Dimitri Tiomkin Obscurities

Dimitri Tiomkin at the 1953 I Confess recording session

Dimitri Tiomkin was both a highly decorated film music composer and a powerful hit maker, especially in the 1950s. We are covering the hits and to some degree his film themes in a post on the main blog. This article is about some of the curiosities from his output - early records, little known songs, foreign language productions and just plain odd items.

Our first number takes us back to near the beginning of his career. It is the theme from the 1934 film of Alice in Wonderland. Tiomkin collaborated with Nat Finston and Leo Robin for the number. The eminent Isham Jones was the bandleader. It's a surprisingly perky song, with the uncredited vocal attributed to Eddie Stone, but it's not a match for Sammy Fain and Bob Hilliard's song for the Disney movie.

Another relatively early release was 1949's Champion, with Kirk Douglas as a ruthless boxer. The title music is a march (which can be found on Tiomkin's own LP on the main blog), but there also was a pleasing ballad called "Never Be It Said," sung on the soundtrack by a very young Polly Bergen. Columbia recorded it with the accomplished singer Herb Jeffries, who himself starred in a number of low-budget films. Hugo Winterhalter provided the backing.

The Men, a 1950 Marlon Brando film, gave us another enjoyable ballad, "Love Like Ours," here in a splendid version by a favorite singer, Lisa Kirk. If you like it, there are several Kirk posts on my other blog.

For our next few songs, we have two of Tiomkin's Western tunes transplanted to Europe. The first is "Forlad mig ikke" - literally translated from Danish "Do not leave me," and yes, this is the theme from High Noon. The singer, Gustav Winckler, is no Ted Ritter, but this is OK by me. It even has a harmonica, which often shows up in Western scores. The vibraphone you hear, maybe not so much.

We move on to France for a version of the music from Blowing Wild - or "Le Souffle Sauvage" in translation. Lyricist Max François has turned this into "Comedie," which I don't think has much to do with the film. John William is the emphatic vocalist.

Tiomkin wrote "Love, Look What You've Done to Me" for Hitchcock's I Confess. You can hear the composer's conception via his album Movie Themes from Hollywood in the other post. Victor Silvester turned it into a strange tea-dance number for his release. You can almost hear the waiters clinking the plates and glasses.

The theme from The High and the Mighty is invariably heard with a whistler at the fore (or in the composer's instrumental, a theremin). There also are words to the tune, courtesy of Ned Washington, although they don't have anything to do with the film. Johnny Desmond sang them artfully on a Coral release with George Cates' backing.

The High and Mighty version from Denmark called "Jeg Var Fri Og Frejdig," or "I Was Free and Fair," also apparently has no reference to the airborne emergency. Lise Ringheim sings with Paul Clemensen's orchestra. The words are by Jette Grevil.

The High and the Mighty's theme inspired other versions as well. The eminent Perez Prado (or someone at the record company) decided to turn it into a mambo. I had visions of the passengers on the faltering airliner gyrating across the Pacific.

On to ancient Egypt and The Land of the Pharaohs. RCA Victor decided it might be nice to have harmonica wizard Leo Diamond record the theme music, because no instrument evokes the Great Pyramids more than the mouth harp, I guess.

Lucho Gatica

We end with a really good record - "Las Verdes Hojas De Verano" (The Green Leaves of Summer) from The Alamo as done by the superb vocalist Lucho Gatica. His passionate performance is quite a contrast to the understated folk rendition by The Brothers Four in our other collection.

These recordings were remastered in ambient stereo from Internet Archive originals.

LINK

Mary Healy Sings "Star Dust"

Mary Healy

My friend Bryan Cooper has come up with another rare gem for us - the soundtrack recording of Mary Healy singing "Star Dust," from the 1940 film of the same name. This makes a wonderful addendum to his previous contribution of the commercial recordings that Healy made from 1938-40 together with soundtrack recordings from Second Fiddle. You can find those records on my other blog.

Healy played a singer in Star Dust, which starred John Payne and Linda Darnell. The title song is her big number in the film, and Bryan has transferred it from a studio disc. The sound is excellent.

The song "Star Dust" dates from 1927. Composer Hoagy Carmichael wrote it and recorded it as an instrumental. Mitchell Parish added words in 1929, but Wikipedia tells us the song didn't really become popular until a few years later via a ballad instrumental from bandleader Isham Jones. I've included both the original Carmichael record and the Isham Jones version as bonuses in the download.

For those who worry about such things, the song was originally called "Star Dust" but Carmichael's Gennett record labelled it "Stardust" and over time the compound name has become the more frequently used. I am calling it "Star Dust" here because the film's name is Star Dust, and because the sheet music, Carmichael and Jones spelled it that way.

The Carmichael record comes from YouTube and the 78prof. The sound is OK, but the combination of a low-bit rate and noise reduction has led to some digital hash in the sonic background. The Jones disc was remastered from a lossless needle drop on Internal Archive.

Thanks again to Bryan for his continuing contributions!