Post by erik on Nov 5, 2022 23:32:35 GMT -5
The film scoring genius of Henry Mancini is featured this week, with what is arguably his most familiar movie theme music, for one of the great and uproarious comedy films of the early 1960's.
THEME FROM “THE PINK PANTHER” (Henry Mancini and his Orchestra; RCA; 1963)—Born in Cleveland and raised in Pittsburgh, Henry Mancini became easily one of the great composers of music for both television (notably his famous theme for Peter Gunn) and movies. In the latter respect, although he had a hand in orchestrations for movies as far back as 1954’s Creature From The Black Lagoon, Mancini first gained true attention of his own when he devised an unusual Latin jazz-rock score for legendary director Orson Welles’ unconventional 1958 crime movie Touch Of Evil, which is set on the U.S./Mexico border. Mancini’s best-known collaborator was the soon-to-be legendary film director Blake Edwards, who put Mancini’s genius to good use on Peter Gunn, and then to movies like Breakfast At Tiffany’s, The Days Of Wine And Roses, and the Hitchcock-influenced Experiment In Terror. And then in 1963, the Mancini/Edwards partnership reached critical and commercial mass with Mancini’s score for Edwards’ film The Pink Panther, which starred the legendary Peter Sellers as the notoriously bumbling French police inspector Jacques Clouseau on the hunt for a criminal known as The Phantom, who is planning to steal a priceless diamond known as The Pink Panther. Mancini’s scoring genius was to reach full bloom with the famous theme he composed for the film, with its saxophone riffs provided by the soon-to-be-lengedary sax player Plas Johnson. The film was a huge critical and commercial success when it was released in the spring of 1964, continuing a great year for Sellers, who, in that same time frame, essayed three different roles in one film (director Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 political black comedy Doctor Strangelove). And although “The Pink Panther” was only a modest chart success, peaking at #31 on the Hot 100 in May 1964, that modest success could only be ascribed to the fact that the Beatles were dominating the charts at the time. In addition to his work with Edwards, Mancini also scored his biggest hit overall in the early summer of 1969 with the “Love Theme From Romeo And Juliet” (#1 for two weeks); and his film scoring work included, among other things, 1964’s Charade, 1976’s Silver Streak, and 1985’s Lifeforce, prior to his passing in June 1994 at the age of 70.
THEME FROM “THE PINK PANTHER” (Henry Mancini and his Orchestra; RCA; 1963)—Born in Cleveland and raised in Pittsburgh, Henry Mancini became easily one of the great composers of music for both television (notably his famous theme for Peter Gunn) and movies. In the latter respect, although he had a hand in orchestrations for movies as far back as 1954’s Creature From The Black Lagoon, Mancini first gained true attention of his own when he devised an unusual Latin jazz-rock score for legendary director Orson Welles’ unconventional 1958 crime movie Touch Of Evil, which is set on the U.S./Mexico border. Mancini’s best-known collaborator was the soon-to-be legendary film director Blake Edwards, who put Mancini’s genius to good use on Peter Gunn, and then to movies like Breakfast At Tiffany’s, The Days Of Wine And Roses, and the Hitchcock-influenced Experiment In Terror. And then in 1963, the Mancini/Edwards partnership reached critical and commercial mass with Mancini’s score for Edwards’ film The Pink Panther, which starred the legendary Peter Sellers as the notoriously bumbling French police inspector Jacques Clouseau on the hunt for a criminal known as The Phantom, who is planning to steal a priceless diamond known as The Pink Panther. Mancini’s scoring genius was to reach full bloom with the famous theme he composed for the film, with its saxophone riffs provided by the soon-to-be-lengedary sax player Plas Johnson. The film was a huge critical and commercial success when it was released in the spring of 1964, continuing a great year for Sellers, who, in that same time frame, essayed three different roles in one film (director Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 political black comedy Doctor Strangelove). And although “The Pink Panther” was only a modest chart success, peaking at #31 on the Hot 100 in May 1964, that modest success could only be ascribed to the fact that the Beatles were dominating the charts at the time. In addition to his work with Edwards, Mancini also scored his biggest hit overall in the early summer of 1969 with the “Love Theme From Romeo And Juliet” (#1 for two weeks); and his film scoring work included, among other things, 1964’s Charade, 1976’s Silver Streak, and 1985’s Lifeforce, prior to his passing in June 1994 at the age of 70.