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Having just clocked up one thousand episodes of At the Movies, reviewer Simon Morris shares his favourite film scores with RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump. Video, Audio
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Simon Morris Photo: RNZ
By the time you read this, Simon Morris will have produced one thousand and one episodes of his film show At the Movies on RNZ National.
On the occasion of reaching four figures, RNZ Concert invited Morris next door to talk about his favourite movie music, starting with the theme music for his show: the theme from The Man with the Golden Arm by Elmer Bernstein.
"Why did you choose that as your theme?" asks RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump.
"It had 'Main Title Theme' written on the CD case, and that was good enough for me," Morris replies.
It might also be due to it being a bass-heavy little number, and Morris - who is also an accomplished musician - is a bass guitarist.
We've found the original version as found on the Frank Sinatra movie.
Simon Morris with the band Tamburlaine when he was front and centre of Wellington's swinging 1970s music scene. He's also front and centre of this photograph. Photo: audioculture.co.nz
Morris took over RNZ National's film reviewing mantle in the early 2000s when cancer forced the late Jonathan Dennis into retirement.
His second film score choice is from the movie he reviewed for his pilot programme: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, with music by the great film composer John Williams.
"Spoiler alert - I got the gig."
It's more than a sentimental favourite. Williams is the last of a great line of cinema composers, who not only wrote great film scores, but could also write a great tune.
Choice number three, another Elmer Bernstein: The Magnificent Seven.
"From the era when you only needed to hear the first 10 seconds of the theme to know the movie."
Actually, it takes a little more than ten seconds for the big theme to arrive, but once it does it's unmistakable.
Crump remembers English composer Ron Goodwin conducting The Magnificent Seven when he came out to present Summer Pops concerts with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Turns out Ron Goodwin's music is the the fourth choice of Mr Morris: Murder She Said.
"Back then, a movie theme tune was often released as a single, in this case a hit single. Probably more memorable than the Margaret Rutherford movie!"
Fifth choice for Morris is the epic score to the epic David Lean movie, Lawrence of Arabia by Maurice Jarre (fun fact, Jean-Michel Jarre is his son).
Crump recalls the scene where actor Peter O'Toole holds a burning match that becomes a desert sunrise, cue orchestra.
But it's not all orchestral splendour. Morris' sixth choice is very rock 'n' roll - The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night."
He chose it because of the opening chord - one of the most arresting in film music.
Choice seven is Utu.
"John Charles provided New Zealand's first, best, and possibly only mega-epic score. My predecessor Jonathan Dennis used it for years on his movie show, and you can see why."
Charles could write jazz as well as epic film scores - his soundtrack for Goodbye Pork Pie is an example of the former.
In fact, for a while back in the 1970s, Charles and Morris were in the same band, but Morris left. That band went onto become Blerta.
Choice number eight wasn't even written for a movie, but was used by Stanley Kubrick for his sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.
What became one of the most memorable minutes in movie music was initially the first minute of an hour-long tone poem by Richard Strauss based on Nietzsche's philosophical masterpiece, "Thus Spake Zarathustra", depicting a sunrise.
In Kubrick's movie, it's a human-ape ancestor going berserk with a bone.
Choice nine: "Do Not Forsake Me", from the Western movie High Noon. Music by the Russian-born composer Dimitri Tiomkin, with lyrics by Ned Washington.
"The theme song to High Noon famously saved the movie. Once “Do not forsake me” struck up, everyone was on the edge of their seats. Curious that the most popular western themes should be written by a Russian called Dimitri Tiomkin – Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The Alamo, Rio Bravo, Giant, lots more."
In case you think Morris (known for his pithy and often very funny assessments of Hollywood's latest efforts) doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body, you might be surprised by his next choice, from the Disney movie Bambi.
He chose "Little April Shower" by Frank Churchill and Edward Plumb, "because it was the first soundtrack a little five-year-old Morris remembers."
"And it’s just the sort of thing a five year old is going to notice. Lots of dripping and dropping!"
And the final choice in Simon Morris' top 11 movie soundtracks?
He can't go past the great film scores Bernard Herrmann wrote for Alfred Hitchcock.
"No, not Psycho, or even his weird bird noises in The Birds. I’ve picked the ineffable North by Northwest – the most evocative theme to (most say) Hitch’s finest two-and-a-quarter hours."