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

Songs from the 'My Sister Eileen' Musicals

When Ruth McKenney started writing about moving to New York with her sister Eileen, she began a multimedia enterprise that spawned New Yorker articles, a book, a play, a film, a Broadway musical, a Hollywood musical, and a television show. And perhaps some other things I've missed.

Today we'll concentrate on the musical offspring of the My Sister Eileen stories - the 1953 Broadway production Wonderful Town, and the 1955 Hollywood film issued under the original title. The two musicals had different scores - Wonderful Town by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green; My Sister Eileen by Jule Styne and Leo Robin. (Columbia Pictures apparently didn't want to pay for the Broadway score.)

Wonderful Town has sired a series of albums, including one by the original cast and another from the 1958 television production, both with Rosalind Russell as Ruth. There was no cast album from the film, possibly because the score was too skimpy. In that production, only Betty Garrett (Ruth) was known as a singer. (Yes, I realize that Jack Lemmon issued a few vocal LPs.) For me, the high point of the film is not a song but a spectacular dance duel between Bob Fosse and Tommy Rall, who were competing for Eileen.

This post is not concerned with any recordings by the original casts; rather it examines the records that appeared in the market covering songs from these musicals. Most are from Wonderful Town, but the few from My Sister Eileen are worth hearing as well.

Wonderful Town

Let's start with Wonderful Town and my favorite song from either score - "Ohio," in a heartfelt version by the superb Lisa Kirk. The work has witty lyrics by Comden and Green and a loping tune (possibly inspired by Gershwin's "Bidin' My Time") that suggests Bernstein thought that Ohio is out West where the tumbleweeds blow. Rosalind Russell and Edith (Edie) Adams introduced the song.

The Hi-Lo's (Gene Puerling, Bob Strasen, Clark Burroughs, Bob Morse)
and Lisa Kirk

"A Quiet Girl" is a hymn-like Bernstein creation here in a uncharacteristically restrained - and very beautiful - reading by the Hi-Lo's. Frank Comstock suggests the composer's debt to Aaron Copland in his arrangement. This song was done first by George Gaynes as Bob Baker, Ruth's eventual love interest.

In Wonderful Town, Eileen betrayed her feelings for Frank in the excellent and unaccountably neglected "A Little Bit in Love." Here we have the talented Sandy Stewart several years before her big hit "My Coloring Book." The song comes from an Epic EP devoted to songs from the score.

Sandy Stewart and Lena Horne

The most popular song from either musical was possibly "It's Love," here in a typically polished version from the great Lena Horne. Edie Adams and George Gaynes introduced it.

One of Bernstein's most felicitous inspirations was the "Wrong Note Rag," near the end of the Wonderful Town score. Pianist Jack Fina, who made his name with Freddy Martin, has some fun with the piece, although he seems almost pained by the wrong notes.

Jack Fina and Arthur Fiedler

Finally, we have a medley of the Wonderful Town songs from the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler. The conductor was more attuned to musical humor than Fina, and he nails the manic quality of the "Wrong Note Rag." Arranger Dave Terry comes back to it a few times in this exceptionally well-done compilation. It comes from the LP Curtain Going Up, available newly remastered on my other blog.

My Sister Eileen

We switch to My Sister Eileen for "There's Nothin' Like Love," here in a effective arrangement by Ralph Flanagan that features baritone saxophonist Stan Webb and the smooth vocalist Johnny Amaroso, who also played trumpet in the band. On film the singers were Bob Fosse (Frank) and Janet Leigh (Eileen).

Art Mooney and Johnny Amaroso

Next, some old-style corn called "Give Me a Band and My Baby," just the thing for Art Mooney and his crew, who specialized in such material. The bandleader's biggest success was "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover" in 1948. His hits in 1955 were "Honey-Babe," a march from the film Battle Cry, and "Nuttin' for Christmas," the lament of a juvenile Barry Gordon.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Finally, Sammy Davis, Jr. does wonders with the Styne-Robin "It's Bigger Than You and Me," a crass tune that the vulpine Bob Baker (Jack Lemmon) croons to Ruth (Betty Garrett). With Davis, arranger Sy Oliver provides a brassy introduction, followed by Sam embarking on some jaunty vocalese that sets the tone for the number.

These selections were cleaned up from my collection and Internet Archive.

About the McKenneys

Ruth and Eileen McKenney

Ruth (1911-72) and Eileen (1913-40) McKenney grew up in East Cleveland, Ohio. Ruth wrote her stories for The New Yorker in the 1930s. They became a book in 1938. She was more multi-dimensional than the film suggests, being socially aware and a member of the Communist Party for quite a few years.

Eileen moved to the West Coast in the 1930s and worked as a Disney artist. She married the writer Nathanael West (Miss Lonelyhearts, The Day of the Locust). She and West were killed in an automobile accident a few days before the play My Sister Eileen opened on Broadway.

Ruth's daughter believed her mother never quite recovered from Eileen's death.

LINK

Lisa Kirk's Sole Columbia Recording

This is a companion post to the selection of 24 single sides by the great singer Lisa Kirk that can be found on my main blog.

Here we have her sole recording for the Columbia, done in 1956, a few years after she left RCA Victor. It contains two songs from a CBS television production starring Kirk. The label at right identifies the program as A Heart to Call My Own, but that is a mistake. It actually was The Human Touch, broadcast on April 15, 1956.

The teleplay, which appears to be lost, was almost literally "ripped from the headlines," as they said back then. Kirk played a New York night club singer, which she was in real life. After her character, Ruth Elliott, becomes the subject of a scurrilous article in a Confidential-style scandal magazine, she threatens a defamation lawsuit. Elliott then is offered a juicy Broadway role contingent on dropping the suit. The drama turns on the choice of following through with the suit or taking the role.

Lisa Kirk in full nightclub mode

Such plots were not uncommon at the time. It has some similarities, for example, to Sweet Smell of Success, a 1950 Ernest Lehman story that would become a film in 1957.

The Human Touch contained at least two songs, coupled on this single. "A Heart to Call My Own" by lyricist William Engvick and composer Alec Wilder, is the better of the pair, even though it contains a fairly conventional waltz melody by Wilder standards. The other song is "A Smile and a Ribbon" by Kirk's husband Bob Wells and Mark McIntyre.

The backings are by Columbia stalwart Percy Faith. I like Faith, but these arrangements can best be described as characteristic. The sound is excellent.