BURT BACHARACH: A MAN AND HIS MOVIES

A TRIBUTE TO THE CINEMA MUSIC LEGACY OF COMPOSER BURT BACHARACH  

Burt Bacharach

May 12, 1928 - February 8, 2023

I don't think it's entirely my fault that, even to this day, a part of me still thinks Cole Porter looks like Cary Grant, Frédéric Chopin is a ringer for Cornel Wilde, and Franz Liszt strongly resembles Dirk Bogarde. The Hollywood biopic tradition of assigning an outrageously glamorous face to the largely faceless profession of composer is a sound one. It aligns the artist with the art. And in a world of image, mythmaking, and marketing, it's a distinct branding advantage when an artist "looks" like the art they create (e.g., Hemingway, Warhol, Halston). So who can blame the movies for their insistence that the composers of romantic music also possess romantic looks?   

Which brings me to composer, arranger, songwriter, producer, pianist, and all-around legend, Burt Bacharach. 

As lyricist Sammy Cahn once famously remarked, Bacharach's atypically high professional visibility was owed to his being "the first composer who didn't look like a dentist" (the most visible pop composer I can remember as a kid was Henry Mancini, so, point made). Bacharach, who started his career in the '50s looking like a thick-necked college jock who'd accidentally stumbled into the music department on his way to the athletic field, looked nothing like his peers. But then his music didn't sound anything like theirs, either. 

Whether lushly romantic or go-go groovy, Bacharach's fiercely inventive musical style was all about where the world was headed, not where it had been. Bacharach's appearance, natural charisma, and virtuoso talent as a pianist (his thin, uniquely inflective voice sealed the deal) led him to an unexpected performing career. By the '70s—via concerts, albums, TV specials, and a seemingly unbroken chain of hits sung by Dionne Warwick—Burt had become a global household name and distinguished himself as the marketable face of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David songwriting team. 

Wed to glamorous movie star Angie Dickinson in 1965 (the illusion of their marriage immortalized in those iconic Martini & Rossi ads), Burt, as the tan, blow-dried, turtlenecked embodiment of California hip, came to look exactly like his music sounded: laid-back, sophisticated, sexy, and smooth.

Ken's Top 10
Casino Royale
Are You There With Another Girl?
Close To You
Walk On By
Anyone Who Had a Heart
Promises, Promises
Alfie
Reflections
Something Big
Message To Michael

Though I'd grown up hearing Burt Bacharach's songs on the radio for years without knowing it, my first real awareness of him was when I was ten years old and fell in love with his score for the chaotic James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967). In all these years, it has never been surpassed as my favorite movie soundtrack album of all time. 

I've been a devoted (some might say obsessive) Burt Bacharach fan ever since. Given the many years and blissful hours I've spent surrounded by his fabulous library of songs--dancing to them, dreaming to them, crying to them;  it's not an overstatement to say the music of Bacharach/David has been the soundtrack of my youth.

Billboard Magazine -April 19, 1967

So, in keeping with the soundtrack emphasis…

Since there's already so much out there about Bacharach's radio and album hits, my cinephile tribute to the late-great Burt Bacharach--3-time Oscar-winner, six-time Grammy-winner, 1972 inductee to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2008 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and #32 in Rolling Stone's 2015 Top 100 Greatest Composers of All Time list—is to comprehensively highlight all the music and songs he wrote specifically for the movie screen.

COMPLETE FILM SCORES  - 12

What's New, Pussycat? -  1965 - Bacharach/David

Bacharach's first film score (thanks to Angie Dickinson) brought him his first Best Song Oscar nomination. Tom Jones sings "What's New, Pussycat"  to a fare-thee-well over the opening credits, but the song lost to "The Shadow of Your Smile" from The Sandpiper. I love the loony, loopy tone of this album, which bursts with musical variety. My favorite cuts are the title song, the propulsive "My Little Red Book," and the perfectly lovely romantic ballad"Here I Am." 

After The Fox - 1966 - Bacharach/David

The fox followed the pussycat with Bacharach's 2nd film score. I've always loved the deliciously silly call-response title song that has UK rock band The Hollies (when Graham Nash was still a member) interrogating Peter Sellers (in character as bumbling criminal mastermind, The Fox).

Casino Royale - 1967 - Bacharach/David

The sultry "The Look of Love" was nominated for Best Song but lost to "Talk to the Animals" from Doctor Dolittle. (WTF?) The score was Grammy nominated for Best Score, Best Instrumental Arrangement, and Best Instrumental Theme. I love EVERYTHING about this very '60s-sounding album, but my top faves are Herb Alpert's flawless rendition of the title tune,  and "Home James, Don't Spare the Horses."

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid  -  1969 - Bacharach/David

Burt and Hal David won their first Best Song Oscar for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head," sung by B. J. Thomas over that iconic bicycle riding scene. Burt alone won a second Oscar that night for Best Original Score. Burt's score also won the Grammy that year, and "Raindrops" was nominated (but lost) in the Best Contemporary Song & Song of the Year categories. I don't much care for this movie, but the score is a knockout, and B. J. Thomas' distinctive vocals really make "Raindrops" an unforgettable classic for me. 

Lost Horizon - 1973 - Bacharach/David

The movie responsible for busting up (temporarily, anyway) longtime collaborators Burt Bacharach and Hal David. You can read my thoughts on this famous flop favorite of mine here: Lost Horizon.

Together? (Amo Non Amo) - 1979 - Bacharach/Anka

When this Italian film was known as  Amo non Amo, it had a score by the progressive rock band Goblin. When it hit these shores with the new title Together? it acquired a new score from Bacharach and Paul Anka. Bacharach's first non-Hal David score is full of pretty melodies assigned banal, sound-alike lyrics sung by Jackie DeShannon, Libby Titus, and the ever-muffled Michael McDonald. The soundtrack album was a staple in remainder bins for years, but I don't remember the film's release at all, only seeing it for the first time while researching this tribute. Directed by a woman (Armenia Balducci), this intimate relationship drama gave Jacqueline Bisset one of her better roles. 

Arthur - 1981 - Bacharach/Sager/Cross/Allen

Bacharach won his third Academy Award for "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)," a song written by four people, and sung by Christopher Cross over the closing credits. If this Best Song Oscar-winner and Song of the Year Grammy nominee appears elsewhere in the film, I'll never know, because when it comes to watching Arthur, one is my limit.  And perhaps it proves I'm not a full-tilt Bacharach maniac when I say this song has never done a thing for me. Its popularity baffled me even in 1981. Bacharach composed the film's instrumental score (by himself, I should add), which features a few songs co-written with Carol Bayer Sager...Bacharach wife number three (of four). 

Night Shift - 1982 - Bacharach/Sager/Ross

I'm not trying to be perverse or contrary when I say that I like everything about Bacharach's score to this negligible comedy except the song that went on to great fame as a 1985 Song of the Year Grammy nominee and the anthem of AmFAR (American Federation of AIDS research). I speak of "That's What Friends Are For," which was first heard croaked by Rod Stewart over this film's end credits. 

Arthur 2: On the Rocks - 1988 - Bacharach/Sager/De Burgh

Love Hurts  -  1990 - Bacharach

I never heard of this movie before (it was released overseas but went the straight-to-video route in the U.S.). Bacharach contributed no songs to the score, but I understand his instrumental tracks are sprinkled sparsely throughout the film.   

Isn't She Great - 2000 - Bacharach/David

A Boy Called Po - 2017 - Bacharach

His first complete film score in 17 years, Bacharach dedicated this movie about autism to his daughter Nikki, who struggled all her life with issues related to her undiagnosed autism and committed suicide in 2007 at age 41. An obvious labor of love, Bacharach donated his talents to the project, played the piano himself on the score, and even secured the licensing rights to "Close To You" for director Joseph Bauer for just $400. Bacharach also composed a song with Billy Mann, "Dancing With Your Shadow," that can be heard sung by Sheryl Crow over the closing credits.

TITLE AND THEME SONGS - 37

DON'T KNOCK THE ROCK (1956) - "I Cry More" - Alan Dale
                 LIZZIE (1957) - "Warm and Tender" - Johnny Mathis

THE SAD SACK (1957) - "Sad Sack" - Jerry Lewis     
COUNTRY MUSIC HOLIDAY (1958) - "Country Music Holiday" - Bernie Nee 

THE BLOB (1958)  - "The Blob" - The Five Blobs (Bernie Knee)
JUKE BOX RHYTHM (1959) - "Make Room for the Joy" - Jack Jones

For years I watched the Steve McQueen, Helen Krump (Aneta Corsaut) sci-fi horror flick The Blob without knowing its comically ill-matched, uptempo mambo theme song was composed by Bacharach/David. An entertainingly amusing tune that perhaps takes itself no more seriously than the film it introduces.  

LOVE IN A GOLDFISH BOWL (1961) - "Love in a Goldfish Bowl" - Tommy Sands     
RING-A-DING RHYTHM (1962) - "Another Tear Falls" - Gene Daniels

FOREVER MY LOVE (1962) - "Forever My Love" - Jane Morgan
WONDERFUL TO BE YOUNG (1962) - "It's Wonderful to Be Young" - Cliff Richard

A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME (1964) - "A House is Not a Home" - Brooke Benton
SEND ME NO FLOWERS (1964) - "Send Me No Flowers" - Doris Day

Bacharach's gift for haunting melodies and talent for having his songs take delightfully unexpected turns is exemplified by these two title songs, which are huge favorites of mine. If the jaunty Doris Day tune is an ideal fit for a feather-light romantic comedy, the plaintively beautiful song Burt composed for a movie about a whorehouse is an overly-charitable grace note with a capital "G."

ALFIE (1966) - "Alfie" - Cilla Black / Cher 

Bacharach didn't write the film's score, but the Bacharach/David composition "Alfie" (sung by Cilla Black in the UK version/Cher in US releases) was nominated for Best Song... losing to the lamentable "Born Free." Bacharach always cites this as his favorite of all his songs. It's undoubtedly one of mine.

MADE IN PARIS (1966) - "Made in Paris" - Trini Lopez  
PROMISE HER ANYTHING (1966) - "Promise Her Anything" - Tom Jones

A welcome change from all those romantic ballads are these two frug-friendly title songs that fairly burst with '60s à go-go élan. It's delectable, dance-tempo ear candy from Mr. Groovy himself.  

THE APRIL FOOLS (1969) - "April Fools" - Dionne Warwick           
LONG AGO, TOMORROW (1971) - "Long Ago, Tomorrow" - B.J. Thomas

I've always loved the lilting quality of the beautiful song, "April Fools" (which plays during a montage sequence and again under the closing credits). It's one of Bacharach/David's most lushly romantic compositions. Though the score for The April Fools was composed by Marvin Hamlish, another Bacharach song- "I Say a Little Prayer for You," pops up during a party scene. 

SOMETHING BIG (1971) - "something big" - Mark Lindsay          
MIDDLE AGE CRAZY (1980) - "Where Did The Time Go" - The Pointer Sisters

Because I have no memory of ever hearing the song "something big" on the radio in 1971 (although I do recall The Goldddigers [of all people] performing it on The Dean Martin Show) I don't think it was much of a hit. But it remains one of my favorite underappreciated Bacharach compositions. It's so quintessentially Bacharach--quirky, jazzy, laid-back, and catchy as hell. 

MAKING LOVE (1982) - "Making Love" - Roberta Flack         
ROMANTIC COMEDY (1983) - "Maybe" - Roberta Flack & Peabo Bryson

TOUGH GUYS (1986) - "They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To" - Kenny Rogers    
BABY BOOM (1987) - "Ever Changing Times" - Siedah Garrett

GRACE OF MY HEART (1996) - "God Give Me Strength" -  Kristen Vigard       
STUART LITTLE (1999) - "Walking Tall" - Lyle Lovett

Bacharach's collaborations with Elvis Costello produced some of his best music in years. The impassioned "God Give Me Strength" deserved a little Oscar notice. Bacharach teamed with longtime Andrew Llyod Webber lyricist Tim  Rice (Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita) for one of my favorite late-career Bacharach melodies, a jazz-lilt theme about a little white mouse. 

ACADEMY AWARD TALLY     6 nominations /  3 Wins

What's New Pussycat (1965)     Best Song nominee 

            Alfie (1966 )                     Best Song nominee   

Casino Royale  (1967)                 Best Song nominee   

               Butch Cassidy  (1969)      WON Best Song & Best Original Score 

       Arthur (1981)                 WON    Best Song         

EXPLOITATION SONGS - 12

A song written to publicize a movie on the radio but is not in the film   

The Desperate Hours - 1955  -  Bacharach/ Wilson Stone

Song: The Desperate Hours   Sung by:  Eileen Rodgers

Hot Spell - 1958  -  Bacharach/Mack David

Song: Hot Spell       Sung by:  Margaret Whiting 

Sophia: "There’s a hurricane a-comin’!”

Dorothy: “ ‘A-comin’?” 

Sophia: “That’s right. People only use the 'a' when a really bad storm is a-comin' or a-brewin.’”

The above exchange from The Golden Girls partially explains why Miss Whiting reverts to dialect --"All that's a-comin' is a hot spell!"   -- during the refrain of this enjoyable, western-trot anthem to lustful longing. 

The Hangman - 1959  -  Bacharach/David

Song: The Hangman        Sung by:  John Ashley 

The Man in the Net - 1959 - Bacharach/David

Song:  The Net       Sung by:  John Ashley

Actor John Ashley has long been a familiar face to me from those Annette & Frankie Beach Party movies. I had no idea he had a career as a pop singer and introduced TWO (not particularly distinguished) Bacharach/David songs.

That Kind of Woman - 1959 - Bacharach/David

Song:  That Kind of Woman                Sung by: Joe Williams

Suddenly, Last Summer - 1959 - Bacharach/David

Song:  Long Ago, Last Summer      Sung by: Diane Trask

Who's Got the Action? - 1962 - Bacharach/Bob Hilliard

Song: Who's Got The Action?   Sung by: Phil Colbert

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - 1962  - Bacharach/David

Song:  The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance   Sung by: Gene Pitney

Okay, is this catchy, Western-pop narrative tune not THE best exploitation song ever? It sparked my interest enough to get me to sit through this gunslinger soap. I was very disappointed that the song never turned up in the movie.

Wives & Lovers  - 1963 - Bacharach/David

Song:  Wives and Lovers   Sung by: Jack Jones

Bacharach's music is so good on this song that it almost makes you forget the cringingly sexist lyrics. Putting the words in a woman's mouth (as with Warwick's sublime version) softens the eye-rolling a bit, but Bacharach's full instrumental version is primo Bacharach. 

Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? - 1963 - Bacharach/David

Song: Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?     Sung by: Linda Scott

The Fool Killer - 1965 - Bacharach/David

Song: Fool Killer       Sung by: Gene Pitney 

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial  - 1982 - Bacharach/Neil Diamond/ Carol Bayer Sager

Song: Heartlight     Sung by: Neil Diamond 

As this was written more than a month after the Steven Spielberg film was released, it's more a tribute song than an exploitation one. But that's not how Universal Studios saw it. They sued the trio for $25,000. Something Bacharach in his 2013 memoir Anyone Who Had a Heart claimed to still irk him many years later. 

FILM APPEARANCES

The Austin Powers trilogy of spy spoofs introduced Burt Bacharach and his music to a new generation. (Casino Royale's "Look of Love" inspired its creator Mike Myers). Bacharach made cameo appearances in each film.

AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY (1997)
Singing the 1965 song "What the World Needs Now Is Love" 

AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME (1999)
Elvis Costello sings 1969's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" 

AUSTIN POWERS in GOLDMEMBER (2002)
Singing 1965's "What the World Needs Now Is Love"

HONORABLE MENTION

"Nikki" - 1966 - Bacharach/David

Neither an exploitation song nor a melody written exclusively for a motion picture, but as a Boomer, I'd be remiss if I failed to include this seminal '70s anthem in this comprehensive record of Bacharach's film legacy. Composed in 1966 in honor of the birth of daughter [with 2nd wife Angie Dickinson] Lea Nikki Bacharach (1966 - 2007), "Nikki" was repurposed and immortalized in 1969 when this gentle melody was given a robust orchestral arrangement and became the theme for The ABC Movie of the Week for the next five years. (A rare, off-his-game Hal David contributed some forgettable lyrics that have happily remained so.)

BONUS MATERIAL

For all the individual achievement reflected by Burt Bacharach's fitting dominance in this tribute, I must make clear that as far as I'm concerned, there IS no Burt Bacharach without lyricist Hal David (May 25, 1921 – Sept. 1, 2012). And (in my life, at least) there would be NO Bacharach/David without Dionne Warwick. Having the opportunity to see her perform last year and hear her singing songs born of this genius trio's longtime collaboration was one of the premier experiences of my life. 

This tribute to Burt Bacharach's contribution to cinema wouldn't be possible without Serene Dominic's invaluable reference - "Burt Bacharach: Song By Song." Published in 2003, I highly recommend this informative and entertaining book to any Bacharach fans.

The Composer as Pop Star

Photographer Jim McCrary (who shot the iconic cover of Carol King's Tapestry album)

took this photo for Burt's 1971 self-titled LP for A&M Records. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2023

MAKING A MEMORY: CINEMA & THE CULT OF LONGING

In this photo by Pulitzer Prize-winning San Francisco Chronicle photographer Joe Rosenthal (of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima fame), the marquee for The Castro Theater advertises the double-feature It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Far From The Madding Crowd. I saw this very double feature at the Castro (a real butt-buster, if ever there was one) in January of 1971.

In Walt Disney's The Parent Trap (the good one with Hayley Mills), there's a scene where the twin raised in California greets her Boston grandfather (Charles Ruggles) for the first time. As they embrace, Susan (Mills), prolonging the hug, buries her face in the lapels of the old man's jacket.

Grandfather: "What are you doing?"

Susan: "Making a memory."

Grandfather: "Making a memory?"

Susan: "All my life...years from now, when I'm quite grown up, I'll remember my grandfather and how he always smelled of (sniffs his lapel again) tobacco and peppermint."

Apart from always giving me a major case of waterworks, this scene fairly sums up for me what moviegoing was like before the days of cable, satellite, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and online streaming. When there was no telling when you'd ever have the opportunity to see a favorite film again, a standard part of the moviegoing experience was learning how to make a memory. Developing skills, rituals, and habits by which one could hold onto the experience of a movie for as long as possible.

A few of the double features I enjoyed at the Castro Theater circa1968-1969

For the devoted film fan, it was practically a survival tactic. By the time I reached my teens, it had become second nature for me to take detailed mental pictures; subconsciously log, file, and catalog significant sequences for later recollection rewind; and keep seismic record of the goosebump moments of every movie I liked. Even on those occasions when I'd sit through a movie twice in one afternoon, the subconscious goal was always the same: to have the film make as indelible an impression as possible on my psyche so that thereafter, the film became "mine." A memory of an experience I could relive and draw upon at will, be it to inspire, lift my spirits, or see me through any number of then-earth-shattering adolescent crises.

I fell in love with movies in the late '60s, back when there were only three TV networks, and movies could take as long as two years to reach the TV screen. Then, lacking the technology allowing one to watch and rewatch a beloved movie in the comfort of one's home—ad nauseam, ad infinitum, to the point of torpor—one had to rely on extended memory. Deprived of having the easily-referenced details of a film at our fingertips (not to mention the demythologizing, demystifying, explain-every-subtlety-and-detail contribution of DVD commentary tracks), the memory of movies were all you had. And even then, often only in the form of fractured recall, personal reminiscence, and hazy, emotion-diffused impressions of the sort that made it easy to misquote and misremember entire scenes.
Ultimately, all of this goes to explain the origins of my subjective/emotional philosophy of cinema: In lieu of being able to possess a film in actual fact, I came to base my love of movies on how they made me feel.

The most coveted (by me) part of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle was the entertainment "Date Book" section, known to locals as "the "pink pages." Here would be found a host of movie-related articles, as well as information about upcoming releases and premieres. This issue, dated June 16, 1968, mentions the forthcoming release of Rosemary's Baby (my #1 favorite film of all time) at the Century 21 Theater on Wednesday, June 26th.

But even fond memories require the occasional bowl-stirring, so a big part of film fandom for me as a youth involved finding new ways to prolong the moviegoing experience.

For example, my predilection for repeatedly watching the same movie is rooted in the fact that when I was growing up, once a film had completed its initial theatrical run, there was no telling when it would appear again. Back then, revival theaters (those that didn't specialize in underground, foreign, and art films) served the same purpose as TCM today, providing access to classic uncut films like Dinner at Eight & My Little Chickadee from Hollywood's Golden Age. When it came to mainstream releases like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or Up The Down Staircase, after their initial release (which was longer then and not so saturated), you had to scan the newspaper movie section waiting for them to reappear on the bottom half of a double or triple bill at some 2nd or 3rd-run neighborhood movie house. Short of that, there was waiting for them to appear on network TV—butchered, censored, and commercial interrupted.

The Stepford Wives (1975) is one of my best-loved films. It had its network television premiere on Sunday, October 24, 1976. I was excited to see it again, but I recall being disappointed (but not altogether surprised) that the ending had been trimmed, muting its overall impact. Having to endure the subtle censorship or total excision of favorite moments in beloved films was a standard part of the old-school "luxury" of having feature films broadcast into your living room.                                                           Image: coolasscinema.com

Since I liked to read, there was always the option of going to the local library and checking out the novels from which some of my favorite films were adapted (I especially liked the movie tie-in paperbacks, which always included loads of stills). A rare and mostly last-ditch effort on my part to keep a movie memory alive was the paperback "novelization"—a marketing device reserved for films adapted from original screenplays. I recall my experience reading the novelization of Thoroughly Modern Millie, mainly in terms of the great pains I took not to let the other boys at school see what I was reading. 

Fake novel / Real Novel
Because I was shy, I always had my nose buried in a book at school. While reading Millie, I dreaded the day (which, mercifully, never came) when one of my classmates would ask me what I was reading, and I'd be forced to witness the color drain from their faces as I summarized its cotton-candy plot. On the other hand, The Sterile Cuckoo got me some unearned points from my English teacher, who misheard it as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Thereafter, she seldom missed an opportunity to commend me on my reading"At a high-school level!" (I was eleven) and selecting such heavy material for recreational reading. 

One of the more accessible in-home ways to sustain the excitement of movies (thanks to an older sister who spent substantial hunks of her weekly allowance on issues of Rona Barrett's Hollywood, Movie Mirror, Photoplay, and Silver Screen) was the movie fan magazine. While other kids my age were reading Batman comic books, I was reading about why Liz was too sick to satisfy her man and what new heartbreak The Lennon Sisters were having to endure. Before People magazine and 'round-the-clock "entertainment news" channels convinced folks that non-stop celebrity gossip was actually real news, these mags served their fandom purpose by keeping pop-cultural ephemera where it belonged: on the sidelines amongst the scandal sheets and teen-celebrity magazines.

Screen Stories was my favorite movie magazine because each issue contained
complete, spoiler-filled synopses of all the latest flicks. With pictures!

I eventually gave up raiding my sister's stash of movie gossip rags once I discovered the "serious" movie periodicals section of the library. There, magazines with chi-chi names like Sight and Sound, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, and Films in Review not only fed my adolescent pretensions, but fostered my lifelong love of movie criticism and film analysis. Feeding my equally keen adolescent fondness for looking at pictures of naked men was British-based Films and Filming magazine, a self-billed "sensible magazine for serious film-goers" that was loaded with intelligent film reviews and could always be relied upon to feature the most salacious and homoerotic stills culled from even the most harmless movies.

When it came to helping me convince my parents that all the nudity in those age-inappropriate movies I so wanted to see was actually "artistic" and "significant to the plot," serious film periodicals (doesn't that sound better than movie magazines?) like Films and Filming proved invaluable.

Reading about movies or rewatching them to the point of memorization is all well and good, but those are but mementos of the mind. I don't know of a movie fan worthy of the name who, at some time or another, hasn't longed for some sort of concrete, tangible, take-home token of a film. 

For me, it was through the collecting of movie-themed souvenirs. Not so much when I was very young (because I had to wait for movies to come to the neighborhood theater), but in my teens, through to early adulthood, I loved it when first-run movies would offer some kind of chintzy promotional giveaway to the first 50 to 100 patrons at selected screenings. The thrill of being one of the few to take home a small memento of a movie (not to mention the silent, mean-spirited joy to be had in gloating over empty-handed patrons 101-plus) is what prompted my then-annoying penchant for dragging my friends to theaters way too early, making them stand in long lines (something which I quite enjoyed).

Andy Warhol's BAD opened in San Francisco on Wednesday, April 27, 1977. I didn't see the film until several years later, but at the time, the Music Hall theater sold the BAD T-shirt at the boxoffice. I purchased one for $5 and wore it so often that it disintegrated. The shirt pictured is a knock-off I bought on eBay in the '90s for considerably more than $5.

Over the years, I've sold or donated the bulk of my movie souvenir collection of buttons, T-shirts, banners, and posters, but stashed away somewhere in my apartment, I still have a few items of interest to nobody but me: the pinback button from the opening day of Alien (sounds good, but it's a dull graphic that merely has the words "You Are My Lucky Star" [the song Ripley sings to herself moments before the final attack] printed over a starry background); the sample soundtrack LP handed out at the premiere (and Joan Tewkesbury autograph signing) of the forgotten 1979 Talia Shire film Old Boyfriends; and a poster given out at an early screening of Peter Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon.

Although my original "Pray for Rosemary's Baby" button is the pride of my collection,
I still possess quite a few promotional pinback giveaways 

Another favorite of mine was the souvenir program. Big-budget movies and roadshow attractions traditionally sold "official" souvenir programs at the theater lobby concession stands...right next to the Jujubes and Milk Duds. Crammed with photos and PR puffery, these glossy brochures were little more than glorified pressbooks. But there was no better feeling than coming home from a movie, excited and tired but not wanting the evening to end, settling into bed and reading yourself to sleep while poring over all that prepackaged publicity material, the film replaying on a loop in your head.

Of the many souvenir programs I purchased when these films opened in
 San Francisco in the '70s, these three were my favorites

Pop-art pinup posters were all the rage during the late '60s & '70s. And while I loved having blow-up posters of old-Hollywood movie stars like WC Fields, Marilyn Monroe, and Clark Gable on my bedroom walls (ironic nostalgia was in), my favorites were those of contemporary stars. My prized items were my posters of Peter Fonda on his Easy Rider bike, and a twin set of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton from The Taming of the Shrew.

Liz  & Dick: The "It" couple of my youth graced these individual 
posters. It felt like a crime not to buy them as a pair.

But shyness, concern that my sisters would tease me (and the ultimate fear that my mom wouldn't let me keep them anyway) prevented me from owning the two pinup posters I most wanted and which always caught my eye when I'd walk past the head shops and record stores on San Francisco's Haight Street: Jane Fonda in full Barbarella gear, and one-flop-wonder Ewa Aulin posed provocatively in an airplane cockpit as Candy

Tame by today's standards, these were popular and racy posters in 1968. And only being 10 or 11 at the time, I was certain I had no chance of owning them. It then never occurred to me that my father might have been encouraged as hell to have his quiet, non-athletic, bookworm son post a bit of female pulchritude on his bedroom wall.

It wasn't until I was in high school that I learned civilians could actually purchase the posters, stills, and lobby cards displayed at movie theaters (detailed in my essay The Show Began on the Sidewalk). Thereafter, movie posters remained my preferred, all-time favorite motion picture collectible.

For a time, I kept a scrapbook filled with newspaper ads for the movies I'd seen. The Northpoint Theater in San Francisco was one of my favorite moviegoing venues. I was thrilled to see The Exorcist (1973) and Tommy (1976) when they made their Bay Area debuts there. 

But so far, all the modes of movie memory-making I've covered have been of the visual-aids variety: items that work like sentimental signposts designed to jog my memory along a recollection map whose coordinates and points of reference it remained largely up to me to determine (i.e., they could only trigger memories I'd already backlogged).

Movie soundtrack albums were another thing entirely. I speak not of the soundtrack albums for movie musicals, which are both culturally accessible (the source of many top 40 hits) and require no real affinity for the film itself (e.g., the double platinum LP success of the otherwise flop musical Xanadu). No, I speak of the limited, almost cult-like appeal of the original soundtrack album devoted to the instrumental, chiefly orchestral, musical score composed for a dramatic or comedic film. Not everybody has the stomach for long play records devoted to the non-diegetic (outside-of-story) thrills of background themes, melodic excerpts, and music categorized as incidental or transitional.

Listening to music composed for the express purpose of (imperceptibly) enhancing a film's mood and influencing the viewer's emotional response to images on a screen may not be everyone's taste, but whether it was music for a chase scene, bar fight, suspenseful moment, or comic interlude; for the longest time, motion picture soundtrack albums were the only way to really take a movie home with you.

Some of my happiest memories are of lying on the living room (shag) carpet in front of our wood-paneled TV/Radio/Hi-Fi record player console behemoth (with space for album storage!), listening to soundtrack albums I rented from the public library. Remembering a film is nice—and that's where memorabilia and souvenirs come in—but listening to a movie's soundtrack LP, with eyes closed and headphones on, is more than recollection; it's rediscovery.
By listening to music you most likely felt but never really heard (if the movie did its job of keeping you engrossed), you got to replay and relive a cinema experience in your mind. There's a definite geek element to this method of making a movie memory (the scores to a great many '60s comedies sound like music for a cartoon or bad TV sitcom). But nothing compared to soundtrack albums for their ability to inspire new dreams while revisiting the old.

I don't know if it's true, but it has always felt like I grew up during the golden age of movie music. Theme songs from motion pictures were all over the radio and TV variety programs. My earliest memories of the kind of movie music played around my house are not of movie soundtrack albums, but albums devoted to cover versions of popular songs from movies. My mom had a crush on Tom Jones, and though she played his What's New, Pussycat? album to death, I don't remember a single other song on it.

My dad's crush was on Nancy Wilson, so I often heard this album. It included the songs EVERY popular singer of the time recorded—Moon River, The Days of Wine & Roses, and Alfie—plus the ubiquitous More (theme from Mondo Cane), which to this very day always makes me think of the 1963 film Toys in the Attic. You see, my folks took us with them to a Drive-In movie to see the Dean Martin starrer Toys in the Attic (Dino was another of my mom's crushes...she really had a "type," didn't she?), and it was there that I was traumatized by the trailer for the gross-out shock documentary Mondo Cane.

As much as I loved movies, when I was young, thanks to the proliferation of light classical and easy-listening LPs like these, movie scores carried the stigma of being associated with Muzak and thought of as "elevator music." You really couldn't go anywhere without hearing Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago (Somewhere My Love), or the Theme from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart?).  

Today, I carry these with me on my iPod. Time has been the least forgiving to the soundtrack of Barefoot in the Park (1967). But nothing evokes 1969 San Francisco for me like The Magic Christian soundtrack. Midnight Cowboy is perhaps my favorite complete score of the four. To this date, I've never seen The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, but when I was 10, I was a fan of The New Vaudeville Band (Winchester Cathedral), so their presence on this LP was enough to make the gamble worthwhile.

TOP 20 Motion Picture Soundtrack Albums

(not a list of the "best" albums - a list of albums that made me happy)

I simply marvel at the many things that technology has made readily available to the modern film buff. Movies can be viewed in laser-sharp Blu-ray within months of their theatrical releases, complete with deleted scenes, alternate endings, informative commentary tracks, and director's cuts. There's untold online access to stills, posters, storyboards, soundtrack cuts (no need to listen to the entire album!), early script drafts, interviews, poster galleries, and all manner of behind-the-scenes trivia and factoids. I could never have imagined even a fraction of all this growing up.

And while I'm sure my 12-year-old self would have been over-the-moon enraptured had any of this been available to me during my formative film fan years, my older and wiser present-self knows better.

I know that my lifetime love affair with movies has always been nurtured by the courtship phase. The anticipation, the counting-the-days-until-release excitement...all followed up by the exquisite agony of wondering when you'll get to see the movie again, and hoping your memories will sustain you until then. 

The elemental unavailability of movies--no attendance allowed on school nights, having to take a bus to get to them, seeing them exclusively in cavernous movie palaces resembling churches--gave them their mystique and made them special. All of this fed into what I call "the cult of longing"—those myriad rituals I engaged in (posters, souvenirs, memorabilia, records, etc.) to best make a lasting memory of a favorite film. 

Over the years, I've found that what this method lacks in instant gratification has been more than made up for in its ability to create a bridge linking the magic of cinema to the durability of dreams.

The Alhambra Theater on Polk Street in San Francisco - The site of my first job
I moved to LA in 1978 but took this photo in 1981 during a visit

BONUS MATERIAL

Moving to Los Angeles allowed me to add autograph collecting to my arsenal of memory-makers. I've still not quite adapted to the celebrity selfie.

Celeste Holm - 1980

Walter Matthau - 1995

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009 - 2017