R.I.P Monty Norman

He passed on July 11th. I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned here yet.

He couldn't have been born under too bad of a sign to last this long, or to get so much credit for so many decades just by recycling a 50s tune of his, since Barry did all the heavy lifting with it.

Color me still red with anger over the court case between the two composers (who I guess now, to quote the old and very bad joke, are now decomposers.) There are other instances of credit not being repped properly in the biz, from Walter Hill's uncredited work on the ALIEN script to how James Horner owes his whole career to other composers and to his earlier work, which he recycled shamelessly and w/o any apparent legal repercussions.

Perhaps Norman was a remarkable man who loved animals and contributed to many charities, and if so, I'll feel guilty for having spoken ill of the dead. But in my mind, he is the guy who delivered a largely unusable and uninteresting score that could have torpedoed all the good work that went into DR NO in the lensing and art direction and from the director -- if Barry hadn't come along and energized the thing at the 11th hour.

I'm not across the details of the Barry vs Norman dispute, but R.I.P. regardless. Credit is due whatever Norman's contribution was to a final product so iconic.

CJB wrote:

I'm not across the details of the Barry vs Norman dispute, but R.I.P. regardless. Credit is due whatever Norman's contribution was to a final product so iconic.

Agreed. Norman created a musical theme that is immensely captivating, and that has proved profoundly influential. If that's all he ever did--and maybe it is--Norman would still deserve a very prominent place in the history of cinematic music.

R.I.P. to Mr Norman indeed ... whatever the circumstances, a fantastic piece of music.

Not to belabor the point, but THE JAMES BOND THEME as heard in DR NO is Barry's arrangement, not Norman's. So far as I know (and I doubt anybody has a rough cut of DR NO in their garage), if there's a version of TJBT in an early version from Norman, it may well sound like I WAS BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN or whatever it was called, but there's nothing to suggest it had any of the seriously memorable snap and pizzazz of the Barry arrangement, which ties back into his own BEAS KNEES piece and others.

Yes of course, but Norman was the writer of the thing at the end of the day. The ensuing legal carry-on was a pity, but whatcha gonna do?

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Yes of course, but Norman was the writer of the thing at the end of the day. The ensuing legal carry-on was a pity, but whatcha gonna do?

That's right. Composing is almost everything. Arranging is secondary. If somebody records an extraordinarily cool version of the 5th symphony, does that discredit Beethoven?

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Yes of course, but Norman was the writer of the thing at the end of the day. The ensuing legal carry-on was a pity, but whatcha gonna do?

That's right. Composing is almost everything. Arranging is secondary. If somebody records an extraordinarily cool version of the 5th symphony, does that discredit Beethoven?

It doesn't discredit Beethoven but his music still gives me the creeps.

Sarai wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Yes of course, but Norman was the writer of the thing at the end of the day. The ensuing legal carry-on was a pity, but whatcha gonna do?

That's right. Composing is almost everything. Arranging is secondary. If somebody records an extraordinarily cool version of the 5th symphony, does that discredit Beethoven?

It doesn't discredit Beethoven but his music still gives me the creeps.