{"id":3830,"date":"2011-11-24T13:24:21","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T18:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3830"},"modified":"2012-12-06T15:25:31","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T20:25:31","slug":"cd-55-days-at-peking-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3830","title":{"rendered":"CD: 55 Days at Peking (1963)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>F<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0La-La Land Records<\/a> \/ Released: October 25, 2011<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: \u00a0CD1: 28 tracks \/ (55:49)CD2: 29 tracks \/ (58:24)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 24-page colour booklet with liner notes by Frank K. DeWald \/ Limited to 2500 copies..<\/p>\n

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Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

La-La Land\u2019s 2-CD set becomes the definitive edition of Dimitri Tiomkin\u2019s romantic \/ rambunctious score, more than doubling the prior soundtrack album\u2019s running time with unedited and a few unused cues, plus several source cues (namely the marches, and the dance pieces from the grand ball sequence).<\/p>\n

When Miklos Rozsa (El Cid<\/a><\/strong>) proved unavailable for Samuel Bronston\u2019s latest epic extravaganza, Tiomkin, fresh from the success of The Guns of Navarone<\/strong> (1961), came on board and wrote a lavish, multi-thematic work anchored to a rousing action theme for the Boxer rebellion that besieged members of the Eight-Nation Alliance<\/a>, trapped just outside the massive walls of the Imperial City in Peking in 1900; and a lush, multi-purpose tender theme that underscores the otherwise implausible romance between hero Captain Lewis (Charlton Heston) and \u2018meh\u2019 heroine the Baroness Natalie Ivanoff (Ava Gardner), and the doe-eyed Chinese \/American orphaned daughter of Lewis\u2019 colleague who longingly wants a Papa, and a trip to America.<\/p>\n

Brought into production without a properly finished script and plagued with budget overruns, the ambitions of the filmmakers \u2013 producer Bronson, original director Nicholas Ray, and the two main screenwriters \u2013 are at least present in Tiomkin\u2019s score, which is goosed with the composer\u2019s unbridled energy. Essentially a western siege drama transposed to China, Tiomkin\u2019s music hits all the right marks as characters become trapped in desperate circumstances, but it would\u2019ve been interesting to hear how the score may have reflected political conflicts and darker undercurrents had the script been properly developed into a more mature work. It\u2019s a moot issue today, but the added curiosity is whether Tiomkin would\u2019ve dialed down his style, and opted for a \u2018less is more\u2019 approach.<\/p>\n

Tiomkin\u2019s gift for melody and harmony guarantee Peking<\/strong> evokes a glimpse into the Asian drama, albeit through the goggles of western musical conventions. Perhaps it\u2019s smart that Tiomkin chose to avoid clich\u00e9d Chinoiseries<\/a><\/em> and merely hints at the harmonics of Chinese music; the move does restrict the film\u2019s perspective to the European \/ Japanese \/ American characters, but we\u2019re spared ethnic music that sounds canned.<\/p>\n

The flipside, of course, is a slightly exotic approach, which Tiomkin had already explored in his 1957 Cinerama score for Search for Paradise<\/strong>, and in a more bawdy style in his 1955 bombastic masterpiece Land<\/strong> of the Pharaohs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Chinese military musicians flare and flatulate their brass fanfares in Tiomkinisian style, and orchestral exotica dominates \u201cReligious Ceremony,\u201d which sounds neither liturgical nor authentic Chinese; the wordless chorals convey the mood of a travelogue, or an unintentional mondo movie moment. (In the final film mix, The audience is drenched with layers of low male vocals, but due to damaged source materials, the CD lacks the heavy choral overlay. However, a taste of Tiomkin\u2019s intended approach is evident in the intact cue \u201cA New Kind of Weapon,\u201d which underscores the arresting sequence in which the worrisome Alliance watches a mass of Boxers drag forward an armed Medieval tower from the pitch black night.<\/p>\n

La-La Land\u2019s 2-CD set may not convinced anti<\/em>-Tiomkinites of the composer\u2019s brilliance with orchestral colours, but fans will relish the fine details the composer invested into each cue. Theme variations are quite diverse, the use of brief solo gestures are nicely integrated to temper the score\u2019s innate bigness, and there\u2019s the broad orchestral colours which are frequently astounding. Much of Tiomkin\u2019s style involved constant movement, as though the composer just didn\u2019t like the idea of an orchestra largely sitting still or playing quiet when there was so much sonic power to exploit. Call it romantic, overblown, or a pioneering style of modern bombast, but there is something innately fascinating and amusing in Tiomkin\u2019s compositions for epic action dramas.<\/p>\n

In person (either in interviews, or his amusing appearance on TV, like the Jack Benny Show<\/a> <\/strong>or The Tonight Show<\/a><\/strong>), Tiomkin was urbane, funny, and always uplifting \u2013 qualities that permeate his action scores. Peking<\/strong> does rank as one of his best, although the Exit Music \u2013 a vocal version of his love theme \u2013 smacks of modern commercialism.
\nIt\u2019s not a leap to accuse Tiomkin of wanting a hit single and using the Exit Music to prime audiences for a hunger to buy the single. Performed by Andy Williams, the lyrics allude to dwindling time for the film\u2019s lovers, but like other parts of the score, it captures a relationship that never gelled in the finished film due to script issues, and specifically in the case of Heston and Gardner, two actors who shared little onscreen chemistry.<\/p>\n

Tiomkin wasn\u2019t the first composer to slap an anachronistic pop song after a period drama, but the contemporary nature of \u201cSo Little Time\u201d is pretty jarring, if not audacious. There\u2019s also a clever appearance of electric guitar in \u201cBritish Soldier Wounded,\u201d which, in 1963, daringly poked the barrier against the use of contemporary pop instruments in a period film. Within Peking<\/strong>, Tiomkin sneaks in little sounds that link cues, even the pop single: the deep male chorals from \u201cReligious Ceremony\u201d briefly show up in the single\u2019s film mix to maintain thematic, if not slight instrumental continuity.<\/p>\n

The CD set\u2019s bonus material is comprised of mono versions of the film\u2019s single theme in various idiomatic guises (all quite amusing), but they\u2019re no more jarring than the poppish Exit Music song, or the instrumental Intermission theme (also in mono) with its big band mood and tick-tock percussion motif.<\/p>\n

With few exceptions, La-La Land\u2019s CD features the cues in stereo and most have survived in good shape. A few have hiss and some coarseness around the edges (such as \u201cHere They Come,\u201d and \u201cLewis Saves the Boy\u201d), but while other original epic score recordings \u2013 notably It\u2019s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] \u2013 haven\u2019t even survived in complete form and in stereo, we\u2019re lucky enough materials exist to bring Peking<\/strong> to its full musical glory. (Pity the same can\u2019t be said of the film, which is in dire need of a major restoration.)<\/p>\n

Tiomkin would score Bronston\u2019s final two epics \u2013 The Fall of the Roman Empire<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] and Circus World<\/strong> (both 1964) and the clever WWII thriller 36 Hours<\/strong> (1965) before scaling back on his scoring projects. After The War Wagon<\/strong> (1967) and the teleplay Great Catherine<\/strong> (1968), he produced the bloated western Mackenna\u2019s Gold<\/strong> (1969) with Quincy Jones handling the scoring duties, and executive produced his dream project: a bio-drama of Tchaikovsky<\/strong> (1970) for Russia\u2019s Mosfilm.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Film Review<\/a> — Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0F<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ F . Rating: Excellent Label:\u00a0La-La Land Records \/ Released: October 25, 2011 Tracks & Album Length: \u00a0CD1: 28 tracks \/ (55:49)CD2: 29 tracks \/ (58:24) . Special Notes: 24-page colour booklet with liner notes by Frank K. DeWald \/ Limited to 2500 copies.. . Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin . . Review: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[374,891,4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-ZM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3830"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5835,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3830\/revisions\/5835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}