the less perjorative title, 'The children of the sea'.

And about those artificial fish lures ... my grandad, who'd worked as a mariner on sailing merchant ships and later on private yachts, was also, when not away at sea, an inshore fisherman, and my mum would often accompany her dad in his little fishing boat - this was shortly before the war when she was just into her teens. They used lures/artificial bait similar to that - many attached along the same long line towed behind the boat, to catch mackerel in particular. She used to call such a lure a 'spinner-bait' or just a 'spinner' ... although theirs weren't as sophisticated as those pictured above, being just little pieces of shiny aluminium attached between the hook and the line, but nevertheless perfectly functional, especially when the mackerel were running in a large shoal.

But as usual we digress.

Meles meles,

"I thought you'd understood that as you've already made mention of it above as another novel by Conrad ... the 'code', or rather cipher, is George's attempt to avoid using a certain word: "

yes now I see, but I had never heard of that Narcissus tale of Conrad, although as I read now it is quite a famous novel. And Heart of Darkness I only remembered from the discussion of more than ten years ago in the thread about Leopold II and the Congo...and you don't believe it, but with the mighty google I came with "of the Narcissus" to Conrad and heart of darkness....
And yes I am as we in our dialect and the French say, a bit "dure de comprenure"...
In our dialect we aren't used of euphemisms, as for a "boer" an agrarian entrepeneur...or for a "hoer" "dame van licht zeden" (lady of the night) but I found also closer to the Dutch "a lady of low morals"...and you can guess, the normal word for a black man is a "neger", but in Dutch they say already "zwarte" as I suppose in the US: a black person. See the recent trouble in the Netherlands with the black piet and even they don't say the "n" word anymore...I am so used to the "n" word of our dialect, that when I spoke to a barkeeper in France used the term "nègre", he said politely: you better don't use that word anymore and say instead "noir". You could upset some people...

"And about those artificial fish lures ... my grandad, who'd worked as a mariner on sailing merchant ships and later on private yachts, was also, when not away at sea, an inshore fisherman, and my mum would often accompany her dad in his little fishing boat - this was shortly before the war when she was just into her teens. They used lures/artificial bait similar to that - many attached along the same long line towed behind the boat, to catch mackerel in particular. She used to call such a lure a 'spinner-bait' or just a 'spinner' ... although theirs weren't as sophisticated as those pictured above, being just little pieces of shiny aluminium attached between the hook and the line, but nevertheless perfectly functional, especially when the mackerel were running in a large shoal."

MM, thank you so much for your rememberings of the childhood. In your grandad's case it were at least "makreels"
https://www.britannica.com/animal/mackerel
Our fish that we catched, my father and I in the former German submarine base in Ostend were after three long hours fishing, we had some two hand palm lenght fishs? (what is the plurial of fish? Fishes?) and the second time only one...I suppose my father had chosen the wrong place (but perhaps else it was forbidden?)...

Kind regards from Paul.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Paul, the Shakespeare (Shakespearean?) nickname is a play on the sounds of the components of the word.  "Shake" the first syllable sounds the same as the word to shake - https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/shake which can mean to tremble or to vibrate etc and by extension to wobble.  "Speare" sounds like spear which is a sort of a weapon.  So put wobble and weapon together and you get "Wobbleweapon". "Willie" is a short form of William - so Willie Wobbleweapon is alliterative.  Of course, I didn't think of it, nordmann did but it is funny.

Lady,

thank you very much for the explanation...it is all clear to me, I guess, but Shakespeare seems to be indeed a name for a kind of wobbler?
https://www.amazon.de/Shakespeare-Wobbler-Set-4/dp/B000LAHAFW

Kind regards from Paul.

"Lady,

thank you very much for the explanation...it is all clear to me, I guess, but Shakespeare seems to be indeed a name for a kind of wobbler?
https://www.amazon.de/Shak00LAHAFW"

Quite a coincidence,Paul, but there's an English saying (and maybe in Flemish/Dutch also?) that "Truth is stranger than fiction".

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Lady,

thank you very much for the explanation...it is all clear to me, I guess, but Shakespeare seems to be indeed a name for a kind of wobbler?
https://www.amazon.de/Shak00LAHAFW

Quite a coincidence,Paul, but there's an English saying (and maybe in Flemish/Dutch also?) that "Truth is stranger than fiction".

 
Lady,

I think that we say: de realiteit is soms sterker (vreemder) dan de fictie (the reality is sometimes stronger (stranger) than the fiction) or perhaps: de waarheid i(the truth) is soms....

I found also the German translation which is quite poetic....Das Leben schreibt die besten Geschichten...(Life writes the best histories (novels?)...

Kind regards from Paul.

Nothing to do with film music and I promise to try and desist from taking the thread off its original subject but the translation of idioms/proverbs can be interesting (was there a thread about it at one time?).  I've mentioned before I retired I worked for circa 23 months in the National History Museum in London.  The museum had a branch in Tring, Hertfordshire and at one time somebody stole some parrot skins - well exotic bird skins anyway - and it was thought at one time the thief might have been going to use the bright feathers as lures for fishing.  We were told not to speak to the press is they approached us on the subject (no-one approached me) but at least some the skins were recovered and the matter was in the public domain so I guess it's okay to mention it.  Link to something about the Tring branch of the museum www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/tring.html and a couple of articles about the heist https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-14352867 and [url=https://www.spectator.co.uk %E2%80%BA Book reviews]https://www.spectator.co.uk › Book reviews[/url]

In my (admittedly limited) learning of British Sign Language our teacher said that in British sign language idioms don't really exist the same way as they do in spoken language but that when deaf people sign "Zip it" e.g. "be quiet" they mime a zip sign over the hand (because of course they "speak" with their hands) rather than over the mouth.

Yes, Paul - those are "plugs" or "spinners". The difference is that plugs float, so stopping the retrieve brings them to the surface. Some will "pop" at the surface like a fish taking a fly or a small fish. "Spoons" and "pirks" are denser than water and so sink if you slow the retrieve. They are mostly used to catch pike, zander and big perch, all freshwater fish. Sea fish such as mackerel and pollack are usually fished for with coloured feathers, often 6 or 7 or more, on a hand line.

I haven't seen the whole film and the theme music is pleasant but maybe not a Magnificent 7 type score but the trailer for this film which won a short film Oscar a couple of years ago looks interesting.  A real deaf girl was cast as the eponymous "silent child".  

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Nothing to do with film music and I promise to try and desist from taking the thread off its original subject but the translation of idioms/proverbs can be interesting (was there a thread about it at one time?).  I've mentioned before I retired I worked for circa 23 months in the National History Museum in London.  The museum had a branch in Tring, Hertfordshire and at one time somebody stole some parrot skins - well exotic bird skins anyway - and it was thought at one time the thief might have been going to use the bright feathers as lures for fishing.  We were told not to speak to the press is they approached us on the subject (no-one approached me) but at least some the skins were recovered and the matter was in the public domain so I guess it's okay to mention it.  Link to something about the Tring branch of the museum www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/tring.html and a couple of articles about the heist https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-14352867 and [url=https://www.spectator.co.uk %E2%80%BA Book reviews]https://www.spectator.co.uk › Book reviews[/url]

In my (admittedly limited) learning of British Sign Language our teacher said that in British sign language idioms don't really exist the same way as they do in spoken language but that when deaf people sign "Zip it" e.g. "be quiet" they mime a zip sign over the hand (because of course they "speak" with their hands) rather than over the mouth.

Lady, I wanted to let appear your link in blue, but now I don't see in the crowd what you mentioned.OOPS in yellow

https://www.spectator.co.uk/books-arts/book-reviews/

And thanks for the "Silent Child"

Kind regards from Paul.

Green George wrote:

Yes, Paul - those are "plugs" or "spinners". The difference is that plugs float, so stopping the retrieve brings them to the surface. Some will "pop" at the surface like a fish taking a fly or a small fish. "Spoons" and "pirks" are denser than water and so sink if you slow the retrieve. They are mostly used to catch pike, zander and big perch, all freshwater fish. Sea fish such as mackerel and pollack are usually fished for with coloured feathers, often 6 or 7 or more, on a hand line.

 G,

now I feel humble...after MM now you...are all the rest of the Englishmen also so knowledgeable about fishing as you both?  and yes "denser than water" I understand

If I recall it well we fished with a "kurk" (cork) as "dobber" (float)


Kind regards from Paul.

Just time for a quick post before closing down for the day.

From Local Hero, the injured rabbit in the car ends up on the dinner table that night, Lapin a la cocotte. Incidentally, Peter Capaldi, who appears in Local Hero, voices Kehaar on the new version of Watership Down.

Trying to cheer things up a little here is a link to the trailer for the new film of Peter Rabbit though it seems a bit of a hippy version of the story.  In The Magic Roundabout - which I wasn't that keen on - the rabbit (Dylan in the English translation) did always seem spaced out though that was in the 1960s.  In the French version of TMR not PR Dougal the dog was called Pollux and had an English accent - when I practised my "French" accent real French people told me "Tu parles comme Pollux".  Anyway here is Peter Rabbit (not Magic Roundabout).

A classic Magic Roundabout story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCaeCPpsXV8

Gilgamesh, are you joining Trike and Nielsen in finding amusing content for the board?

It's not a film theme song but a link to the "killer bunny" scene from Monty Python and Something or Other. Whether it's deemed funny or not will depend whether "Monty Python"* type humour tickles one's funny bone or not.

* I found the TV shows funnier than the full-length films but there were some scenes in the films (like this one) I liked.  I'm sure everyone knows what tickling the funny bone means but just in case not, it's an English idiom for finding something amusing - the "funny bone" is the humerus or upper arm bone; of course it's a play on "humerus" and "humorous".

Vizzer wrote:

Probably the most prestigious piece of music ever used for a television drama series Trike. And from the same composer, his Symphony No 7 Sinfonia antarctica which was written for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic. Released 70 years ago this week, it remains one of the most haunting film scores ever composed:

The Horror Channel showed this last night. Music composer was Humphrey Searle, the piece ( according to Wiki ) having been influenced by Vaughan Williams Antartica;

Music from the 2004 version of the Alamo. Personally I prefer this film to the John Wayne version, tighter story line and more accurate version of events:

Triceratops wrote:

influenced by Vaughan Williams Antartica

I hadn’t appreciated how late it had been in Vaughan Williams’ career before he was asked to compose music for films. He was 68 years of age when he wrote his first which was the score for 49th Parallel mentioned on the Hot Dog thread.

Sticking with music from war films, the 1960 film Austerlitz had its theme tune composed by French composer Jean Ledrut. 2 years later, the British session band The Tornados released the instrumental track Telstar to celebrate the launch that year of the eponymous satellite. This was a pioneering Franco-American-British-Canadian project which enabled the sending of the first live trans-Atlantic television links between Europe and North America. A plagiarism lawsuit brought by Ledrut against The Tornados’ writer/producer Joe Meek resulted in royalties being frozen until the court rejected the suit in 1967. This, however, came too late for Meek who had died under tragic circumstances only a few weeks earlier. Judge for yourself:

Austerlitz (1960)

Telstar (1962)

On the 20th anniversary of Meek’s death in 1987, and in the run up to the British general election that year, the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher gave an unlikely interview for Smash Hits a teenage-targeted popular music magazine. In it she said that she loved Telstar which was one of her most memorable tunes from the 1960s along with When a Man Loves a Woman (by Percy Sledge).
 
If you thought that the Telstar satellite being a joint Franco-American-British-Canadian project was a bit of a mouthful, then the film Austerlitz was billed as a joint Franco-Italian-Yugoslav-Liechtenstein production. I’ve never been able to work out exactly what Liechtenstein’s contribution to the making of it was though. It was possibly financial. Ironically, the historical prince of Liechtenstein, John I Joseph, who played a not inconsequential role as a cavalry commander on the Habsburg side during the battle, doesn’t even feature in the dramatis personae of the film.