Who was the man, the Big Kahuna in the field of music for animated cartoons? Well, there were several - Scott Bradley (MGM), Darrell Calker (Walter Lantz Productions/Universal), Leigh Harline at Disney's and the team of Sammy Timberg and Lou Fleischer - but in general, the first name in the "Password" answer is the incomparable Carl W. Stalling (November 10, 1891 - November 29, 1972).
Warner Bros. cartoon-meister elaborates on the greatness of Carl Stalling.
Carl W. Stalling, composer-conductor-arranger extraordinaire with Walt Disney Productions, the Ub Iwerks Studio and Warner Bros. (pre and post Leon Schlesinger), had a way of improving the films' quality wherever he went.
The Skeleton Dance (1929) in particular was innovative and a groundbreaking film by the Disney studio.
Carl Stalling contributed many wonderful scores to the cartoons produced by the studio of ace Disney animator and special effects inventor Ub Iwerks in 1930-1935.
Leon Schlesinger hired Carl to succeed Norman Spencer as the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies music man and the improvement in the cartoons was immediate.
It's a tough call as to which individual Looney Tune or Merrie Melodie features my favorite Carl Stalling soundtrack. In addition to PORKY IN WACKYLAND, PORKY PIG'S FEAT directed by Frank Tashlin and THE GREAT PIGGY BANK ROBBERY directed by Bob Clampett immediately come to mind.
In addition, note that the new Flip The Frog Blu-ray from Thunderbean is officially available. If you don't have it yet, this set is chock full of excellent Carl Stalling scores and animated goodness from the talented likes of Grim Natwick, Berny Wolf, Al Eugster and Shamus Culhane.
Composer, bandleader, performer Danny Elfman is responsible for lots of mind-blowingly great film, cartoon and concert music, including the score for Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas - and the theme song from The Simpsons.
Here, playing the aforementioned theme song from The Simpsons, is Danny Elfman, live at Coachella.
Here, Mr. Elfman and a talented ensemble perform the rousing theme from the first Spider-man feature. It's not literally a tune from the toons, but we'll let that pass, as the TV cartoon Spider-man music wouldn't have been right for a big budget feature.
I can't imagine Danny Elfman coasting by merely rehashing the theme song from the 1967 Spider-man TV cartoon. Mr. Elfman successfully brought Spider-Man into the 21st century with the stirring scores for the Spider-man feature films.
Ranking high among this blogger's all-time favorite soundtracks: the music from the Betty Boop cartoon I Heard, performed beautifully by Don Redman & His Orchestra, which rivaled Louis Armstrong's group (led by Luis Russell), Bennie Moten, Cab Calloway and Fletcher Henderson among the top swing bands of the early 1930's.
The Don Redman Orchestra's music is throughout this excellent Fleischer cartoon, all the way from the opening titles.
Since the last post here featured Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Orchestra, here's the opening - Raymond Scott's Powerhouse and Merrily We Roll Along, the Merrie Melodies theme song - from the ensemble's Live At Pearl's CD, a treasure trove of exciting and expertly performed music from animated cartoons.
Animators John & Faith Hubley are well known for original animation featuring heaping helpings of American jazz. John's stint as director and creative force at UPA to some degree is synonomous with Rooty Toot Toot, an inspired take on "Frankie & Johnny." Animation enthusiast and author Michael Lyons wrote about it at length on the 70th anniversary of its theatrical release last November. Do we like cartoons about sex, obsession and murder trials, punctuated by honey-tonk music and big band jazz? Yes.
Rooty Toot Toot blends UPA's signature "Cartoon Modern" stylization with very expressive and imaginative full animation by the likes of Grim Natwick, Pat Matthews and Art Babbitt. Throughout Rooty Toot Toot, the music, along with the animation and graphic design, is an active character in the court melodrama.
Happily, at least at the moment, a bunch of animated short subjects by John & Faith Hubley have been posted on YouTube on the channel of markus feynman.
This includes a outstanding playlist of John & Faith's films. While they weren't the first to make animated short subjects featuring jazz soundtracks, the Hubleys tackled the task with enthusiasm.
Don't know if there is a Blu-ray collection including both John & Faith's films and those of Emily Hubley, who assisted on her parents' films before going on to create her own animated short subjects and live-action feature films. Such a Blu-ray would be fantastic.
Dizzy Gillespie and Dudley Moore, two all-time favorites here, contributed improvised dialogue for John And Faith Hubley's 1962 film The Hat.
From the MoMa collection, here is John & Faith Hubley's 1958 film The Tender Game, featuring an incredible soundtrack by The Oscar Peterson Trio, with a vocal by someone very familiar to jazz and swing fans. (note: this won't play here - go to YouTube)
The Hubleys and Dizzy Gillespie gently rib the challenges in creating scores for animated TV commercials in A Date With Dizzy. There is something beyond marvelous about seeing ace animators and mighty musicians share the scene.
Guitarist and studio ace Barney Kessel was no stranger to music from animated cartoons. Here's Barney, with Ray Brown and Shelley Manne, playing the Merrie Melodies theme song, The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down.
Hoyt Curtin's theme from The Flintstones may be the single favorite tune fron toons most often covered by jazz musicians.
It would be an understatement to note that "ace of string bass" Ray Brown went for the Flintstones theme in a big way.
Frequently with Ray: his fellow Verve House band compatriots (and ridiculously facile jazz guitar geniuses) Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis.
How many versions of Hoyt Curtin's theme from The Flintstones can we find? MANY more than can be shown in just one post! Here's pianist Monty Alexander, doing right by Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty - and Hoyt Curtin. On board: usual suspects Ray Brown and Herb Ellis!
How do we close this compendium of classic tunes from classic cartoons? With the Rocky & His Friends theme song, played furiously by drummer/bandleader Buddy Rich and his big band.
Chuck Jones elaborates on Carl Stalling's contributions to Warner Brothers cartoons.
Do we have a single favorite musical composition to ever appear in a cartoon? Well, there may be a 25-way tie, but, without a doubt, atop the list would be Raymond Scott's "The Toy Trumpet."
Paramount among the outstanding interpreters of Raymond Scott's mellifluous compositions: Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet.
And, when it comes to cartoon music, we love how Jeff Sanford's band swings The Flintstones theme song!
Then there's Scott Bradley of MGM cartoon fame. We thank "Soundtrack Fred" for the following compilation.
Wish I could have attended this splendid concert of Scott Bradley's music by BBC Proms.
Another group we'd LOVE to see that rocks the Rocky The Flying Squirrel music: San Diego's outstanding Hillcrest Wind Ensemble.
And then there's the great Darrell Calker, prolific composer for both animated cartoons and live-action features.
When Calker's music was not just background, but featured prominently in the cartoons he scored for Walter Lantz and Screen Gems - a la Stalling and Bradley - it could be quite wonderful, 1940's style.
His scores are a driving force in the Lantz Studio's Swing Symphonies and Musical Miniatures.
Calker's scores are especially noteworthy in the Walter Lantz "Cartunes" directed by Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy.
The following Swing Symphony features trombonist, vocalist and frequent Louis Armstrong bandmate Jack Teagarden, who always sounds great.
Speaking yet again of the Cartoon Research website, am right now reading an excellent article about the themes from Paramount cartoons, Famous (Cartoon) Music - prompting this writer to admit his unabashed fondness for the Paramount Noveltoons theme song.
Sometimes, this cartoonologist grudgingly likes the Noveltoons - well, at least through the 1945-1946 season or the departure of gonzo animator Jim Tyer for Terrytoons, whichever came first - but feel the series boasts the second cartooniest of ultra-cartoony opening themes.
One post-1946 Noveltoon with a Winston Sharples score that belongs in the toon music discussion is Hep Cat Symphony (1949). It's a cross between "cat chases mouse" and the "cartoon concert" sub-genre, best exemplified by Disney's The Band Concert and Symphony Hour, Bugs Bunny in Rhapsody Rabbit and Tom & Jerry in The Cat Concerto.
It's an understatement that the very tight production schedules at Famous Studios were less than conducive to good comedy, so Hep Cat Symphony is among those rare cases when talented storymen Carl Meyer and Jack Mercer get an opportunity to break formula and write clever and funny gags.
In closing, here is a delightfully incoherent cartoon from the series featuring the cartooniest opening theme song, bar none: the dreaded Columbia Phantasies. It makes NO SENSE, even by 1940's cartoon standards - and that's why the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog likes it!
While attempting, with some difficulty, to process the recent passings of Sidney Poitier, Peter Bogdanovich and Betty White - a best of the best trio who accomplished numerous great things on and offscreen - we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog pay tribute to stalwart composer of movie and television soundtracks: the one, the only Vic Mizzy, born Vittorio Mizzi in Brooklyn, New York on this day in 1916.
Those of us of a certain age immediately and emphatically link Vic Mizzy (January 9, 1916 – October 17, 2009) with his many catchy, witty and memorable TV show theme songs. First and foremost would be the theme song from The Addams Family.
Almost as beloved as the music from The Addams Family: Vic Mizzy's theme from Green Acres.
Vic Mizzy’s official website adds:
Mizzy broke into television circa 1959, composing music for Shirley Temple's Storybook and the themes for Moment of Fear, Klondike and Kentucky Jones.
Not surprisingly, given his famous themes for Green Acres and The Addams Family, Vic was in demand, creating themes for the 1964–1965 comedy drama Kentucky Jones, Phyllis Diller's series The Pruitts of Southampton, The Double Life of Henry Phyfe, superhero spoof Captain Nice and The Don Rickles Show. Vic Mizzy is frequently erroneously credited for the 1972-1974 sitcom Temperatures Rising; music for that show was by Shorty Rogers.
Vic Mizzy.com adds: He also composed underscores for the television series The Richard Boone Show and Quincy, M.E., as well as for such television films as The Deadly Hunt (1971), Hurricane (1974), Terror on the 40th Floor (1974), The Million Dollar Rip-Off (1976) and The Munsters' Revenge (1981).
There are even PSAs and commercials featuring Mizzy's music.
After success as a composer of the aforementioned incredibly catchy themes for TV shows, Mizzy moved on to feature films. He scored several features produced by William Castle, including the Gothic ghost story The Spirit Is Willing and The Busy Body. Yes, that's right, while primarily associated with such chiller-diller features as House On Haunted Hill, 13 Ghosts and The Tingler, Castle also occasionally produced comedies, more in the vein of James Whale's The Old Dark House than The Bowery Boys Meet The Monsters.
The Busy Body is an offbeat and surprisingly funny vehicle for the gifted comedian from TV's Your Show Of Shows, Sid Caesar, supported by Anne Baxter and uber-villain (mainstay of film noir and westerns) Robert Ryan.
Vic Mizzy's best known work for movies would be his scores for five films starring Steve Allen Show and Andy Griffith Show comedian Don Knotts.
These include The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971).
Our favorite of the group remains The Love God, directed and wriiten by Nat Hiken. While not a box office hit, it holds up well all these decades later, due to the combo of 1960's period flavor and contributions by Knotts and co-stars Anne Francis and Edmond O'Brien. Mizzy's score is terrific.
Amother point of interest is that The Love God, like Knotts' subsequent role in the 1970's sitcom Three's Company, draws from the offscreen Don Knotts - a swingin' wild and crazy guy - as well as his ultra-nerdy onscreen persona. Pop culture vultures (and gluttons for punishment) double bill The Love God? with the flawed but funny Mike "Austin Powers" Myers misfire, a guilty pleasure. The Love Guru.
Prior to composing for movies and TV, Vic was based in New York City and collaborated with lyricists Irving Taylor and Manny Curtis on a series of pop hits for Doris Day, The Andrew Sisters, Bing Crosby, Louis Prima, Dinah Shore and other recording artists.
For more Mizzy, check out this YouTube playlist and the following excerpt from an interview with TelevisionAcademy.com, conducted by Karen Herman in Bel-Air, CA on March 29, 2004.
The Television Academy Foundation Interviews feature much of great interest to readers of this blog and substantial illumination of 20th century pop culture history.
Love many movie genres, from sci-fi to silents to musicals to psychotronica to animation here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, but none more than film noir. After reading a magnificent piece on classical music in animated cartoons (most frequently employed by one Carl W. Stalling) by Vincent Alexander, this blogger turns his attentions to the vivid and expressive music of film noir.
Odds Against Tomorrow, a real and reel masterpiece directed by the master of all genres, Robert Wise, and one of the last but very, very best examples of hard-hitting film noir, features a killer score by John Lewis of The Modern Jazz Quartet.
This is such an amazing and beautifully realized movie we wish that the ridiculously multi-talented Harry Belafonte, who stars as a young entertainer deeply in the throes of a gambling addiction, had continued further as an indie film producer (note: many years later, he produced The Angel Levine, Buck & The Preacher and Beat Street).
Louis Malle's film Elevator To The Gallows features an unbeatable combo: outstanding Miles Davis music, the brilliant acting of Jeanne Moreau and the director's original synthesis of film noir and French New Wave cinema stylings.
Among the hard-boiled American crime thrillers so beloved by the Malles, Chabrols, Truffauts and Jean-Pierre Melvilles of the world, the classic "find the bastard who murdered me" mystery D.O.A. remains a personal favorite.
The "Fisherman" nightclub in D.O.A. looks like the place to be for red hot jazz on a Saturday night. We sincerely hope the audience left generous tips.
As celebrated as Stanley Kubrick's spectacular 1960s and 1970s movies are, it's those early film noirs that may well be my personal favorites among the director's illustrious, provocative and flamboyant cinematic career. His second feature film, Killer's Kiss, shot in NYC, was an indie film made on a portion of a shoestring, but beautifully and strikingly shot and edited. Both the soundtracks and the cinematography in Killer's Kiss and The Killing are memorable.
The Killing = "all this noir - and Sterling Hayden, too."
We extend a respectful tip of the battered fedora to prolific poster Arthur Grant on Vimeo. Mr. Grant has done us the favor of singling out many film noir classics which feature incredible soundtracks. These include the delightfully corrosive Billy Wilder flick Ace in the Hole (sneering snark by Kirk Douglas, music by Hugo Friedhofer), The Big Combo (music by David Raksin, Mise-en-scène by Joseph H. "Gun Crazy" Lewis) and the unabashedly tacky and garish love triangle melodrama Desert Fury, featuring a terrific Miklos Rozsa soundtrack.
Frankly, the film the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog would choose, both for its soundtrack and truly cosmic understanding of the bottomless depths of an ever-spinning noir universe would be the delirious Mickey Spillane adaptation Kiss Me Deadly, directed with apropo fever dream delirium by Robert Aldrich. Aldrich subsequently directed Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, the more sedate of the two movies.
The composer who carried film noir music into the 1960's and extended it into the world of television was the great Henry Mancini. We love us some Mancini here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog!
Closing today's post is this blog's all-time favorite album of re-imagined, lovingly deconstructed and re-constructed movie music, Oranj Symphonette Plays Mancini.
Listening to this outstanding record reminds the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog how much we miss multi-instrumentalist, Oranj Mancinis leader, friend and avid classic movies/animation buff Ralph Carney (1956-2017). Also reminds us how much we loathe, detest and have difficulty accepting these losses. . .
Today, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog is pondering Voltaire’s quote “those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” while also thinking about all-time favorite 20th century recordings, those sounds that got us through many rough spots in life.
First and foremost, there's music from the movies - and an especially outstanding album is a comprehensive retrospective of sprightly LeRoy Shield themes from Hal Roach Studio classics by vintage movie soundtrack champions The Beau Hunks.
The excellent Dutch orchestra devoted years of hard work and study learning the LeRoy Shield themes that enlivened the Our Gang, Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase comedies.
The Beau Hunks mastered the sound and feel of LeRoy Shields' high-spirited music, as well as the early 1930's period flavor.
While this writer, unfortunately, has not seen The Beau Hunks in concert, clips from the orchestra's performances accompanying Laurel & Hardy classics are up on YouTube.
Yes, we are indeed big fans of movie soundtrack music; could easily come up with 50 film soundtrack albums, headed by The Beau Hunks and the late Hal Willner's The Carl Stalling Project.
While we love the music of Dubin & Warren, David Raksin, Bernard Herrmann and Michel Legrand, atop the list of film composers is the one, the only Ennio Morricone (1928-2020). The great composer passed last year at 92 after, both on the silver screen and in concert, creating incredible music for decades.
Luckily, Mr. Morricone maintained good health way beyond the point where most of us are six feet under and was conducting the great orchestras of the world in concerts of his compositions well into his 80's.
So many Morricone albums are top-notch, it is tough to pick just one or two favorites from his lengthy career. The Peace Notes Live In Venice concert is on Blu-ray and DVD - and particularly wonderful.
Could not recommend the Morricone Conducts Morricone CDS and Blu-rays more highly. All the Morricone concerts on YouTube are incredible.
In some respects merely a hop, skip and a jump away from movie soundtracks is that genre prevalent in the late 1960's and early 1970's known as progressive rock or "prog" rock, hated by punk rockers but loved by many.
Am partial to those who explored the orchestral side of rock music, from Brian Wilson and George Martin's arrangements for The Fab 4 to Moody Blues to Yes to ELO to Focus. A favorite group exemplifying this genre is King Crimson. Of Robert Fripp's ensemble's numerous lineups from 1969 to the present, we love the lineup of Tony Levin, Adrian Belew and Bill Bruford and the 1994 double-quartet configuration.
Here's a performance in its entirety of the record that's tied with six or seven other Crimson albums as tops with me: Three Of A Perfect Pair.
Not many albums were recorded at Baltimore's Left Bank Jazz Society, but every one this music aficionado has heard is a beaut. Best of the best? One of the greatest jazz albums ever recorded, The Free Slave, an incredible set led by percussionist Roy Brooks (March 9, 1938 - November 15, 2005).
The Free Slave, recorded live at the Left Bank Jazz Society, on gone but not forgotten Muse Records, ranks high on this writer's short list of favorite jazz albums. Along with Brooks' Live At Town Hall recording, it numbers among the few recorded concerts that fully captures the excitement of live music. While this record remains long out-of-print, used copies can be found on vinyl and CD.
Mr. Brooks, while lesser known in comparison to such drummer-bandleaders as Max Roach, Art Blakey and Buddy Rich, is up there among the greatest percussionists in jazz history. Sadly, he would suffer severe health setbacks in later years.
On The Free Slave, trumpeter Woody Shaw rocks the house, and ace saxophonist from Miles Davis and Elvin Jones’ bands, George Coleman, plays at peak inspiration, while bassist Cecil McBee and pianist Hugh Lawson add just the right sounds to the mix and keep the groove going. The synthesis of soul jazz and Horace Silver style hard bop, delivered at fever pitch, is tough to beat.
This wasn’t the first time Roy played at the legendary Left Bank Jazz Society. He and fellow Horace Silver Quintet bandmate Gene Taylor, with pianist Barry Harris, backed the international star, master tenor saxophonist and swing king Coleman Hawkins.
While for this enthusiast, the aforementioned recordings are just the tip of the iceberg, if money is no object, go ahead, buy ALL the records by The Beau Hunks, King Crimson, Roy Brooks (not to mention Woody Shaw, George Coleman, Horace Silver, Woody Shaw and Coleman Hawkins), every one of them, right now. There's also an 18-CD set of Ennio Morricone soundtracks.
Still in the vise-like grip of Writer's Block and, like SCTV's Bob & Doug McKenzie on Canadian Corner/Great White North, stuck for a topic today, so - WHAMO - the toe-tapping tunes from the toons will be the subject for May 12 of misbegotten 2017!
The notion of writing a piece about "This Blog Loves The Hammond B-3" for an upcoming jazz-related post immediately tripped certain memories, but we're not talking Joey DeFrancesco, Milt Buckner, Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, Shirley Scott or Booker T. Jones here. We're talking made-for-TV cartoons featuring very odd organ music soundtracks. One this blogger always liked was Q.T. Hush.
We will go from the ridiculous to the sublime (although nothing involving the 1990's rock band Sublime) and nothing says sublime quite like the made-for-TV cartoons of Sam Singer Productions. Singer has been termed the Ed Wood of cartoons, but that may be giving him a tad too much credit. His studio's series included Pow Wow The Indian Boy, Courageous Cat, Sinbad, Jr. and the bad-beyond-belief Bucky & Pepito. . . all of which make Magilla Gorilla look like Fantasia.
The cheapest of these bottom-of-the barrel series - well, the cheapest that we know of - would be The Adventures of Paddy The Pelican.
At the same time when the likes of David Raksin, Gail Kubik, Boris Kremenliev and Phil Moore were composing and conducting ambitious original soundtracks for the artsy yet highly entertaining animation by United Productions of America (UPA), these Paddy the Pelican adventures redefine what cheap means: one poor bastard playing an organ in the background.
One case of a television cartoon in which an ultra-minimalistic music track works beautifully is Gene Deitch's Tom Terrific, originally a feature of CBS-TV's popular Captain Kangaroo show.
Less minimalist but extremely gratifying soundtrack music in TV-toons can be found, not surprisingly, in the blazing work of Jay Ward Productions. LOVE that original Rocky & His Friends theme by Dennis Farnon.
We especially have a soft spot for Stan Worth's opening theme from the Super Chicken cartoons.
The theatrical cartoons of the 1940's not made by Disney, Warner Brothers and MGM feature some very odd soundtracks. One of the oddest is in one of the oddest of all cartoons from the oddest of all cartoon studios, Screen Gems, the creepy Halloween opus The Fly In The Ointment, featuring a Leo Gorcey fly and a John Barrymore spider. The latter, voiced by John McLeish, stentorian narrator of Goofy "How-To" cartoons, plays a theater organ with none of The Phantom Of The Opera's formidable ability to terrify.
If asked to name a Screen Gems cartoon that is not so far off-the-rails as to not be entertaining, this blogger might choose the weirdly inspired Sherlock Holmes spoof, The Case Of The Screaming Bishop. While aware the "best bones of all go to Symphony Hall" running gag is a reference to a popular ad campaign of 1944 and makes no sense today, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog DON'T CARE. This Holmes & Watson sendup could only be better if there was a live-action cameo at the end by Louis Armstrong, "the best bones of all see Satchmo at Symphony Hall."
Even better than the wonderfully strange Case Of The Screaming Bishop was the 1942 MGM masterpiece by comic genius Tex Avery, Who Killed Who? Love that cheesy organ track, killer surprise ending and a main character patterned on ubiquitous character actor Fred Kelsey.
On the complete other side of this discussion, Scott Bradley leads the fantastic MGM orchestra in the stirring musical sounds for Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera's Tom & Jerry cartoons of the 1940's and 1950's.
Although this writer's favorite Bradley cartoon backing is for various mindbogglingly brilliant Tex Avery MGM cartoons (Red Hot Riding Hood, Swing Shift Cinderella, The Kingsize Canary), the Tom & Jerry cartoons feature wonderful soundtracks.
Do we love the soundtracks of Carl W. Stalling and the Warner Brothers orchestra? Yes, this blogger admits it - he could be in a 12-step group for "Men Who Love Carl W. Stalling Music From Warner Brothers Cartoons Too Much.
Few could "swing the classics" quite like the Warner Bros. orchestra, conducted by Carl W Stalling and Milt Franklyn.
While Mr. Scott wrote these songs for his "Quintette" and never intended them to be cartoon soundtracks, these unique and original compositions are undeniably and inextricably intertwined with Warner Bros. cartoons.
Now THAT great tune was arguably best showcased in the Bugs Bunny cartoon Gorilla My Dreams, directed by Robert McKimson.
The fella who writes Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, event programmer, scribe and film historian Paul F. Etcheverry, co-founder of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, has been happy to collaborate on several occasions with Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Orchestra.
Finishing this post: this blogger's absolute favorite jazzy cartoon soundtrack, in which the innovative Don Redman Orchestra swings like mad. The creative "rubber-hose" style animation is by the Fleischer Studio, then, in 1933, at the peak of their creative powers.
Well, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog have somehow survived yet another one of those earth trips around the sun, lived to see a few more classic movies and say a reasonably hearty Happy New Year! That means it's January and we anticipate the Noir City 13 festival this month, soon to bring dark tales of doomed souls to San Francisco's spectacular Castro Theatre.
To start getting properly "in training" for the festival, the regimen shall first involve watching these three films that ran back-to-back in the TCM noir night a few weeks ago - only stopping for coffee, Scotch, cheap cigarettes and bathroom breaks.
Then it's time for a trifecta of cool tunes trolling the depths of despair.
And if that simply isn't enough, buy these albums, all distinctively corrosive amalgamations of greasy quarter-notes and naughty nocturnes from deep within the asphalt jungle of film noir music.
