This morning’s Avengers. The one with Mrs. Karswell. Day of the Triffids. No, I mean The Seeds of Doom. Sorry, no, I mean Man Eater of Surrey Green!! But it might have been the seeds of the Seeds of Doom. Day of the Triffids surely was.
This morning’s Avengers. The one with Alf Garnett, General Veers / Kristatos / Scaroth, and Kusang / Padnasambhava**. Two’s a Crowd.
**Hint: Hammer’s Abominable Snowman, then Doctor Who and The Abominable Snowmen.
Have you read Shirley Jackson’s landmark short story, The Lottery, which caused a sensation when first published in The New Yorker?
You haven’t?
Do you like folk horror like The Wicker Man?
You do?
Then you must read this. It’s a folk horror classic.
This morning’s Avengers. The one with Jean Coutney, Mullins, and Ben Parkinson. A Surfeit of H2O. Oh, and if I were Mrs Peel, I think I would ask for more money. (It’s never Steed in the crushing machine, is it?)
This morning’s Avengers. The one with Caleb / Bruno / McAdams, Klove / Borusa, Count Grendel, Max Kalba, Annette Dubois / “Bond’s Masseuse”, and Scarlatti. Room Without a View.
For fans of Hammer and Hammer related nostalgia, it looks like Titan books will be reissuing these two collectibles.
Seeing GOLDFINGER on its trumpeted ITV premiere in 1976 was a stunning imprint experience for me. I knew immediately that the vibrant, distinctive, golden music was much of what excited me. The seeds of a soundtracker were sown. To this day, the classic era 007 soundtracks remain top favourites.
This morning's Avengers. The one with Professor Radcliffe, Mon Mothma, Alf Roberts, General Orlov, Sherlock's mum, a Doctor Jeckyll, and some good old lady tied to the train tracks peril. The Gravediggers.
And if these aren't six of the greatest film scores of all time, then I don’t know what is. Bernard Herrmann. Genius of suspense, playful black humour, rhythmic excitement, shocking climaxes, psychological unease, and romantic obsession.
Along with Walkabout, The Last Valley, The Day of the Locust, King Kong, and The Deep, this is one of John Barry’s best and most interesting scores from the 1970s. We desperately need a complete edition. Come on, my favourite labels. We know it’s out there.
Today’s Avengers. Karate and Cybernauts. You can’t beat it!
Today’s early morning Avengers: Too Many Christmas Trees. Steed gets a Christmas card from Cathy Gale. “I wonder what she's doing at Fort Knox?” Brilliant! it’s fun playing guest star bingo with actors you recognise from Doctor Who and Hammer films.
Bernard Herrman has been my favourite American composer since I was 16 and discovered his albums of Hitchcock and Fantasy Film Music. This is another fantastic score. The original recordings are available and sound good, but
It's one I'd also love to hear in a new, sonically supreme recording.
Having finished my early morning (5:45am), one episode per day rerun of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. season one, I am now on The Avengers season four. This morning; Death at Bargain Prices. The one where a department store is a huge bomb and Mrs. Peel organises a display with 1965 dalek toys!
I'm finally round to properly reading this rather than just flicking through in anticipation and dipping in and out. I'm loving it and it's deepening my already immense appreciation for my favourite American composer.
#bernardherrmann
On the glorious metaphors and amiguities in Shirley Jackson’s dark, psychological writing.
open.substack.com/pub/stephenw...
One thing I love about Shirley Jackson's writing is how innocent figures of speech become literal signifiers. Like the old lady in the short story The Bus, who says, “Hell you say.” When told she is home, “Hell you say.” I guess all her books about women going to some kind of hell.
The one where Zefram Cochrane gets punched out by Jaws.
(Today's U.N.C.L.E.)
You may know I’ve been revisiting The Man from U.N.C.L.E. season one, watching one episode per day every morning at 5:30. This morning’s was The Brain-Killer Affair with Elsa Lanchester as the villain. A particularly memorable one. She was always fantastic, wasn’t she.
NORTH BY NORTHWEST is one of Bernard Herrmann’s greatest scores, for one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films. I see Dragon’s Domain Records is issuing a new edition of the Laurie Johnson version, from 1979, out with both the digital and analogue recordings back to back. (It was dual-recorded.)
Amazingly, all of these great Ennio Morricone soundtracks have been issued by Quartet Records in the last year. It is a stellar selection of some of his greatest works. I adore every single title here. All brilliant. It’s a powerhouse selection. Go buy!
#EnnioMorricone @quartetrecords.bsky.social
There’s a personal story behind this one.
You know I love the original Star Trek, but I didn’t discover it through the live action series. It was the animated series. Saturday mornings, 1975.
You also know my mum died recently. This music takes me back to a time when I was inseparable from her.
Ennio was one of the most consistently brilliant, inventive, gorgeous, intimate, expansive, romantic, scary, nostalgic, traditional, modern, melodic, atonal, hooking, jarring, popular, classical, experimental, soothing, abrasive, quirky, and sometimes downright batshit crazy voices in film music.
Thunderbirds in concert. One of the great features in the new Thunderbirds box set. Barry Gray. Composer of stunning music.
Some spinny discs arrived.
Another amazing and legendary composer of film music, Jerry Goldsmith. One of my favourite composers, born on this day in 1929. Here are some of my favourite works of his.
Me too.
One of the greatest creations in all film and TV music is Bernard Herrmann's romantic, nostalgic, melancholic score for The Twilight Zone episode Walking Distance. I have four different recordings! Herrmann's own, McNeely, McGehee, Stromberg. Custom digital library covers shown for two. Wonderful.
John Williams is a legend of film scoring. He’s also 94 today. Here are some of my favourites from his incredible legacy.
Never resign too soon. Black resigned after I wiped out both his rooks with a knight sacrifice. The thing is, if he’d looked to the bottom right, he’d have seen he could have forced a draw by repetition rather than resign, but his focus was locked on the top left.
(I started playing again.)
#chess
