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(1989)

One of the most successful films of 1989, and widely credited for being the film that revived the genre of animated feature films. It was the first in a series of five Disney animated films that would win the duo of Best Original Score and Song Oscars, dominating the musical awards for several years. Following The Little Mermaid’s musical success at the Oscars, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Pocahuntas would repeat that success. All those films, with the exception of The Lion King, were scored by Alan Menken, who earned two Oscars for each of them. With eight Oscars to date, he has more than any other living person, and is second only to Alfred Newman for the most wins in the musical categories.

There have been three releases of the score – two regular releases, and one “Special Edition”. In reality, there is nothing special about it – it contains no music that could not be found on the previous albums. Instead, it contains four simply vile “cover” songs, which can be safely be avoided.

Like most of the soundtracks for Disney animations, the songs are the main attractions. Ashman’s witty and comical lyrics combined with Menken’s intelligent melodies are simply superb. Under The Sea is the best of them, with Samuel E. Wright’s vocal performances just spot on, and is probably one of the best songs ever written for a film, earning Menken and Ashman a well deserved Oscar for Best Song. Shortly after their success at the 1990 Oscars, Ashman revealed to Menken that he was HIV positive and died of AIDS the following year, but not before he had written the lyrics for Beauty and Beast and some of the lyrics for Aladdin, earning himself five posthumous Oscar nominations, winning for the title song of Beauty and the Beast.

The other songs? Part of the World and Poor Unfortunate Souls are pretty good. A variation of “Under the Sea” is heard in the song “Kiss the Girl”, which also earned an Oscar nomination, creating a tradition of multiple song nominations for Menken and his various lyrcist collaborators over the years, dominating the best song category with three out of five nominations in both 1992 (Beauty and the Beast) and 2009 (Enchanted). Avoid “Daughers of Triton” at all costs.

The waters get slightly muddier when it comes to Menken’s orchestral score. Whilst it cannot be denied that Menken’s four Best Song Oscars were fully deserved, his wins for Best Score, with the exception of Beauty and the Beast, are open to much more debate. In consideration of the fact that The Little Mermaid was up against John Williams’ Born on the Fourth of July (and considering that it was nominated when vastly superior scores that year such as Danny Elfman’s Batman and Ennio Morricone’s Cinema Paradiso were ignored), I don’t think it was a particularly deserving winner.

The orchestral portion of the score is not heard until the second half of the album, albeit a couple of choral performances in the Main Titles and the “Fanfare” cues. This being Menken’s first orchestral film score, he reportedly asked a more experienced film composer for advice on scoring the film. Although not as good as his scores to follow, such as Beauty and the Beast and Pocahuntas, it is a very functional score and contains some particularly enjoyable moments. Despite a few good cues, such as “Fireworks” and “Tour of the Kingdom”, the majority of the score, whilst it could not be described as dull, it fails, in the most part, to convey any real orchestral power.

The soundtrack is pretty much the same on all the albums you can buy it on. Disney did a re-release of the original 1989 album in the mid-90′s with no additional material, but with a different cover. The 2006 special release contains nothing new – just the horrible cover songs, which can be avoided without regret. Basically, buy it on the cheapest album you can find, because albeit some tracks on the 2006 release which have slightly better sound quality, there is very little, if any, difference between them all.

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Track Listing

Disc 1

1 – Fathoms Below

2 – Main Titles – The Little Mermaid

3 – Fanfare

4 – Daughters of Triton

5 – Part of the World

6 – Under the Sea

7 – Part of Your World (Reprise)

8 – Poor Unfortunate Souls

9 – Les Poissons

10 – Kiss the Girl

11 – Fireworks

12 – Jig

13 – The Storm

14 – Destruction of the Grotto

15 – Flotsam and Jetsam

16 – Tour of the Kingdom

17 – Bedtime

18 – Wedding Announcement

19 – Eric to the Rescue

20 – Happy Ending

Disc 2

1 – Kiss The Girl

2 – Poor Unfortunate Souls

3 – Part of Your World

4 – Under the Sea

Credits

Music Composed by Alan Menken

Lyrics by Howard Ashman

Orchestrations by Thomas Pasatieri

Conducted by J.A.C. Redford

Produced by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman

Insert Notes

The special edition of the soundtrack contains lyrics to each of the songs.

All artwork and images are Copyright (C) Walt Disney Records

(1991)

I still remember the first and only time I saw Hook six or seven years ago. I was gaping in disbelief when I saw the words “Directed by Steven Spielberg” appear on the screen. It remains one of the worst films I’ve ever had the misfortune to watch, and it’s incredible that the man who had made Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T., and the Indiana Jones films beforehand could make such a bad film. The acting is dreadful (well…Dustin Hoffman isn’t bad, but Robin Williams is badly miscast as Peter Pan), with Julia Roberts very deservedly earning a Worst Supporting Actress Razzie nomination for her performance, and the film was not received particularly well by critics. Nevertheless, it still managed to earn over $300 million worldwide. John Williams, having worked on all of Spielberg’s previous films (except The Color Purple) composed the score to the film, and delivered one of the best scores of his career, of 1991, and the 90′s.

There is however, one major detraction to the score. Williams collaborated with longtime lyricist Leslie Bricusse to write two vile, sickening songs. The first of them, “We Don’t Wanna Grow Up”, featuring lyrics that sounds like they were written by a six year old is performed during a scene in the film by a children’s choir accompanied by a piano. The second, “When You’re Alone”, is not so bad, mainly because the excellent music makes up for the awful lyrics and vocals. The latter was astoundingly nominated for an Oscar, although the Academy favoured Williams’ significantly inferior score to JFK and ignored this one in the Best Score category. Unsurprisingly and deservedly so, both those awards went to Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s Beauty and the Beast. Williams did not expect to win either nomination, saying prior to the ceremony “Choosing Beauty and the Beast was closer to Hollywood tradition and less risky for all. I’m used to choices like that”.

If you can remember to avoid tracks 2 and 15, Hook will be an incredibly enjoyable score. Williams created several excellent themes, but what is probably best and the most recognisable is the “flying” theme. It’s first heard in the cue “The Arrival of Tink and the Flight to the Neverland”, but is heard at its best towards the end of the cue “Remembering Childhood”, and again near the beginning of “The Ultimate War”. Those are probably the album’s two best cues, with the latter offering some excellent action material, although sadly it accompanies a scene which features some of the most pathetic sword-fighting choreography I’ve ever seen.

Aside from that, several other excellent themes are offered by the album, including “From Mermaids to Lost Boys”, in which the haunting vocals are a particularly notable highlight, “Presenting the Hook”, an excellent and comical march theme, and the cues “The Banquet” and “The Never-Feast”, which offer some enjoyable comical music to accompany a food-fight scene. Finally is “Farewell Neverland”, a lovely ten minute long piece, mainly string based at first, and then features some wonderful choral performances – a wonderful conclusion to the album.

In sum, the orchestral score to Hook is one of the best Williams has ever written and this album therefore comes highly recommended. Just remember – skip tracks 2 and 15.

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Track Listing

1 – Prologue

2 – We Don’t Wanna Grow Up (***AVOID!***)

3 – Banning Back Home

4 – Granny Wendy

5 – Hook-Napped

6 – The Arrival of Tink and the Flight to the Neverland

7 – Presenting the Hook

8 – From Mermaids to Lost Boys

9 – The Lost Boy Chase

10 – Smee’s Plan

11 – The Banquet

12 – The Never-Feast

13 – Remembering Childhood

14 – You are the Pan

15 – When You’re Alone (***AVOID!***)

16 – The Ultimate War

17 – Farewell Neverland

Credits

Music Composed, Conducted and Produced by John Williams

Orchestrations by John Neufeld and Alexander Courage

Awards

Grammy Award for Best Score (nominated)

Academy Award for Best Original Song (nominated)

Insert Notes

The exceptionally dull plain black pages contain a list of credits and a short note from director Steven Spielberg.

(2010)

Conductor Charles Gerhardt compiled several albums dedicated to certain Hollywood composers, among them Alfred Newman and Franz Waxman. In addition, he made several albums dedicated to various film stars, in this case Humphrey Bogart. Due to the fact that most of Boghart’s most famous work was done for Warner Bros., it is the music of the legendary composer who headed the studio’s music department for many years, Max Steiner, that dominates the album with seven tracks out of twelve, including the first five.

Opening with Steiner’s famous Warner Bros. fanfare (why, oh why does the studio no longer use that??) and then launches into a suite of one of Steiner’s most famous scores, and Boghart’s most famous film, Casablanca, which highlights Steiner’s powerful compositions as well as his abilities to weave well known tunes, such as ‘La Marseillaise’ and ‘As Time Goes By’ with his own music. Following this is a suite from a film which reunited much of the cast and crew of Casablanca, Passage to Marseille, and, much like the previous suite, Steiner does an excellent job of combining his own sweeping compositions and well known French and English patriotic music. The sweeping string movements and the heroic horn and brass performances are simply glorious – probably my favourite theme from this album.

Next is a suite from The Treasure of Sierre Madre, which unfortunately has a slight disappointment at the start with a slight wobble on the first chord. It’s relatively easy to pick up, so it’s somewhat surprising that nobody bothered to fix it. No matter though – it only lasts for a second, and the trumpets and heavy percussion come in to give a spectacular performance of Steiner’s masterful score. At around two minutes in, the piece becomes mainly string based, performing a beautiful, sweeping melody.

Following a rendition of the ‘Love Themes’ from the 1946 film The Big Sleep, which features some of the finest love themes that Steiner ever wrote.  Next is the march from his 1954 masterpiece, The Caine Mutiny. Steiner received an Oscar nomination for his efforts on the film, losing to Dimitri Tiomkin for The High and the Mighty. That wasn’t undeserved, but I’m pretty sure the Academy were regretting not awarding Steiner the Oscar instead at the moment Tiomkin was onstage thanking composers such as Beethoven, Strauss, and Mozart. Gerhardt’s recording easily surpasses the original recordings of the piece, and they weren’t bad at all.

Next is finally some music composed by somebody other than Steiner. The sixth and seventh tracks on the album feature excerpts from Franz Waxman’s not particularly well known scores for the films To Have and Have Not and The Two Mrs. Carrolls. Both are somewhat reminiscent (the latter much more so) of the composer’s earlier, and better known score to Alfred Hitchcock’s film of 1940, Rebecca, and to a slightly lesser degree, the score he wrote for Hitchcock’s film following Rebecca, Suspicion, in 1941. Horn motifs vaguely resembling Alfred Newman’s score for The Black Swan can also be heard in The Two Mrs. Carrolls. Make no mistake however, they still have an incredible dramatic effect.

Next is a piece composed by the incredibly underrated Frederick Hollander. One of the best themes on the album, the rendition of his waltz from 1954’s Sabrina is simply beautiful. But that is no match for what is to follow. Victor Young’s love theme from The Left Hand of God is one of the best and most emotional pieces of music I’ve ever heard. Young was possibly the most underrated of Hollywood’s great composers (he died before the Academy finally decided to give him an Oscar), and this piece proves to the highest degree that he never received the recognition that he deserved, back then or today.

The legendary Miklós Rózsa was the maestro behind the next piece – the Main Title of the 1943 film Sahara. Orchestrated with emphasis on heavy brass in a similar way to many of his other pieces played over the opening of a film, it is a sweeping orchestral piece that sounds simply wonderful.

Steiner’s music returns for the final two tracks – the Love Theme from Virginia City, and an excerpt from his score for John Huston’s Key Largo. The theme from Virginia City opens with a memorable, energetic trumpet march theme, which then morphs into a string arrangement of one of his wonderful love themes. Very different is the theme for Key Largo, which begins with Steiner’s Warner Bros. fanfare, and then features heavy brass, and later string, performances of one of his lesser-known scores, but one that is nevertheless excellent.

I must admit I never actually intended to buy this album. I ordered it from Screen Archives mistakenly thinking that it was the actual soundtrack for Casablanca. In any case, I’m very glad I did. It features some of the best recordings ever released of some of the finest film scores in cinema history, and is a marvellous tribute to a man considered by many to be the greatest actor of all time. Don’t miss out on this one.

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Track Listing

1. Casablanca *

2. Passage to Marseille: Rescue at Sea *

3. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre *

4. The Big Sleep: Love Themes *

5. The Caine Mutiny: March *

6. To Have and Have Not: Main Title: Martinque **

7. The Two Mrs. Carrolls **

8. Sabrina: Main Title; The Larrabee Estate ***

9. The Left Hand of God: Love Theme ****

10. Sahara: Main Title *****

11. Virginia City: Stagecoach; Love Scene *

12. Key Largo *

* Composed by Max Steiner

** Composed by Franz Waxman

*** Composed by Frederick Hollander

**** Composed by Victor Young

***** Composed by Miklós Rózsa

Credits

Music Composed by Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Frederick Hollander, Victor Young, and Miklós Rózsa

Conducted by Charles Gerhardt

Performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra

Awards

None

Insert Notes

Contains various notes about the composers and the scores featured on the album.