The James Bond Franchise: Dr. No

During the 1950s, several attempts were made at making a film of the infamous novels by Ian Fleming. Yet, no one succeeded in getting the funding and the go-ahead of a major studio in order to make an effective movie. No one, that is, until Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman teamed up to produce a film of the infamous spy in the early 1960s. After the rights were secured, the funding was found and a director was hired, a then unknown Scottish actor named Sean Connery was cast as the spy in the film Dr. No.

Connery was given personal instructions in how to act and carry himself by the director, Terence Young. Young took Connery to Saville Row to get his shirts, showed him how to behave like a gentlemen and how to fight like a spy. Much of what Connery showed in the first two Bond films was pure Young. Young also chose a young lady by the name of Ursula Andress for the role of the Bond girl. Joseph Wiseman played the villain, Dr. No.

The film was an effective tale of excitement but was still rather static in it's cinematic approach, like the films of the 1950s. (It was only a few years later that the film editor Peter Hunt developed his own editing style to make them more dynamic.) Dr. No is still very much a film of the 1950s when you now look at it. Still the beginnings of the Bond franchise are there.

There is a great actor playing Bond, a very sexy Bond girl, a terrific (if somewhat underused) villain and a very memorable Bond theme, composed by Monty Norman and orchestrated and performed by John Barry. (There has been a lot of discussion of this later but so far everything points to the effect that Norman composed it originally for a musical and Barry reorchestrated and performed it.)

Aside from the somewhat static feel of the film, there is a good deal of humour and excitement in it. Also, there is a scene in which Bond kills Professor Dent quite coldbloodedly, which caused a little bit of a stir back in the sixties. This was simply not done for a hero, yet Bond had no compunctions whatsoever. The same goes for the way he beds Miss Taro and subsequently has her picked up. Humour indeed.

If one were to rate Dr. No now, it comes across as fairly tame material but nevertheless all the elements for the franchise were already in place. Visually, the film is already striking with impressive sets by Ken Adam. Yet, the key word in this film seems still to be 'realistic'; meaning next to no gadgets or special effects.

And it does come down to Connery's presence, which immediately convinces you he is Bond. From his opening shot, he exudes coolness and suave sophistication. Connery never has to prove himself: he is Bond right from the Go.

When I first saw the film in the mid-1970s, I was a bit disappointed with it to be truthful. I did not think it was spectacular enough but I was a young kid at the time who did not know better. Dr. No was a film that for it's time was as effective as the 2006 Casino Royale was. It scored big at the box office and soon left very little doubt about Bond's future. We would soon see more of this intrepid secret agent.

Danny Elfman

If you listen failry regularly to film music, you can always tell if it is Danny Elfman or not. Danny is one of those musicians who have come from other corners of the musical range (Danny was part of the pop group OINGO BOINGO before he was asked by Tim Burton to score a few films of his.) and who know expertly how to manipulate your ears while watching an exciting film. His signature sound is so unique, you can always tell it is Danny.

Along with Tim Burton, Danny became a big league composer when he delivered his score for BATMAN (1989). In the twenty years since, he has scored many interesting films in a special kind of musical voice, that is hard to describe in words.


Elfman's most famous theme by now is by far THE SIMPSONS' theme of the cartoon show, which also still enjoys great success after 21 years. Among his other titles so far, Darkman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Men In Black, Sleepy Hollow, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Planet of the Apes, Hulk, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, The Kingdom, Wanted, Hellboy II, The Wolfman and Alice in Wonderland.



Danny has stated that in the realm of soundtracks, the late, great Bernard Herrmann is a definite influence on his music. And this can be heard, too, in some of his scores in the way Danny builds his suspense and drama but where Danny has a great sense of drama, he uses a little less melodrama than the late Mr. Herrmann.
Nevertheless, Danny's voice in the world of film music is one that can not be missed. And his music is wonderful in the films he scores!

Lalo Schifrin

Fairly recently, Lalo Schifrin, a composer who has worked in many genres of music, published his autobiography, which is a really fascinating book. Schifrin belongs to the composers who made big name in the 1960s with music for both film and television.

Lalo's best work? Well that depends really on your point of view as he has done a lot outside of film music too. For me his thematic material for Mission Impossible and Mannix is top of the line, as well as his film scores for COOL HAND LUKE, COOGAN'S BLUFF, DIRTY HARRY, MAGNUM FORCE and CHARLIE VARRICK. However he has also been scoring films more recently such as RED DRAGON and the RUSH HOUR films with Jackie Chan.



Born in 1932 in Buenos Aires, Schifrin studied and worked from Paris, France to Los Angeles, USA, playing jazz, scoring films and giving many concerts. His music is generally very vivacious and is sometimes rather jazz-based but for films such as Dirty Harry, this works very well. For the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE films his original theme was again dusted off and reorchestrated but Schifrin had no personal input for the films. Nevertheless, the original theme is undeniably his.

Schifrin has released a great many albums of his own music as well, such as There's A Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On, on which he experiments with jazz and other genres. He has also conducted a number of classical music concerts all over the world. As a composer, within or outside the realm of film music, Schifrin has earned himself enough respect from within the composing community that he can retire. I am glad though we sometimes still hear from him. For his music is Cool!!!

Barry........John Barry

The first time I heard John Barry's music, I found myself overwhelmed by the wonderful atmosphere that Barry managed to capture for John Guillermin's KING KONG (no, not Peter Jackson's version, this was the Dino de Laurentiis production of the seventies). The rich, warm sound that this score had, was present also one year later in The Deep, an underwater thriller with for the time rather daring song lyrics. The year after that, Barry returned to familiar grounds (for him) with MOONRAKER.

From this point on, I also began to look for Mr. Barry's older material and found many gems in his repertoire, ranging from From Russia With Love (which sort of set a phenomenal example for the early Bond films with a dynamic, vibrant score), Seance on a Wet Afternoon, (a chilling kidnapping thriller with a subtle, yet menacing score) King Rat (a fine example of a musical anti-war statement), Goldfinger (the best example in the early Bond films, musically very rich and powerful), and several others.

Born Free also was a phenomenal success in the 1960s: based on a true story of a couple working in Africa and befriending a lyoness. This proved a very fertile ground for Barry's music as Born Free was his first Academy Award win. Two years later, The Lion in Winter presented him again with an Academy Award. For this medieval drama Barry concocted a chilling orchestral theme, backed by a mixed chorus, resulting in a dramatic cantata. He would use this method again for The Last Valley.



Barry developed his warm orchestral sound in the 1980s with films like Body Heat, Frances, Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves, but also found occasion to experiment with synthesizers on JAGGED EDGE. Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves both again brought him Academy Awards but due to health problems, his productivity decreased during the last years of the 80s and the early 90s. Although Barry did make a successful comeback with Chaplin, Cry, the Beloved Country, The Scarlet Letter and The Specialist, he ceased his work after having scored Enigma in the early 2000s. Mr. Barry is now enjoying his retirement but of course, still has many fans.

His unprecedented 11 James Bond film scores (From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man With The Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy, View To A Kill, and finally The Living Daylights) give him the honor of being the major musical contributor to the successful James Bond franchise, but his talents have reached far beyond this genre.

The wonderful John Barry sound is a unique sound in the history of cinema and though we wish Mr. Barry a happy retirement, we do hope that one of these days he may just show up to do some work again for as one Bond song stated: Nobody Does It Better.

Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975): Composer Extraordinaire !

Some composers only make an indelible impression when they work with certain directors or filmmakers. Try and imagine for instance what the Steven Spielberg films would be like without John Williams! Bernard Herrmann was a composer who grew to unprecedented levels of excellence in the company of Orson Welles and, later in his career, Alfred Hitchcock. Yet the films he scored for both legendary directors do not fully represent the awesome dramatic power that this wonderful composer represented.

After scoring for radio for a number of years, Herrmann composed a rich and varied score for Orson Welles' first feature CITIZEN KANE (1941). He went on to score many other films with a flair for the dramatic. Winning an Academy Award for his score for The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) early in his career, it sometimes was a long time before recognition was given him. Another few highlights of the forties were Anna and The King of Siam (which was later remade as a musical and in the seventies made into a television series) and The Ghost and Mrs Muir (which in the early seventies also was made into a television series).

In 1951 Robert Wise directed The Day The Earth Stood Still, for which Herrmann introduced an eerie sound in his hypnotic music. This was achieved by the use of the theremin, a very early sort of synthesizer. This sound, mostly described as a paranoid vibrato whine, was emulated in many other science fiction films of the fifties.

During this era Herrmann began his association with Hitchcock for The Trouble With Harry, followed by The Man Who Knew Too Much, (in which Herrmann is also seen conducting a concert in the grand finale of the film), North By Northwest, (which by many is seen as a precursor to the James Bond series), Vertigo (considered by many to be Hitchcock's finest work, evoking an equally haunting score by Herrmann) and finally Psycho, for which Herrmann composed a striking musical score performed almost entirely with just the strings.



In the 1960s, Herrmann had a falling out (of sorts) with Hitchcock (much has been written about it; no need to go into it here) and Herrmann moved to London, where he worked for Francois Truffaut and wrote a truly haunting score for Fahrenheit 451 and later he also scored The Bride Wore Black. The popularity in these days of popular music in films caused major orchestral scores to go slightly out of fashion and so Herrmann found time for other endeavors, such as, in the 1970s, Herrmann re-recording his earlier scores for release on LP. For these releases he could pay more attention to performance than to the timings as these themes had in the film.

The early 1970s, young filmmakers began to rediscover Herrmann in these last years of his career and he was invited to score films for Brian De Palma, Larry Cohen and Martin Scorsese. His final score was for Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER.

Hermann's intensity and love for the craft made him a highly respected and wanted film composer, however he was also known to have severe temper tantrums. Nevertheless his impact as a film composer has left him a legacy that is very hard to surpass.

The Best 100 Films of All Time!!!

ALIENS (1986)
Director James Cameron
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn
Music by James Horner

After the immense success of Ridley Scott's Alien, a lot of copycat films were made including one cheaply made Italian horror flick called ALIEN 2, which was ultimately very forgettable. However, James Cameron directed an official sequel with Sigourney Weaver in the same role as warrant officer Ellen Ripley. In his sequel, Ripley is charged with destroying Company property and is subsequently asked to accompany an expedition to an alien planet that turns out to be seething with the same aliens as in the earlier film.

The main qualities in this film lie in the fact that Cameron builds on the mystique that was originally created by Giger and yet changes the tone of the film to a frantic Sci Fi Action Thriller, with rollercoaster speed. (Okay, the first hour takes it's time but then, hold on to your socks!)

Sigourney Weaver shines in a role that made her an action figure model, leading to her nickname in the press of Rambolina. Aliens also has very good performances by the other actors, among whom Lance Henriksen performs admirably as a good android.

James Horner was asked to write a score for Cameron's film but ran into severe time pressures as the production schedule ran heavily into overtime. Unfortunately this led to some friction with the director, but they have set aside their differences, as Horner returned to James Cameron with both Titanic and Avatar. Aliens gave James Horner his first Academy Award Nomination.

Since Aliens, the franchise has never been this good anymore. The third film was iffy at best and the fourth is best forgotten. Not to even mention the dreadful Aliens VS Predators films (they really stink!) ! But this 1986 Sci Fi Action Thriller ROCKS !!!

The Best 100 Films of All Time!!!

ALIEN (1979)
Director Ridley Scott
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Screenplay by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett

Alien belongs to those films that have remained so ensconced in the public consciousness, that I don't have to tell you from scratch about it. Basically, it is like a Science Fiction B-movie of the 1950s (there are some wonderful films among those cheapies but I will talk of those some other time) but Alien was made in the late 1970s and it had a budget, so the ambitious director could really try to make things work for him. Of prime importance for the film were of course the designs by H.R. Giger, the Swiss artist upon whose drawings the design of the alien was based. With his eerie designs the film succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
Ridley Scott's sets were also really elaborately detailed and beautiful. The music of film composer Jerry Goldsmith added wonderfully to the suspense and terror of it all, clearly indicating that 'in space no one can hear you scream'.

This film was the beginning of a franchise that quickly derailed into nonsensical sequels after James Cameron's excellent ALIENS. Hopefully the return of director Ridley Scott may bring somewhat more stability to the franchise but to be honest, the idea of an Alien prequel doesn't sound all that appealing to me. Nevertheless, the original ALIEN remains a wonderful thrill ride, a true masterpiece in sci fi terror.

The Best 100 Films of All Time!!!

Those among you who know me, know me to be a big filmbuff. As a matter of fact, a good many of you frequently ask me to identify old films by way of some vague memories. Naturally, my knowledge is as personal as my taste but since this is my blog, I will start talking about what I perceive to be the 100 Best Films of all Time. This may not be films you are familiar with. Some of them are old films from before I was born. Some are more recent. But all of them deserve mention as films that have something special to them. And that is why I select them for this category.

The first selection in this Category is :

Lonely Are The Brave, 1962
Starring Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walther Matthau, George Kennedy
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo
Based on the novel The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey
Produced by Edward Lewis
Directed by David Miller

In the aftermath of the 1960 historical spectacle that was SPARTACUS, the legendary actor Kirk Douglas found himself fascinated with an intimate story of a would-be cowboy who found he could not commit to modern times.


When Jack Burns, fancying himself a real oldtime cowboy, shows up in a small New Mexico town to visit an old buddy, he has to get himself arrested to be able to see his friend. But breaking out of jail he finds that not only the officers of the law pursue him, while he flees with his horse into the mountains.

Alone on his horse but armed with his oldfashioned values of honesty and cowboy chivalry, he sets himself on his way to the other side of the mountains where freedom lies across the border. But this freedom has a high price tag.

The various actors shine in their respective parts as practically everybody has a moment to show their stuff. Walther Matthau, George Kennedy, Gena Rowlands, even William Schallert play their parts to the hilt.

Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay in a single draft, based on the novel The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey. Jerry Goldsmith wrote a musical score that opened many doors for him. (Thanks to this film, he got to do bigger films like In Harm's Way and The Blue Max.)

Lonely Are The Brave was a title the Studio wanted for the film. Douglas would have preferred to have called it The Last Cowboy. But the film speaks for itself. Douglas still calls it his favourite role he ever played.

James Horner

Born in Los Angeles in 1953, after working two years for B movies, James Horner enjoyed a meteoric rise as a film composer in the early 1980s, especially after his score for Roger Corman's BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS proved succesful. His breakthrough as a mainstream composer came in 1982, when his scores for STAR TREK II THE WRATH OF KHAN and 48 HRS propelled him into the top ranks of film composers. He reaffirmed this position with his scores for GORKY PARK, BRAINSTORM and KRULL and returned a year later to the outer space regions for STAR TREK III THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK.

In 1985 he began a successful director - composer relationship with Ron Howard, when he scored COCOON. Horner and Howard would work again later again for films such as WILLOW, APOLLO 13 and A BEAUTIFUL MIND. (He later also teamed up with Edward Zwick for very dramatically effective work on GLORY and LEGENDS OF THE FALL.) He also proved to be a very imaginative composer with his unusual works for THE NAME OF THE ROSE and for WHERE THE RIVER RUNS BLACK.

His score for the James Cameron sci-fi /action thriller ALIENS received an Academy Award Nomination but the experience was an awful one, as the production of the film had run into overtime troubles, severely curtailing the time Horner had for his work, resulting in many frantic discussions with the director. Horner vowed never to work with Cameron again. His surprise when Cameron asked him again for TITANIC was understandable. TITANIC turned out to be Horner's most succesful score so far. It got him an Oscar for his dramatic score, an Oscar for Best Song (My Heart Will Go On, performed by Celine Dion) and many other awards.

Horner continued to impress with his music for DEEP IMPACT and THE PERFECT STORM, while remaining versatile enough to differentiate his work to films like BICENTENNIAL MAN, IRIS and A BEAUTIFUL MIND. Last year, James Cameron again approached him for the monumental AVATAR, for which Horner did an imposing score, featuring an impressively choral part. In the meantime, he has already been contacted for new and upcoming films for this year. (For one, he is scoring the upcoming THE KARATE KID remake.) Horner continues to work for films and remains an interesting composer to follow.

Marvel Comics : Plain Marvelous !

Stan Lee, born Stanley Martin Lieber

For about 40 years now I have been reading comics of various types and sizes. As I live in the Netherlands, naturally this started with Dutch comics but when I was very young, my eyes fell on some titles that really fascinated me. Of course, translated into Dutch as they were, it took me some time to figure out the how and why and when of it all. But the comics I did happen to like so much, were mostly MARVEL COMICS.

I don't need to say too much of Marvel Comics as the whole history of this comic book giant is well documented. But the first comics that caught my eye, were of the late 60s and early 70s, when Stan Lee was still at the head of the creative giant.

Stan Lee wrote nearly all of the major titles at some time and did pretty much all of it with partner Jack Kirby at the artistic helm. The work became so much that other artists, such as the unforgettable Steve Ditko, soon joined in the fun.

True, when I started reading them, Kirby was already planning to leave and Ditko had already left. But the second generation had artists of even greater artistic brilliance, such as John Romita, John Buscema and Gene Colan.

The early to late sixties have always been the most interesting to me of all of the Marvel Comics. This was a time of great optimism, of wonderful storytelling, and of terrific art. Sure, all of that has been seen later again but never in the same way. Spider-Man's woes for instance have only grown worse over the years. In the sixties, he was such a symbol for the youth. I wonder when it was that I felt I outgrew him.

I still read Marvel Comics but when the sophistication of the second decade gave way to mediocrity, I felt my interests going in other directions as well. Sure, I came back later, maybe I never really totally left, but as they say, you can't really ever go home again.

-Continued-