{"id":5932,"date":"2012-12-30T17:26:56","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T22:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5932"},"modified":"2012-12-30T18:49:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T23:49:34","slug":"cd-destination-moon-1950","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5932","title":{"rendered":"CD: Destination Moon (1950)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>D<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Label: Monstrous Movie Music<\/a>\/ Released: November 6, 2012<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: 35 tracks \/ (56:33)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 20-page colour booklet with liner notes by David Schecter.<\/p>\n

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Composer: Leith Stevens (score), Clarence E. Wheeler (cartoon music)<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

When Leith Stevens moved to television scoring during the sixties, it\u2019s not an exaggeration to say film lost an important musical voice, especially in the realm of evocative science-fiction scoring. Stevens, with his roots in jazz and radio, was lucky to have scored George Pal\u2019s family film The Great Rupert<\/strong> (1950), because that association ensured Stevens would become Pal\u2019s main composer for the bulk of the producer\u2019s science-fiction and fantasy projects.<\/p>\n

When Stevens scored Pal\u2019s next film, the ambitious Destination Moon<\/strong>, it was unlikely the composer knew the film would mark the beginning of a long wave of space exploration films, and never figured his score would almost\u00a0 become the gold standard for the genre. Stevens may not have written impressionistic, experimental music \u2013 Moon<\/strong> is filled with clean themes and variations \u2013 but there\u2019s a longing quality that matches the various characters who aspire to conquer the far reaches of space, to reach the impossible target of a lunar landing, and their hunger to return home after enduring hardships on our orbiting moon.<\/p>\n

Like the spacesuit costumes and effects footage, the music was also re-used and repurposed in subsequent B-level productions (the most egregious \/ amusing being The Phantom Planet<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>], virtually tracked with Moon<\/strong> cues) because it possessed an unwavering ability to grab viewers and evoke the fears from confronting the blackness of space. Stevens\u2019 sound wasn\u2019t spacey per se: Moon<\/strong>\u2019s central theme begins with an ethereal intro, but its main purpose is as a lead-in to several striking spin-offs.<\/p>\n

In the \u201cMain Title,\u201d the sharp brass almost question Man\u2019s egotism in attempting to push humanity beyond the Earth\u2019s physical realm, whereas the theme itself seems to beckon the industrialist \u2018hero\u2019 to hold back on space exploration and conquest, foreshadowing the lengthy ship launch trials and the humans being nearly marooned in the finale. Stevens also evokes aspects of the gravitational pull and weightlessness without resorting to (or creating) musical clich\u00e9s. The ship\u2019s countdown, for example, isn\u2019t a straight pulsing motif but a repeated, fast-rushing motif layered with dissonant strings.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s Start Again\u201d (of which the first half re-emerges in \u201cIt Looks Hopeless\u201d) is arguably the score\u2019s most beautiful cue because it matches the direness of a failed launch, functioning as a dirge for technical blundering as well as dashed hopes. Like his music for War of the Worlds <\/strong>\u2013 his science-fiction masterwork \u2013 Stevens aims to extract an emotional reaction from audiences, and works with the same three-note launch motif which now functions almost like a Morse Code pulse, emphasizing the hardness of failure rather than a pulsing message for divine aide. The colours of the brass are particularly affecting in this cue: mid-range strings are contrasted by almost mournful tones, and the slowly rendered notes match the kind of shattered, disheartening sense of failure that comes from surveying a disastrous situation.<\/p>\n

The cue is nevertheless imbued with hope, because the steadiness of the brass tones evokes Man\u2019s ongoing determination to circumvent and conquer failure. The follow-up cue, \u201cBarnes Inc.\u201d underscores scenes of the manufacturing plant, but it\u2019s structure is still rooted in the prior 3-note motif: Stevens\u2019 brassy fanfare quickly segues into a syncopated variation with woody colours, giving the motif added reverberation as through functionally it represents a new stab at finding a solution to the mechanical problem, but emotionally raising the level of Man\u2019s determination to keep hammering away at the problems until something finally emerges from all that industrial-strength obsessiveness. A slightly different coloration then reappears in \u201cBuilding Montage,\u201d with strings providing a circular, undulating motif (upgraded to 4 notes, to infer progress, and success) with xylophone hits and meandering brass. The cue then crests in a not-quite heroic statement, still inferring a sense of uncertainty in spite of the obvious elation as the ship\u2019s components are integrated with success.<\/p>\n

The use of contrast is perhaps the score\u2019s most important element because it provides both commentary on the characters as well as scenes which can\u2019t be drenched in clean moods of success and straight failure. On an emotional level, Moon<\/strong> is about human struggle, both in spirit and technological; it\u2019s also the most unique among the space exploration films because its hero is an arrogant corporate CEO who bucks government regulations for personal, corporate, and financial gain. It\u2019s also perhaps the lone film where the spirit of the unregulated industrialism is forcibly, if not reluctantly,\u00a0celebrated and supported by governments and nations.<\/p>\n

Stevens rarely repeats the same arrangement or motif in its original guise; even the second countdown cue is reworked into a more simplified version because due to the preceding musical and visual drama, there\u2019s no need to add subtext from brass and strings; the audience gets the imperativeness of the blast-off, so musically it\u2019s just a countdown with very minor colours from its scaled-down instrumentation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that kind of care which guaranteed the music\u2019s effect on viewers. Stevens\u2019 instincts recognized the needs of scenes as well as the aggregate of visual and verbal information – \u00a0trusting the audience, and shaping the score to appear and evoke only when necessary. It is surprising, then, how much music Stevens did write \u2013 almost 50 minutes worth – given the film itself runs about 90 mins.<\/p>\n

Also worked into the score are brief thematic bits which fleetingly inject some melody, if not harmonic warmness. It\u2019s a balancing act that never becomes melodramatic or cloying, and perhaps Stevens\u2019 most beautiful injection occurs in \u201cAdrift in Space,\u201d another step-like motif played by flutes and clarinets. The tones are warm and delicate, and the repetition brings in more traditional sounds of warmth from strings, but the flutes do shift to more unsteady notes.<\/p>\n

Also worth mentioning is the classical sweeps within \u201cThe Rescue,\u201d with its short gusts of Tchaikovskian strings; the full-gusto orchestral rendition of the 3-note motif in \u201cOn the Moon\u201d; and the eerie, off-kilter variation of \u201cAdrift in Space\u201d in the cues \u201cFun on the Moon\u201d and \u201cCargraves Takes a Picture,\u201d both featuring brief humorous sections.<\/p>\n

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Original recordings of Stevens\u2019 space scores have been a Holy Grail for his fans, as well as fans of George Pal\u2019s sci-fi canon, and it\u2019s strange how it\u2019s taken decades for the music to finally appear both in its most complete surviving form, and on legit releases. Music from Moon<\/strong> appeared on a 7 \u201d Columbia LP and a storybook LP, and the major cues were re-recorded for a stereo LP in 1958 by Omega Records (which itself was bootlegged in seventies, and later reissued legitimately by Varese on LP, and later Citadel on CD).<\/p>\n

The re-recording has been the score\u2019s best-known and most widely available edition, and while different in several aspects, it\u2019s still a pretty good version of Stevens\u2019 music, especially in robust stereo. The most striking differences include tempo and performance style \u2013 the 1950 acetates used by Monstrous Movie Music have more urgency \u2013 and there\u2019s a greater variety of cues which, happily, don\u2019t make this longer presentation repetitive. MMM\u2019s also included music from the Woody Woodpecker cartoons (composed by Clarence E. Wheeler) seen in Moon<\/strong>, although it\u2019s been placed within the score according to its chronological appearance, which does break up the flow of Stevens\u2019 moody score. MMM\u2019s CD also includes one surviving bonus cue, an overdub titled \u201cHarmonic Glissando\u201d for the cue \u201cOn the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schecter\u2019s liner notes provide a nice overview of the score, its release history and its re-use in B- and Z-grade films, and a portrait of the composer. Stevens\u2019 peak period was during the fifties when he enjoyed plum Pal assignments, plus dramas (The Gene Krupa Story<\/strong>, The James Dean Story<\/strong>), musicals (The Five Pennies<\/strong>), and perhaps as important as his sci-fi work, social dramas for director Ida Lupino. With most of Stevens\u2019 sci-fi material now making its way to CD (World Without End<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] being the last big holdout), the next goldmine of unreleased work are Lupino noir (The Hitch-Hiker<\/strong>) and social dramas (The Bigamist<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

MMM\u2019s CD is a must-have for genre and the composer\u2019s fans, and is part of a bountiful wave of Stevens scores which appeared in 2012, including Intrada\u2019s Pal-tribute featuring War of the Worlds <\/strong>(1953) and When Worlds Collide<\/strong> (1951), and Kritzerland\u2019s The Atomic City<\/strong> (1952). Also reissued the same year are the jazz cues for Don Siegel\u2019s 1954 noir Private Hell 36 <\/strong>(1954) in Moochin About\u2019s 5-disc compendium Jazz on Film Noir.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— DVD Review<\/a> — \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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