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For UK viewers and anybody else who can receive Channel 4:

FILM: King Kong
Channel: Channel 4
Date: Tuesday 20th December 2005
Time: 13:05 to 15:30
Duration: 2 hours and 25 minutes.
Derided at the time, largely because it was produced by the then king of schlock Dino De Laurentiis, John Guillermin's remake of the 1933 classic actually has a lot going for it. The Oscar winning special effects sit happily with the tongue-in-cheek campiness that the three leads play along with and there's a superb John Barry score that is among the best of his long career.

Director: John Guillermin
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange, John Randolph, Rene Auberjonois, Julius Harris
(Widescreen, Subtitles, 1976, 15, 3 Star)

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New SACD of John Barry's score to Frances.

"The wistful, melancholic score for Frances was composed and conducted by five-time Oscar recipient John Barry. Director Graeme Clifford, who believed that his composer of choice was the only person suited for the job, wrote in his original introduction for the 1982 LP release, “I have admired John Barry’s music for many years and had always promised myself that when I made my first picture I would contact John first. And that is what I did. I needed music that was at once romantic and yet underscored the severe emotional stress that pervaded Frances Farmer’s life. Even without the images on the screen, and many months after completing the picture, John’s music still moves me deeply”.

Of particular note to the listener is how Barry’s score reinforces the screenplay, albeit with great subtlety. Never intrusive, but striking nonetheless, are the elegant use of long, sustained chords (a Barry trademark) in the orchestration and an occasional harmonica solo, which the composer informed this writer in 1982, “comments on Frances Farmer’s yearning for things past”. The ascending two-note motif depicting Frances’s inner turmoil, “her cry for help” (Barry, again) intoned by the brass, is of interest too. Barry argued that overuse of the score would call attention to itself.

This is one of Barry’s most noble and haunting works, one which occupies a special place in a notable canon that includes some of the finest scores in the history of the cinema.

The film also boasts an impressive cast; Jessica Lange as the troubled Frances; Kim Stanley as Frances’s mother, Lillian Farmer and playwright-actor Sam Shepherd in the fictionalised role of one Harry York. Lange was nominated for Best Actress by the Motion Picture Academy at the 1982 Academy Awards but she lost to Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice."

This album has been re-mastered for Super Audio CD (SACD). This Hybrid SACD may be played on all CD players.

Track listing:

1. Main Title (4:03)
2. Meeting Harry (2:33)
3. Upset (0:57)
4. Late To Work (1:14)
5. Uproar (1:52)
6. Frances And Doc (1:05)
7. Walk (1:35)
8. Okay, Dad; Mother, Shut up!! (2:51)
9. Sonata In A Major, K.331 (1:46) (W. A Mozart)
10. Bug House (2:29)
11. Free At Last (1:34)
12. Home Again; Things Are Going To Be Slow From Now On (7:13)
13. Epilogue (A Portrait of Frances) (6:43)

THE COMPETITION HAS NOW ENDED
Here are the answers and winners of the FRANCES competition.

1) Graeme Clifford
2) Ruby Cairo
3) Frances Elena Farmer

Most people got this all correct so we had a drawing to pick the five lucky winners. They are:

• Andy Dickenson, Manchester, England
• Machiel Jansen, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Jean-Christophe Manuceau, Montgeron, France
• Gordon Reeves, Pennsylvania, USA
• Alistair Kerr, West Lothian, Scotland

We have informed Hot Records and hopefully you'll all be hearing from them shortly. Commiserations to those who did not win, but hey, it's not too expensive to purchase!!

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Don Black revealed to some of his and John Barry's fans at the "Thunderball 40th anniversary" screening that he and John Barry do want to revisit Brighton Rock. Don agreed that it would be very sad if the Almeida season was the beginning and the end of the show. He said that it would need some rewriting and it was clear from what he said that this hasn't happened yet.

He said that it should tour in the provinces first before any attempt at at a further West End run

Don seemed genuinely surprised by the interest expressed in the show.

Cause for guarded optimism then, but don't expect anything in the near future. [Thanks to Pete Greenhill for the information.]

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DOCUMENTARY: Matt Monro: The Man With The Golden Voice
Channel: BBC 4
Date: Saturday 22nd October 2005
Duration: 1 hour.
Neil Pearson narrates a documentary telling the story of Matt Monro, the young Londoner born Terry Parsons who became one of the world's most popular ballad singers. Contributors include Paul Gambaccini, Don Black, George Martin, John Barry and Monro's family.

It was an excellent hour-long documentary charting Monro's life and career, accompanied by archive footage, interviews with Don Black, John Barry, Sir George Martin and Monro's family.  

Sir George Martin

Matt Monro

But most of it was also accompanied by Barry's music from The Beyondness of Things & The Specialist - or was it Playing By Heart? Anyway, very moody JB, just right for the tone of the programme.

John Barry, OBE

Don Black, OBE

It was on the BBC's digital only channel, BBC4, but well worth a look when it appears elsewhere around the globe.

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"Zulu": With Some Guts Behind It, The Making of the Epic Movie, Sheldon Hall, now available.

"Zulu": With Some Guts Behind It, The Making of the Epic Movie by Sheldon Hall, hardcover 431 pages (October 24, 2005), Publisher: Tomahawk Press, Language: English, ISBN: 0953192660, was published on 10 October by Tomahawk Press and should be available in bookshops and from online outlets in the UK from this Monday, October 24. Foreword by John Barry, OBE.

The author hopes that "you get to see the book and feel that it has all been worthwhile. Do please get in touch to let me know. Feedback I have received so far has been uniformly positive."

More...

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Nic Raine is conducting a Bond concert in Quebec in February in aid of the Tsunami and New Orleans charities. It is being organised by Hilary Salzman and Dame Shirley will be singing guess what....

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We will postpone the book publication "John Barry - The Man With The Midas Touch" until 2007. This gives us two things - 50 years in the business for JB, and 007 in the year. Plus another 13 months for Gareth to find that photo of JB, Brian Matthew & Adam Faith we desperately need for our radio chapter. But we are confident that 2007 will be a great launch year!!

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Yorkshire Greats
The county's fifty finest
by Bernard Ingham

Published 12th October 2005
by Dalesman
ISBN 1 85568 220 6
£19.99 hbk

Bernard Ingham provocatively salutes his top fifty Yorkshiremen and women of all time
explorers, reformers, inventors, scientists, artists and sportspeople - and includes a chapter on the man he sums up thus: "John Barry is not a household name in Yorkshire, though he ought to be because he is the world's most successful film composer".

Order enquiries:
Tel: (+44) 01756 701033
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(remove NO and SPAM around @)
Online: www.dalesman.co.uk

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Vic Flick was interviewed by James Bond fansite "Universal Exports". You can read the interview on their website .

Official Vic Flick website.

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Friday 23rd September, BBC Radio 2 at 19.00 BST, Clare Teal on the career of John Barry. Available via Internet.

Update April 2015: link is gone.