https://moviechat.org/tt0054215/Psycho/665a9a8465cc926e77d70b99/OT-Henry-Mancinis-score-for-Frenzy-is-available-here
Above:
A thread with links to some VERY interesting historical un-used music from Frenzy, as scored by Henry Mancini (who was fired from the film by Hitchcock...and replaced with musical composer Ron Goodwin, instead.)
OP thread by horrorlover656.
Oh wow! I've never found the whole unused score before, just the opening. Am currently listening right now and really enjoying it. Very similar to EXPERIMENT IN TERROR and WAIT UNTIL DARK, but rather more subdued, though in a good way. I think it suits the film for the most part. (If you want a super out there Mancini thriller score, check out the one he did for THE NIGHT VISITOR.)
Such a shame Hitchcock dismissed the Mancini FRENZY score. Goodwin's score has a great opening (I admit I like the bombastic, cheery orchestra precluding the discovery of the dead body over Mancini's organ flourishes, which are a bit too gothic for dreary modern London) but the rest is rather flat and unmemorable.
Oh wow! I've never found the whole unused score before, just the opening. Am currently listening right now and really enjoying it. Very similar to EXPERIMENT IN TERROR and WAIT UNTIL DARK,
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Yes, I thought so...and that would have been GREAT for a Hitchcock movie: TWO masters with their distinctive styles.
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but rather more subdued, though in a good way.
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Well, perhaps both to match the British nature of the story and setting and the humorous interludes.
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I think it suits the film for the most part. (
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I agree. With one exception(see below)
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If you want a super out there Mancini thriller score, check out the one he did for THE NIGHT VISITOR.)
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I will. I've heard of the movie, but not seen it...nor heard the score. Which I suppose I can hear on Youtube...
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Such a shame Hitchcock dismissed the Mancini FRENZY score.
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Yes. Here was his ONE movie, after The Birds(and, said some, since even Psycho) that was really good ("One of his very best," wrote the Newsweek critic) and it SHOULD HAVE HAD A GREAT SCORE , too. Instead...a largely pedestrian one.
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Goodwin's score has a great opening (I admit I like the bombastic, cheery orchestra precluding the discovery of the dead body over Mancini's organ flourishes, which are a bit too gothic for dreary modern London) but the rest is rather flat and unmemorable.
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"Industrial strength," blaring, too melodramatic but in a bad way. Honestly, how many Ron Goodwin scores do cineastes remember? I remember "Where Eagles Dare" but IT is industrial strength, too.
I DID like the orchestral flourish(without ANY terror) for Goodwin's opening (as dictated by Hitchocck) but when I finally heard the Mancini version years later -- no contest. Mancini got the flourish, the British-ness -- AND the suspense terror(and , says I again, a little "theme for psycho Bob Rusk" in it, too)
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The organ flourishes were too much in the middle("The Phantom of the Opera lives!", but just right as they slowed down and lowered with the unseen camera in my mind(obviously for the end of the helicopter shot as it landed on the Thames speaker and crowd.) Had I been Hitchcock I would have said "can you re-do that opening and take out most of the organ music and put something else in, except for the final notes on the Thames speech?" I wouldn't have FIRED the great Mancini.
I will again note that Goodwin came up with a nicely crazed and beautiful waltz(modelled on the same notes as his "industrial strength theme") for the start of the potato truck sequence, over Rusk's sinister moves. But I'm sure Mancini would have covered this part just as well.
Back up to Maurice Jarre's score for Topaz. I've seen a note from Hitchcock to Jarre that read: "I have not given you a great movie, but you have given me a great score." Such self-awareness on Hitchcock's part. He KNEW Topaz didn't really work. But he must have known that Frenzy DID work...why pull Mancini off of it?
Note in passing: on his next (and last) film, Family Plot, Hitchcock also fired someone: actor Roy Thinnes, after Thinnes had shot about a week of film as the villain Arthur Adamson. Sad to say that the replacement -- William Devane -- WAS better (Thinnes had recently done Universal's "Airport 1975" as a flight officer sucked out of the cockpit window), but that was a rather public firing, of an actor, and must have hurt Thinnes. (Devane and Thinnes later acted together in the TV version of From Here to Eternity...Devane in the Burt Lancaster role and Thinnes in the Philip Ober role as Devane's martinet boss. That must have been uncomfortable..)
Hitchcock seems to have wanted to assert himself in his old age by firing people. Guys like Billy Wilder fired TECHNICIANS to scare everybody, all the time. But your COMPOSER? Your ACTOR?
Hey! Thanks for the shoutout!
shareHey, back! Thank you for originally finding this link to the Mancini Frenzy score(which, overall, I prefer to the Ron Goodwin score that Hitchocck ultimately used.) You did us all a great service, here.
On "Mancini vs. Goodwin":
I would say this:
In movie musical scoring history, who left a greater imprint on the culture of his time?
Ron Goodwin or
Henry Mancini?
I think the answer speaks for itself and I think Hitchcock made a serious -- though not fatal -- mistake in dumping Mancini for Goodwin. I like Goodwin's overture enough; its just that I like Mancini's better. And: Goodwin's "lilting lunatic waltz" over shots of Rusk doing all his initial tasks to get the body in the potato sack in the potato truck -- is pretty good.
But the Mancini score would have been more memorable.
PS. I'm afraid I cannot answer PMs. There are reasons. I am sorry.
It's okay if you cannot answer PMs.
Is there any other way I can reach you?
Here, is the best. Moviechat.
I do enjoy your posts, however.
Cheers!
I mean personally. I don't mean to be intrusive.
shareIts not intrusive. Its just hard to reach me through here. Its hard for me to participate here, actually.
Let's toss some comments back and forth here from time to time.
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