MovieChat Forums > Rancho Notorious (1952) Discussion > Music?

Music?

posted 13 years ago by theLunchMovie
4 replies | jump to latest

I just caught RANCHO NOTORIOUS on Encore Westerns for my second time. A few months ago I swore I heard "Love Me Tender" playing low-n-slow somewhere @ 38 minutes into the film. I knew Elvis didn't release that song until 1956, and this film is from 1952, so I assumed I was wrong. Tonight I heard it again, and a few scenes later, I thought I heard "Beautiful Dreamer." In both cases the songs have a part western/part mariachi feel to them.

I thought "Beautiful Dreamer" was an early 20th century song, but Wikipedia and a few other online articles corrected me: it's from 1864. While I was at it, I looked up "Love Me Tender." I didn't know until now that the melody for "Love Me Tender" was lifted from an 1861 song called "Aura Lee." Neither of these songs are included in the soundtrack listings on IMBD.

So here's my question -- Did anyone spot any other Civil War era or post-Civil War era songs? I'm curious if the two that I noticed or any others would have been chosen simply because they fit the period, or if there was a lyrical significance to these tunes. I'm probably reading too much into the lyrics, considering we don't even hear the lyrics in the film, but these arrangements were so striking that I felt they added immensely to the scenes they were in. ...At the very least, they were a damn sight more effective than that goofy Chuck-a-luck ballad ;-)

http://twitter.com/TheLunchMovie
www.thelunchmovie.com

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] oldblackandwhite 11 years ago

Both Aura Lee and Beautiful Dreamer would have been popular at anytime after they were written in the early 1860's, and both had a popularity which endured far into the 20th Century. I think they were just mood music and worked very well as such. Would have improved the movie if more of those and less of that irritating Chuck-a-luck ballad had been used. I liked the picture in any case, and I love 19th Century music, which is one of the reasons I love classic movies. A rock music hater, I have not liked much of the music popular since the early 1950's.

Francis Farmer does a couple of beautiful renditions of Aura Lee in Come And Get It (1936), an excellent picture.

Did you catch the tune being played on the piano by the bar girl Authur Kennedy was asking for the whereabouts of Altar?

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

[–] usnjohn62 9 years ago

Don't know about the music, but the singing drove me up a wall. Ken Darby did the same thing with the TV show Wyatt Earp.

[–] den_quixote 9 years ago

I recognized "Love Me Tender" also. I did not know the music wasn't original. It's interesting also that the man who wrote the (horrible in my opinion) songs for this movie is also the man who wrote LMT, though he gave the credit to his wife. Thanks for the info. Since Stephen Foster and I are both from Pittsburgh I already knew about "Beautiful Dreamer." Thanks again.