The music
Anyone else notice the drab Hollywood music that you'd expect to hear in an episode of Leave It To Beaver, with occasional hints of Japanese music (xylophone?). Was there even any evidence of Chinese music in the film?
shareYeah, and the "Oriental" music sounds like that in those war-era cartoons where the point was to ridicule the enemy
sharethe tune at the start of the movie is an adaptation of the current People's Republic of China anthem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_the_Volunteers
The music was poor because HERBERT STOTHART was its prime composer. STOTHART ran the M.G.M. music department from its sound inception in 1929 to his death in 1949. Twenty (20) years of musical mediocrity. Nominated nine (9) times and winning once for THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939). An amazing feat when you consider his main competition was MAX STEINERs GONE WITH THE WIND (1939). Looks like there might have been some ballot box stuffing by the M.G.M. music departments staff. Most of his scores were predestrian at best. The only one (1) we have any fondness for was NORTHWEST PASSAGE (1940) which was a reworking of TREASURE ISLAND (1934). He would also suppress otherwise superior composers works when they were with M.G.M. such as FRANZ WAXMAN. Just compare WAXMANs work at M.G.M. and when he was given a free hand at WARNER BROTHERS it is like Night and Day. After STOTHART death though M.G.M. caught a huge windfall in getting MIKLOS ROZSA to come over from PARAMOUNT. ROZSA and laterally DIMITRI TIOMKIN dominiated film scores for the next fifth-teen (15) years.
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