Songs from old movies

Subject: Songs from old movies
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 04:03 PM

Here's a couple of songs from old movies that once caught my imagination. There's an old Randolph Scott movie ( he played Bat Masterson)wherein a female dancehall singer performs a song with the line " You can not remember all the things I can't forget". I think I've quoted that correctly, anyway it was a lovely plaintive song. In a later movie (1958?) Julie London starred in , and sang the titled song, to the movie " Saddle the Wind"; again, I think I was moved by folksy feel of the song.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: musicmick
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 05:17 PM

Nice thread. There was a grand "folk" song in "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea". It was called "A Whale Of A Tale" and it was sung by Kirk Douglas. Another favorite of mine was the theme music for a grade B British detective film called "Meet Mr. Callahan". Les Paul recorded it on the flip side of one of his hits with Mary Ford.
And who can forget "Toora, Loora, Loora" and "Swinging On A Star" from that Bing Crosby/Barry Fitzgerald classic, "Going My Way".
Perhaps, the most embarrassingly bad folksong in a movie was the Dean Martin/Ricky Nelson duet, "Get Along Home, Cindy, Cindy" with Walter Brennan playing backup harmonica. I think the movie was "Rio Bravo" and the only redeeming feature was that John Wayne didn't join in the chorus.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: Helen
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 07:03 PM

I always loved the duet called You're Just In Love between Ethel Merman & Donald O'Connor in Call Me Madam. It really leapt out of the ordinary as far as movie duets go. That is still one of my absolute favourite movies.

Have you checked out the site called All Movie Guide

It, and it's counterpart All Music Guide are excellent movie and music resources on the web.

Helen

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 08:42 PM

Fess Parker as Davy Crockett singing "Farewell To The Mountains". Reminds me - I have a copy of the 45RPM for AllanC.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: TIA
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 10:48 PM

Not such an old movie, but my fav use of a trad song in a feature film was Suo Gan in Empire of the Sun.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 11:17 PM

A newer movie, but Barry Dransfield singing "The Water is Wide" in Mel Gibson/Anothony Hopkins version of Mutiny on the Bounty was great.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:19 AM

In the old black and white movies, and in the old cartoons, there is wonderful stuff that goes by so fast, you can't even begin to figure out what it is or how it goes-- sometimes it's old jugband-type stuff or vaudeville music, I think. Sometimes it's just in the soundtrack and sometimes it will be a band of that time period performing a song within the movie as background or in support of the main character action.

The credits for these older movies appear only at the beginning and are not rerun at the end, so once you hear the song there's no way to check the credits afterwards. (I used to think the movie channel sometimes just didn't run the after-movie credits, but they've explained that the movies just were made that way at that time.) I have often wished there were a way to find some of those old songs. Maybe Masato knows of an online index to published music used in film? Otherwise I guess you'd have to be using TiVo so you could back up and hear it again!

~Susan

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: zanderfish3 (inactive)
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:42 AM

What about 'Moby Dick' several shanty's in it including AL Lloyd
singing 'Blood Red Roses'
Cheers y'all, Dave

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:43 AM

I'll always remember Spencer Tracy singing "Little Fishes" in "Captains Courageous" - accompanied on a Hurdy Gurdy.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: CRANKY YANKEE
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 01:15 PM

"High Noon" sung by Tex Ritter

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: The O'Meara
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 02:31 PM

Unchained Melody - (NOT the righteous bros version) from a very forgettable movie of the same name.

Main theme from The Searchers "What Makes a Man to Wander."

Laurel and Hardy singing "Down on the Farm."

There's so many!

O'Meara

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 05:24 PM

Laurel and Hardy singing "Let me Call You Sweetheart". Thanks, TheO, I had forgotten that. And a warbling young girl singing "I Dreamed I Was Born In A Castle In Spain" in another of their gems.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: Mudlark
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 06:43 PM

A favorite, and one I've sung for many years, is Hoagy Charmichael's Hong Kong Blues, from To Have and to Hold, a Bogart/Bacall chestnut. Hoagy himself is playing it in a seedy waterfront dive, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth...very 40's.

Subject: Lyr Add: THANKS FOR THE MEMORY
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 07:20 PM

I always rather liked this one. Not folksy, but elegant, and I liked the sentiment. Copied from http://www.rosemaryclooney.com/LyricPages/thanksforthememory.html:

THANKS FOR THE MEMORY

(Words and Music by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger.
Introduced in the film "Big Broadcast Of 1938" by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross.
Adopted by Hope as his theme song.)

Thanks for the memory
Of candlelight and wine, castles on the Rhine,
The Parthenon, and moments on the Hudson River Line.
How lovely it was!

Thanks for the memory
Of rainy afternoons, swingy Harlem tunes,
And motor trips, and burning lips, and burning toast and prunes.
How lovely it was!

Many's the time that we feasted,
And many's the time that we fasted.
Oh, well, it was swell while it lasted.
We did have fun and no harm done.

And thanks for the memory
Of sunburns at the shore, nights in Singapore.
You might have been a headache but you never were a bore.
So thank you so much.

Thanks for the memory
Of sentimental verse, nothing in my purse,
And chuckles when the preacher said, "For better or for worse."
How lovely it was!

Thanks for the memory
Of lingerie with lace, pilsner by the case,
And how I jumped the day you trumped my one-and-only ace.
How lovely it was!

We said goodbye with a highball,
Then I got as "high" as a steeple.
But we were intelligent people:
No tears, no fuss. Hooray for us!

So, thanks for the memory.
And strictly entre-nous, darling, how are you?
And how are all the little dreams that never did come true?
Awf'lly glad I met you, cheerio, and toodle-oo,
And thank you so much.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 07:45 PM

Note to Susan/WYSIWYG:

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has soundtrack information for most, but not all, movies. First, use the search box to find the movie you're interested in, for example, The Big Broadcast of 1938. (Alternatively, you can search for a person and then link to the film.)

Then click on "Soundtrack Listing" (under the heading "Fun Stuff" in the left column) and it brings up something like this.

I don't think it's possible to search for songs directly.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: jaze
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 08:28 PM

I always loved when Marilyn Monroe sings "River Of No Return" in the movie of the same name.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 09:43 PM

Tunesmith: IMDb says that the film in which Randolph Scott played Bat Masterson was Trail Street (1947). Unfortunately, IMDb doesn't have a soundtrack listing for this one, but it does say that Stanley Carter and Ben Oakland wrote songs for it.

Also, it says the title song of "Saddle the Wind" was written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston. Another site says the first line of the song is "Sometimes I'd like to saddle the wind and ride."

"Saddle the Wind" is sung by Julie London on 3 albums: "The Magic of Julie London" 1998, "Touch of Class" 1998, and "Rio Bravo & Other Movie and TV Themes" 2000. Julie London also had a role in the movie, so it seems likely that she sang the song on the soundtrack. I transcribed this much from a couple of sound samples:

"...will I be yours? You know I will.
Dearest one, my place in the sun
Is by your side, I know;
So if I could, I'd saddle the wind.
Some starry night, I'll saddle the wind,
And straight to your arms I'll go....

Also, there appear to be a couple of unrelated songs with the same title.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: DonMeixner
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:37 PM

The Sons of The Pioneers in Rio Grande singing:

San Antone
Down Bye The Glenside
(I'll Take You Home Again) Kathleen

I could swear Dick Foran sang an Irish song as well. Ah well, memory is on the way out.

Don

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: TIA
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:44 PM

What's the movie about shipwreck survivors, wherein the theme music is a variation of Waltzing Matilda? It's a vague memory for me (I have lots of those these days), but I remember enjoying it a lot.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: DonMeixner
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:41 PM

Thinking of "On the Beach", Grerory Peck as Capt of a Submarine after an atomic war? They head to Australia because the war was mainly in the northern hemisphere and the radiation would have trouble crossing the equator and tradewinds. Which it eventually does. Great film as I recall. And Waltzing Mathilda was the theme.

Don

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: TIA
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:45 PM

Thanks Don...That's exactly the one.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: cetmst
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 07:50 AM

Destry Rides Again, 1939 version with square dance music and Marlene Dietrich singing "Little Joe" and "See What the Boys in the Backroom Will Have", one of my all-time favorite movies

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: Shelley C
Date: 09 Jul 03 - 05:00 PM

'The Forgotten Man' from 'Goldiggers of 1933'.
There were several more famous songs in this film ('We're in the Money', 'Pettin in the park' etc). But the Forgotten Man song was so powerful. About the soup kitchens and bread lines in the US in the depression. The tune was fantastic also. It was the finale to the film - a fairly unusual way to end a Hollywood musical in those days. To leave you with something thought provoking.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: Cluin
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 02:15 AM

Tom Clancy (of the Clancy Brothers) singing "Johnny's Gone to Hilo" in Swashbuckler.

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: C-flat
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 02:46 AM

From "The Music Man" - "Trouble"
I can't bring to mind who it was who performed this in the film of the sixties but I can still remember being mesmerised as a young boy by the rapid-fire, powerful delivery to the people of River City.
Great stuff!

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: Cluin
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 02:57 AM

Robert Preston, non?

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: fsharpdim7
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 01:01 PM

Watch for Greer Garson and Paul Robeson singing in the first version of Showboat - until Gay leaves 'Nolly, it's my favorite musical.
Bing, Louis and Frank still hold up pretty well in High Society, but maybe not as good as any of the Stan and Ollie duets.
Chris in Chicago

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: C-flat
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 05:27 PM

Thanks Cluin, my memory for names is dreadful!

Subject: RE: Songs from old movies
From: LadyJean
Date: 11 Jul 03 - 12:31 AM

With the debut of "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", someone is bound to bring out the 1930s version of "King Solomon's Mines", which features Paul Robeson as an African prince. He sings several wonderful song, with that wonderful voice. At the end he stops a battle with his singing. If anyone could do it, he could!