Intrada Soundtrack Forum

INTRADA Announces:



THE DAY OF THE LOCUST
Music composed and conducted by JOHN BARRY

INTRADA Special Collection Volume 122

For the 1974 film The Day of the Locust -- a gritty, Depression-era tale about unseemly characters struggling to make it in Hollywood -- director John Schlesinger recruited his Midnight Cowboy composer John Barry to tackle the challenging subject. Barry responded with one of his strongest and most unusual scores. Just as Jerry Goldsmith had on Chinatown, Barry had to find a musical language somewhere between his contemporary style and the period feel of the film, while working around a number of vintage songs that set the tone and provided unsettling commentary of their own.

John Barry’s score mixes subdued romantic writing with period approaches. “The Storyteller/ Garden of the Locust” is the composer’s sympathetic love theme, first heard as a melody for harp, flute, piano and an expressive solo violin. Heard in several guises, it's the anchor of the score. Barry produces his own piece of silent film scoring in “The Flying Carpet,” a rambunctious piece of Hollywood showmanship. His kitschy, deliberately grating music “Soft Shoe Salesman” accompanies Burgess Meredith’s pathetic daily grind as he attempts to use his aging vaudeville chops to sell tonics to the unsympathetic denizens of the Hollywood Hills: strings, muted trombones, block and brushed percussion play time to Burgess’s strained soft shoe routines. The score’s climactic cue, “The Day of the Locust,” marks one of John Barry’s few musical explorations of outright horror. With its trembling strings, groaning, unearthly low brass, rasping percussion and hair-raising flute utterances, this is music perfectly in tune with Schlesinger’s horrifying surrealist imagery.

The film features a strong cast, mostly living in a run down apartment complex. Todd Hackett (William Atherton) is an aspiring production illustrator with artistic ambitions who quickly falls hard for Faye Greener (Karen Black), a cruel and ambitious actress wannabe living with her aging ex-vaudeville performer father (Burgess Meredith). Other tenants include Abe Kusich (Billy Barty), an angry “little person” itching to be taken seriously as a man, and the hateful would-be child star Adore Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley), who has been warped by his monstrous stage mother into something horrifically between Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple. As the story progresses Faye falls in with Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland), a meek and foolish accountant whose simmering frustrations boil over in the film’s surrealist, apocalyptic climax.

Intrada's premiere CD release of John Barry's score features the original LP program, remastered from the original LP master tapes in pristine condition and is limited to 2000 units.


INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 122
Retail Price: $19.99
AVAILABLE 2/16/2010
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.6485/.f

Alex, buddy, you got it!

I thought this was a 1975 film?

imdb lists the release as August 1975 and it was up for 2 Oscars for the 1975 releases.

Some things about this score that I've noticed over the years:

1) This was sort of the beginning of Barry's "romantic period" that continued with "Robin & Marian," "The Betsy," "Hanover Street," "Moonraker," and went full blown with "Somewhere in Time."

2) The track "The Flying Carpet" for the silent movie sequence featured the reappearance of the infamous slide whistle from "The Man With The Golden Gun" and that track along with "Soft-Shoe Salesman" are predecessors to some of Barry's similar music in 1992's "Chaplin."

3) "Sing You Sinners" was performed in the film by future Oscar winning songwriter Paul Jabara ("Last Dance.")

4) In case some aren't aware, the theme from this score was turned into a song called "Lonley Hearts" by Paul Williams (who wrote the lyrics and sang it) and can be found on the John Barry Lounge Legends CD.

Someone asked if this was a re-recording and if I remember correctly it is not. These are the film tracks and I don't think there was much more underscore in the film than what is on the original LP.

James

Interesting info. Thanks.

Roger mentioned the LP was pretty comprehensive.

I looked at my LP again and see it is copyrighted 1974 which is interesting.

Of course the track "The Day of the Locust" is very much a predecessor to music Barry would write for "King Kong," "The Deep." and "White Buffalo." He'd never really written anything like that before this score.

"Isn't It Romantic" was sung by the very neglected Michael Dees, who most notably sang "What Are You Doing For The Rest Of Your Life?" for the film "The Happy Ending."

James

THE RELEASE OF THE YEAR. ORDERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alex

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Music composed, arranged and conducted by JOHN BARRY

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Music composed, arranged and conducted by JOHN BARRY

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Music composed, arranged and conducted by JOHN BARRY

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Music composed, arranged and conducted by JOHN BARRY