The year was 1963 and the United Kingdom was rocked by a political sex scandal.

John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, had a relationship with Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old model and burlesque showgirl who was also happened to be the mistress of a well-known Russian spy. When Profumo was questioned about Christine on the floor of the House of Commons, he lied. That act not only led to Profumo’s resignation, but also damaged Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s government and caused the defeat of the ruling Conservative Party in the next election.

In 1989, Miramax Films released Scandal, director Michael Caton-Jones’ classy big screen version of the sordid affair, starring Joanne Whalley as Christine Keeler and Ian McKellen as John Profumo. It’s a great story, one told with lots of atmospheric style and plenty of lusty playfulness from a cast that includes Bridget Fonda, John Hurt, Britt Ekland and Roland Gift.

Scandal is a film well worth seeing…and a soundtrack well worth tracking down. Scandal’s theme song, “Nothing Has Been Proved”, was written and produced by 1980s pop icons Pet Shop Boys (”West End Girls”) and sung by 1960’s pop icon Dusty Springfield (”The Look of Love”). Their creative collaboration resulted in a haunting theme that re-plays the entire doomed affair in way that reflects the film’s tone perfectly.

The rest of the Scandal soundtrack is an eclectic mix of British and America pop hits that includes Chubby Checker’s “The Twist”; Jimmy Cliff’s reggae love song “Miss Jamaica”; Nelson Riddle swing standard “You Make Me Feel So Young”; Craig Douglas’ cover of Sam Cooke’s “Only Sixteen”; the George Martin-produced “Goodness Gracious Me”, sung by Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren (!); Nat King Cole’s “Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer”; Eddie Cochran’s “Three Steps to Heaven” and a dozen other equally energetic singles from the era.

But it’s Dusty Springfield’s heartfelt and heartbreaking theme song “Nothing Has Been Proved” (available on iTunes) that earns Scandal its place as this…the Cyclops Central Soundtrack of the Week.

And if you’ve never seen the movie Scandal, here’s the trailer…

Tags: Bridget Fonda, Britt Ekland, Dusty Springfield, George Martin, Ian McKellen, Joanne Whalley, John Hurt, Michael Caton-Jones, Nelson Riddle, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Sellers, Roland Gift, Sophia Loren
Posted in Soundbooth

“As you think, so shall you become.”

Bruce Lee

Let’s talk motion picture music, shall we?

A great movie score is one that fully projects, supports and elevates all of the emotions within its movie. When it works the way it should, it is a rare and special thing.

Now, if that same score can then also have a secondary life, one that’s divorced from the movie’s visuals and dialogue, and exist as its own free-standing emotionally satisfying experience, well, then it’s probably something close to great art.

But for that score to possess a power so compelling that it is then employed to market other films (and television show), well, then that score would have to be composer Randy Edelman’s score for Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

Created for the 1993 biopic about the martial arts movie legend directed by Rob Cohen, Edelman’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story score is as strong-hearted, optimistic and triumphant as Bruce Lee himself.  This is music that tells the story of a man who came from nothing and rose to such heights that he changed the cultural landscape in much the same manner that Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali did before him.

Dragon is a soaring and cascading work. Its bells and cymbals may feel Hong Kong Cinema-inspired, but this is a Great American Story and Edelman employs the cultural influences to support the proud, almost patriotic emotions surging forward on nearly every track. It’s music infused with desire and hope, romance and love, optimism and heroism.

Maybe that’s why producers and editors working on movie trailers and TV promo campaigns have turned time and again to Randy Edelman’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story as a tool sell their sagas. Dragon has been used countless times in the mass marketing of entertainment properties like Forest Gump, The Truman Show, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Iron Chef, American Dreams, The Olympics, the World Figure Skating Championships and others.

Want to hear some it? Below is a cue from the soundtrack called “Dragon’s Heartbeat”. It seems to embody all of the primary themes of the soundtrack. Give it a listen and you’ll understand why Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story just might be a masterpiece.

When it comes to pure, unadulterated post-production fun, not much beats adding effects during sound design and mix sessions. And whether the production is a movie, TV show, commercial or promo, every post facility has, among its thousands of laugh, glass-break and lion growl sounds, its own short list of really distinctive effects. At NBC, two of my favorites are “Celebrity Gunshot”, an enormously loud and clear gun blast lifted from the 1984 mini-series, Celebrity and “Sitting On A Wet Kitty”, which sounds remarkably like its name.

And then there’s The Wilhelm Scream. This legendary sound effect has now appeared in something like 200 different movies, TV shows, games and rides…and counting.

It was first recorded for the 1951 Gary Cooper movie Distant Drums by Sheb Wooley, an actor and musician best remembered for his 1958 hit “The Purple People Eater.” It was used in Drums as the last gasp of a man being eaten by an alligator, but the sound was named after the character of Private Wilhelm, who is shot in the leg with an arrow in the 1953 western, The Charge at Feather River.

The sound effect was then archived as part of the Warner Bros sound effects library. It was used and re-used in many of the studio’s productions throughout the fifties and sixties, including Them!, Land of the Pharaohs, The Sea Chase, Sergeant Rutledge, PT-109, Swiss Family Robinson and The Green Berets.

The Wilhelm Effect was used so much that, in the 1970s, it came to the attention of University of Southern California cinema student and effects fan Ben Burtt.  When Burtt was later hired to do sound effects for Star Wars, he found the Distant Drums scream and adopted it, including it in all the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, as well as More American Graffiti and Willow.

Since then, The Wilhelm Scream has appeared in films as diverse as Poltergeist, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Batman Returns, Toy Story, The Fifth Element, Hercules, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tim Burton’s version of Planet of the Apes, Madagascar, Superman Returns, Sin City and Kill Bill.

Although it has never been available in any commercial sound effects library, The Wilhelm Scream has made the rounds throughout the sound community, passed along by editors and mixers who appreciate its history. Some directors have also become fans of The Wilhelm Scream and ask for it by name, like Peter Jackson, who used it in both The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Return of the King.

Wilhelm has also had a presence known on television shows like The X-Files, Angel and Family Guy and theme park rides like The Star Trek Adventure at Universal Studios, and The Batman Adventure at Warner Bros. Movie World. Gamers have encountered The Wilhelm Scream many times in a large number of Star Wars games.

So what does The Wilhelm Scream sound like? Thought you’d never ask. There are lots of samples to be found here in cyberspace, but one of my favorites is The Wilhelm Scream Compilation, two minutes and fifty-eight seconds of Sheb Wooley’s second greatest hit…

I’ve seen some strange things in my time in Hollywood, but few stranger than the sight of rocker Billy Idol using an Automated Teller Machine.

It was on Sunset Boulevard, sometime in the early 1990s. I had just finished up at the Bank of America ATM and had gotten back into my vehicle, when a tiny, convertible sports car (something on the order of a MG Midget) zipped into the parking spot just ahead of mine.

I looked at the driver as he leaped out of the car without opening the door. He was mid-thirties with spiky, bleached hair, wearing a worn leather jacket, impossibly tight pants and Fluevog jackboots. I thought to myself, “Man, that guy looks like Billy Idol” and, sure enough, it was.

Billy, bankcard in hand, stiff-legged it over to the ATM. He stared at the machine for many, many seconds, before awkwardly inserting his card. When the card was sucked into its slot, Billy leaped back, as if confronted by black magic. Recovering, he tentatively poked some numbers into the keypad. Billy cocked his head, eyeing the machine warily. Suddenly, the ATM spat out Billy’s money, causing him to leap back once again in stunned stupefication. Billy grabbed the money and turned his head sideways once more. Out came his card and receipt. Billy grabbed them and then glowered at the machine, as if daring it to pull some hijinks.

All during this spectacle, I had one eye on Billy and the other in my glove box, as I rummaged around for my tape of the 1990 movie soundtrack, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. By the time Billy had broken free of the ATM’s spell, I’d slipped the tape into my car stereo and begun blasting the first track, “Cradle of Love” by one Billy Idol.

On his way back to his tiny car, Billy suddenly became aware of his song booming out across Sunset Boulevard. Billy stopped and looked around, searching for the source of his own voice. When he finally trained his gaze on me and my car, I cranked up the sound.

Billy Idol raised his eyebrows, curled his lip, pumped his fist (still holding his ATM card) into the air and jumped into his MG, driving off in the direction of the nearest strip club.

That encounter is just one of the reasons I’ve chosen The Adventures of Ford Fairlane as the very first Cyclops Central Soundtrack of the Week. The other reasons would include Sheila E (”Funky Attitude”), Queensryche (”Last Time in Paris”), Tone Loc (”Can’t Get Enough”), Mötley Crüe, Richie Sambora and others, including Ford Fairlane star Andrew Dice Clay on “I Ain’t Got You” and the megamix mashup “Unbelievable”, produced by Yello.

As a movie, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane is something of a misfire but, as a soundtrack, it fires on all cylinders. Snag it from Amazon and have it at the ready. You never know when Billy Idol might run out of cash again…