The Day The Earth Stood Still 1951 - Theremin studio session.
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- čas přidán 16. 10. 2010
- The soundtrack was composed in August 1951 and was Bernard Herrmann's first soundtrack after he moved to Hollywood. Herrmann chose unusual instrumentation for the film: violins, cellos, and basses (all three electric), two theremin electronic instruments (played by Dr. Samuel Hoffman and Paul Shure), two Hammond organs, a large studio electric organ, three vibraphones, two glockenspiels, marimba, tam-tam, 2 bass drums, 3 sets of timpani, two pianos, celesta, two harps, 1 horn, three trumpets, three trombones, and four tubas. Unusual overdubbing and tape-reversal techniques were used, as well. 20th Century Fox later reused the Herrmann title theme in the original pilot episode for Irwin Allen's 1965 TV series Lost in Space. Danny Elfman noted The Day the Earth Stood Still's score inspired his interest in film composing, and made him a fan of Herrmann.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film that tells the story of a humanoid alien visitor who comes to visit the Earth with a warning, accompanied by his powerful robot, "Gort". Robert Wise directed this film, and its leading actors and actresses were Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe. "Gort" is also a primary character in this motion picture, but he is portrayed as a completely mechanical man. The writer of The Day the Earth Stood Still, Edmund H. North, based his screenplay on Harry Bates's short story "Farewell to the Master" (1940).
Julian Blaustein produced this film for 20th Century Fox, and its cinematography was executed by Leo Tover. Nearly all of the action takes place in Washington, D.C., where the alien spacecraft lands, and then remains without moving for almost the entire motion picture. - Hudba
Michael Rennie was the only actual alien ever cast in a major motion picture. He nails it simply by being himself.
Claude Rains was wanted for the role of Klatuu but turned it down. Michael Rennie was the better choice as it turned out.
These Hollywood studio musicians are outstanding. They could play anything modern or old fashioned as required and with finesse. About the same time as these Bernard Herrmann takes some of them were likely recording Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Webern for Robert Craft.
The AFM Local 47 musicians were ever the best. Could play anything.
You can tell just by that ominous chord at 5:24 these guys are like some orchestral soundtrack cousins to the Wrecking Crew. So good.
Herrmann was a master composer, bar none. The use of Theremin here is just superb, conveying a bizarre "other worldness" that no other instrument could convey. The other themes for the robot Gort were just amazing and contributed to making this classic film the masterpiece that it is and will remain, despite the woeful remake.
Paul Shure (1921 - 2011), one of the two thereminists in this session, was a violinist, and at age 18, the youngest player in the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Leopold Stokowski. The other thereminist in this session, Samuel Hoffman (1903 - 1967), began playing the violin professionally in 1917, and theremin around 1936. He worked under the stage name of Hal Hope in nightclub and society bands, as well as contributing to more than 25 film scores.
Most interesting information. I worked with Paul Shure, producing a recording with him playing Miklos Rozsa's music.
wow - great info. I played in 'society bands' in Philadelphia in the sixties and seventies - guitar. They hired me to 'play rock for the kids'. A great and fun time in my life.
6
need more theremin
Yeah... I gotta FEVAH, and the only prescription, is MOAH THEREMIN
Hysterical!
Need more Herrmann!
I have the entire soundtrack to this movie, bought it some years back at a Barnes and noble .
The device used by the Beach Boys in their studio recordings was a custom-built oscillator based on a piece of lab equipment. It was constructed by Paul Tanner and Bob Whitsell. Tanner was a slide trombonist with Glenn Miller, and also taught music at UCLA. He was listed in the musicians' union as a theremin player, but he didn't use a theremin, because they're very hard to play accurately. His inspiration for his instrument came after witnessing the difficulty Hoffman had on a Hitchcock set.
The Hitchcock film would have been Spellbound.
WOW what a find. Little nugget of history.
Amazing that this tape still exists!
It's wonderful to hear the control room talking.
Like all Hermann's work, it made the movie more intense.
Oh yes, the opening was the music used in Lost In Space when Will encountered the Zaticons in the cave. "We Want YOUUUUU......we want....the Robot". Best time this piece of music was ever used in the whole series. Parts of the second half (starting in at 2:58) were used in the following LIS episode, "The Dream Monster". "The Time Tunnel" had some of this music in it too. BEST re-use of sci-fi music ever!
Damn, Hermann was a genius. This score DEFINES sci fi for decades. His combination of orchestral instruments is amazing. Of course, the Theramin is the 'sound of scifi'. It's become a joke now and sounds so dated. But back then, it was as groundbreaking as the score from Forbidden Planet, which used all electronic instruments - pre-synth.
Herrmann and Hitchcock were perfect together. And he worked with Robert Wise on this movie which is still considered a classic. Herrmann proved he still could deliver the goods right up until his last days, ala Taxi Driver. The music there sounds like what the inside of Travis Bickel's head must have sounded like.
As a kid, I fell in love with DTESS. Spaceships! Aliens! A little kid watching everything. I used to have a recurring dream that a spaceship was hovering over my street. I tried to tell my parents and others, but they were to busy to come with me and look out. I can still picture the trees on my street at dusk as the saucer hovered over.
What a FABULOUS SCORE! Brings back a thousand memories from my childhood ♥♥♥♥
he achieved with his music to bring the mysterie at the movie and fear too....excellent
As a kid I watched this thank you for posting
Where did these original session tapes come from? I never heard them before. What a treasure!
***** rumor has it that Fox's archives are (were?) notoriously easy to get into. Maybe Fox discarded these audio sources and someone took them. They'd be good bonus material on a soundtrack cd.
Considering the original Fox Film archives were all but destroyed in a 1937 fire...
Yes, 15 years before this was recorded!
Indeed they are! Classic sci fi.
I first saw this movie on television in the mid 1960's (NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies), and was instantly mesmerized by the soundtrack, especially with the use of the Theremin, which ultimately led me to purchase one in 1994 from Robert Moog, in North Carolina, (yes, THAT Robert Moog!). I have been playing it in my band Dog Beaver, live in concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco ever since.
im jealous i wish i was born around the fortys so my childhood is in the 50s
I love the fact that these exotic instruments were invented by people with exotic names like Moog and Theremin....you wouldn't want to be playing a Jones or a Wilson would you?
@@terrythekittie And the sounds of R2D2 were from an ARP 2600 analog synth. An Alan Robert Pearlman creation. Alan R. Pearlman (June 7, 1925 - January 5, 2019)[1] was an American engineer best known as the founder of ARP Instruments, Inc., one of the early leading American synthesizer manufacturers.
60s you mean
Classic movie. Saw it in 1951 when I was 6 years old. Scared the crap out of me.
that would have been cool to see that back then
@@songofseikilos8659 I saw it years later..It didn't scare me then..I got the message that was lost on me the first time I saw it. A man comes to Earth in peace. We shoot him. He has a miraculous salve to treat his wound with. He's made a prisoner because different governments can't agree on a nuetral place to hear why he's come..He easily escapes and the suit and suitcase he steals has the name Carpenter on them. He interacts with different people and finially hooks up with the Einstein like character that confirms that the world is a mess as far as cooperation. Mr. Carpenter reveals that his real name is Klattu and that a power exists that could destroy Earth if we brought nuclear weapons into outer space..A demonstration is put into place which shuts off power all over the world except for hospitals and planes. But our great Government took it as a threat and kills Klattu..The robot, Gort, takes the lifeless body to the spaceship and restores life temporarily to Klattu..Of course Patricia Neal has to confront the robot and deliver Klattu's message before Gort goes on a rampage. The final scene of course informs all nation's that they could join Klattu and other planets and live in peace since the robots act at the first sign of agreesion. But the allegory in the movie is this: A being comes in peace and while on Earth calls himself Mr. Carpenter..He is hunted down ,killed, but resurrected. He gives mankind an ultimatum. Join us and live in peace. Or continue on with your aggression and the Earth will be reduced to a cinder. We will be waiting for your answer..The allegory escapes a lot of people. Jesus was a carpenter..He preached to the many and warned of things that would come to pass if we didn't join Him. He was seized and died on the cross. He was resurrected and Departed the Earth leaving his desciples to spread His message..This is the allegory that escapes most people who just are looking at an interesting Sci-fi movie .
One of the most interesting things to listen too
Love listening to Real musicians at work! Imagine how exciting it was at that moment to be creating something that had not been done before! well done i'm glad we have this to treasure !
Love this music so much ever since I first heard it back in 1979-80!
you can hear the anger in his voice when that bell rang and that guy interrupted him
Good, good, GOOD, good vibrations . . .
Loved the use of his music used on the TV show Lost in Space as well :)
A good flick.where are now that we need them.
interesting material - i like thestudio atmossphere. thanks
Great stuff! I love the movie and the sound track and this is a lot of fun to hear some of the session recordings!
I find all this fascinating. Amazing tapes and remarkable to hear them for the first time. My compliments for posting, and high regards to those of you who commented so eloquently and provided such a wealth of background information on the theremin and its artists. Thank you!
great stuff, the music really made the movie real feeling, the movie, had a great theme.
The Beach Boys didn't use a theremin. They used a slide-controlled oscillator that was played by Paul Tanner.
This and "Brazil" are my 2 favorite films.
This is great!! Thanx!!
What a terrific find this is!!! We just re-watched this classic film. Brilliant on every level. Still holds up. I wonder if it
will turn out to be prophetic some day? "I came here to give you these facts." - Klaatu (Nimitz TIC-TAC UFO's 12/2017 disclosure by the US Navy etc.)
I love this video.
I'm sure someone has already said this but I'm watching a Lost In Space episode called "The Ghost Planet" and this music came on and I knew instantly what it was from. I do recall watching something that mentions this and this episode really is one of my favorites with the super artistic robots.
Fantastic! I saw a guy playing a Theremin last night! Cool Creepy stuff!!
Perfect music for this film. Theremin
This is wonderful
Perfect UFO music! Keep watching those skies!
Brilliant film, ahead of its time!
Great movie
Boy would I love to actually see them playing...
Thanks so much for uploading this, lostinthetimes! I first heard this about six. years ago, and it's great to rediscover this all over again. I also appreciate the history and rare music trivia in your liner notes.
Thank you for posting this. I am a big fan of Bernard Herrmann & the original "The Day The Earth Stood Still".
Good Good Good..... Good Vibrations!
this is an awesome post. thanks
Excellent! Thank you for posting this!
Fantastic!
Thank you so much for your upload. This is the coolest thing I've ever listened to. I love the movie. I love the theremin. I love the genre. I love it all. Thank you!
Sick!!
This is absolutely wonderful! What a phenomenal chance to hear actual fashioning of sound for one of the greatest films of all times. Anyone who has tried to play the Theremin will immediately know the difficulty to produce such sounds. To hear professionals at work in the studio from that time period is pure joy. One is hypnotized even here without the imagery by the quality of that playing and that piece.
amazing !
awesome audio. Thank you!
Wow This is Crazzy
Definitely not his first score in Hollywood... he had a decade in Hollywood under his belt at that point including "Citizen Kane."
Tony Lomax it’s the first score after he “moved” to Hollywood. He lived in New York before.
Very Cool.
Incidentally, the trumpets were in C [sounded as written] as opposed to B-flat, which are transposed.
You'll note it's asked if there's enough film left; in this era, sound recordings direct to film were still the best available. Audio tape was improving rapidly, but not quite there yet. Film still had the best audio fidelity, and it was what the studios knew worked. This was about the time celluloid was being phased out and plastic safety film phased in. Many takes were likely required; the theremin is a difficult instrument to play, and Herrmann was known far and wide as a major pain in the arse.
Love to hear Benny's 'whinging', cranky voice.
Lionel Newman doing most of the talking..Herrmann barking in background..'were not doing linoleum!" haha
It WAS used to make the WOOO-WEEEE-WOOOO noise we so commonly associate with aliens! Usually as part of the musical score when we saw the aliens, or any other creepy scene. Use of the Theremin in so many of those 50s Sci-Fi movies more or less wrote the book on that "sound" for alien movies. It's played without touching it. Two metal rods on it can sense where the player's hands are as they get near it. One hand changes pitch, the other changes volume. You-tube has postings it it in action.
Yes, that is a theremin. :D
thank you!I loved this as a child and it would scare the Be-Jesus outta me!Had relatives in D.C. at this time also ,traveled to and fro.
I have read that Herrmann did not want to use the Theremin. Herrmann had played the chimes on radio show Suspense for less than union minimum for many years. He did a lot of other radio also. They had very little money until his wife wrote the script for "Sorry Wrong Number". This got them to Hollywood. He did well in Hollywood until he did not deliver what Hitchcock wanted from him for Vertigo. He than had to work for Ray Harryhausen on his stop motion films and other lesser films.
I don’t believe it was Vertigo but it was Marnie that Hitchcock was disappointed in the music. The music for Vertigo is genius even though the film did not do well when it was originally released.
It makes me feel like i'm really in the sound room thank you. Do you have a date on that time.
💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
Po lecz I tak bardzo dobry pomysł.Nikt na nic nie liczył.
The original is still the best. The remake was just o.k., but, as usual for Hollywood these days, the overuse of "special effects" detracts from the film rather than add anything to it.
The remake is my favorite the actor from the first one (the alien) is terrible
Keanu is better at being dramatic and he already kind of looks like an alien.
Keanu is better at sounding like a stoner and nothing much else.
and stoners do sound pretty creepy
They got Gort right in the remake though I'll give them that. I love how Weta didn't deviate from the original design.
Once more Lionel. We're not doing linoleum.
What a great moment!
Great to hear the temperamental musical genius Benny Herrmann saying a few words during a rehearsal!
goat movie
baaaa
Am copying this on this slide flute I have and lemme tell you is good fun. : )
Agreed. Just look how the Remake of War of The Worlds turned out. God forbid some Hollywood hotshot thinks a remake of Forbidden Planet is called for. Leave the classics alone!
I was under the impression that it was.
ive been looking for something with this sound FORVER AND EVER AND EVER PLEAS EPLEASE HELP ME FIND IT OMG PLEASE OMG
Jimmy page was a master at playing the Theremin also.. "Whole Lotta Love" was a classic example
THAT'S pretty FUNNY-Page the over rated HACK WANKER ! !
I'm trying to recreate this sound and have no idea where to begin lol
Samuel Hoffman and Paul Shure played theremins for this score.
madamerotten * Pauly Shore
You mean like in the Doctor Who theme?
No, originally that was a sine tone generator with a tiny bit of tremolo and/or vibrato, as well as some echo, applied. The swooping was done by rotating the frequency valve by hand to the required positions.
But yeah, you can most probably also do that with a Theremin, as well.
Even those this is SCI-FI it is very SPOOKY
Fantastic post.This is a great piece of cinematic history. If any of you get a chance take a listen to "Lexi Luther". "The Day The Earth Stood Still".
Fantastic! Where did this come from?!
The music really dose make the hair on your neck stand up!
Indeed. Which is why we DO associate the music with aliens. This is their theme tune.
Well, when I say "their" ...
We walk among you.
The same score for Lost in Space
It's like the same vibe in fallout
....and, of course, Irwin Allen recycled some of these cues in "LOST IN SPACE".
Inface the original pilot used a
lot of the cues including the theme. Before John Williams score.
@@jeffreybatten6277 This piece this video opens with was used in Season 2's "Wreck Of The Robot" at the beginning of the episode when Will encountered the Zaticons. Very spooky!
... as well as a part of Herrmann's score for "Beneath the 12 Mile Reef" (1953). Early episode where Professor Robinson is flying around wearing a jet pack. Exhilarating piece.
well of course.
@thepurplecrystalz yes thats it
Feel bad for Lionel
i wonder if a theremin can make the WOOO-WEEEEE-WOOOO noise we so commonly associate with aliens...
The remake is actually truer to Harry Bates short story, but the 1951 movie is a much better story and movie.
omg... i had managed to forget that there WAS a remake. wahhhhhh
I've been in search of a 50s-like sci-theme which i only have a fragment of. And i don't know the name of the song! Can anyone help me?
Wow! Takes and retakes must have bored the crews to death. Great result though!!
lol @4:50 = Send it up
0:36
Look up an "Ondes Martenot"
where can I buy or record this?
Was a clavioline used?
Bacana
you could just extract it from here with listentoyoutube|com
Could that perhaps be this? /watch?v=75V4ClJZME4
Gort belongs to the Intergalactic Police Union.