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Leonard Maltin

From Renoir To Ellington: Scanning Recent DVDs

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • March 12, 2012 1:07 AM
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  • 1 Comment
Reviews
I haven’t been able to keep up with Twilight Time’s limited-edition DVD and Blu-ray releases since the company launched last year, so it’s ironic that the first disc I’ve spent real time with—Jean Renoir’s 'Swamp Water' (1941)—benefits least from the label’s innovative offering of isolated music tracks. That feature is much more valuable in other Twilight Time releases with scores by Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, Hugo Friedhofer, et al., as well as 'Picnic', which I’ll discuss in a moment.
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More: Film Music on CD, DVD Reviews, Twilight Time, Criterion, Warner Bros.

Movie News And Notes

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • February 22, 2012 1:00 AM
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  • 2 Comments
Features
Here I am struggling to get an issue of my newsletter finished, after an embarrassing amount of time, and a brand-new fanzine arrives on my desk. Pop Twenty is an exceedingly handsome publication, bound like an oversized paperback and filled with rare and beautiful stills. It’s the brainchild of Bob Birchard and Mike Bifulco, who have pooled their resources to create a home for interviews, articles, and photo features focusing on all aspects of 20th Century pop culture, with an emphasis on the golden age of Hollywood. Bob’s lead article details the making of 'Gold Diggers of 1933', including the revelation that Busby Berkeley
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More: Journal, Film Music on CD, Boardwalk Empire Music

Animated Jazz—And More

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • December 29, 2011 2:21 AM
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  • 0 Comments
Reviews
Gordon Goodwin is a talented musician, composer, arranger—and animation buff. Years ago he got to score a pencil-test scene called “The Bedroom Argument” that was cut from 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' and unearthed for a laserdisc release of the film; you can see (and hear) it now on YouTube. He’d almost forgotten about this long-ago assignment when it turned up online, and says, “I remember how awestruck I was to be working with that iconic material!
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More: Journal, Gordin Goodwin, Film Music on CD, Animation, Walt Disney Animation

music review: Boardwalk Empire - Volume 1 (Elektra)

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • November 15, 2011 1:48 AM
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  • 3 Comments
Reviews
Nothing evokes a period more vividly, or instantaneously, than music, and the producers of the HBO Prohibition drama 'Boardwalk Empire' have made canny use of vintage songs, both on-camera and off-, since their series began. Now some of the best selections have been gathered in a delightful CD (also available for download on iTunes) that features my favorite band, Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, and a number of supremely talented singers who manage to vocally capture a bygone musical era.
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More: Film Music on CD, Boardwalk Empire Music

My Kind Of Jazz

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • September 13, 2011 4:30 AM
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  • 0 Comments

I don’t often review music when it doesn’t directly relate to movies, but a few years ago I did write about jazz pianist Larry Vuckovich’s film noir-inspired CDs, which I highly recommend. Larry recently sent me his latest CD, Somethin’ Special (Tetrachord Music) and while it isn’t based on a movie theme, it contains such tasty mainstream jazz I want to spread the word about it. Larry’s East Coast-based rhythm section is joined by―

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More: Journal, Film Music on CD

5,000 Fingers…And More

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • January 26, 2011 5:30 AM
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  • 1 Comment

There are so many dvds, film books, soundtrack CDs, and interesting blog posts—and so little time to digest them all. Over the past week or so I’ve tried to catch up and want to share some of my thoughts and discoveries. First, I’ve been in the thrall of Frederick Hollander’s marvelous music and Dr. Seuss’ clever lyrics for The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., a brilliant soundtrack reconstructed by FSM Golden Age Classics on a bountiful three-CD set.

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More: Journal, DVD Reviews, Book Reviews, Film Music on CD

Music Worth Hearing—And Seeing

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • September 21, 2010 4:00 AM
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  • 1 Comment

I love music almost as much as I love movies. That’s why I start every morning with a visit to Tin Pan Alley at www.youtube.com/user/petermintunmusic, where the gifted pianist, singer and musicologist Peter Mintun offers “A Different Tune Each Day.” I’ve also had some wonderful experiences in recent months watching DVDs that celebrate a wide variety of music I happen to like. These documentaries and performance videos don’t have marketing muscle behind them, so they depend on loyal followers and word-of-mouth. That’s why I’m happy to recommend them here, in the hope that I can expand that audience just a bit.

Sons of the Pioneers 75th Anniversary Show, Volume 1 is a live 2009 performance by the current incarnation of the classic country music group formed in the 1930s by Bob Nolan, Tim Spencer, and a young fellow who would become world-famous as Roy Rogers. The group has undergone many changes over the decades but the present-day group keeps the—

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More: DVD Reviews, Film Music on CD

music review: The Bing Crosby CBS Radio Recordings 1954-56

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • January 22, 2010 7:19 AM
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  • 2 Comments
Reviews
Few stars in the history of show business can match Bing Crosby for longevity and popularity in every medium of entertainment; he was at once a top-ranked star of movies, radio, and recordings. (How many Oscar winners for Best Actor can you name who also made best-selling records, year after year?) That doesn’t include his other professional pursuits, from golf and horse-racing to the development of audiotape. Many facets of Bing’s life and career underwent serious change in the 1950s, from the death of his wife Dixie to the near-death of network radio, which he had dominated for twenty years. In 1954 he earned an Oscar nomination for his dramatic film, The Country Girl, and then made a momentous decision, to...
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More: Film Music on CD, Bing Crosby, CBS Radio, Mosaic Records

Alfred Hitchcock Presents Ghost Stories For Young People/Famous Monsters Speak

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • December 13, 2009 4:11 AM
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  • 1 Comment

No director in the history of cinema has marketed himself quite like Alfred Hitchcock. He began appearing in specially-filmed trailers for his films in the late 1940s, and by the time he began hosting a popular weekly television show in the 1950s—which lasted ten years—he became a bona fide...

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More: Film Music on CD, Alfred Hitchcock

Little Golden Records...The Best of

  • By Leonard Maltin
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  • December 13, 2009 4:03 AM
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  • 0 Comments

The Microwerks series also revives happy memories for baby boomers with The Best of Little Golden Records, Volumes 1 and 2. How could I possibly explain to a child of today the kick of being able to handle your own unbreakable yellow vinyl record and play it on a portable phonograph back then. How quaint! Each CD offers fourteen tracks, some of which I actually...

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More: Film Music on CD

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