He was (is?) a Chilean-born composer, mainly typed for horror movies, at which he was fairly expert (I particularly like his work on CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE, and GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE is a VASTLY underrated movie with wonderful performances by William Smith and Michael Pataki -- written by David Chase, now famous for creating and writing THE SOPRANOS.)

Available filmography (which comprises everything I know about him) follows (culled from the IMDb, hence it begins with the last movie first and works backwards

1. Mausoleum (1983/I)
2. Psycho from Texas (1981)
3. Evictors, The (1979)
4. Vampire Hookers (1979)
5. Grayeagle (1978)
6. Boys in Company C, The (1978)
7. Death Force (1978)
8. Jailbait Babysitter (1978)
9. Norseman, The (1978)
10. Shadow of Chikara, The (1978)
11. Creature from Black Lake (1976)
12. Town That Dreaded Sundown, The (1976)
13. Winds of Autumn, The (1976)
14. Mysteries from Beyond the Earth (1975)
15. Bootleggers (1974)
16. House on Skull Mountain, The (1974) (songs)
17. Grave of the Vampire (1972)
18. Legend of Boggy Creek, The (1972)
19. Brotherhood of Satan (1971)
20. Hard Road, The (1970)
21. Wild Scene, The (1970)
22. Witchmaker, The (1969)
23. Fever Heat (1967)
24. Hostage, The (1967)
25. Black Klansman, The (1966)
27. Ballad of a Gunfighter (1964)
28. Handle with Care (1964)
29. Fallguy (1962)
30. Grass Eater, The (1961)

Sorry I've gone so far off your topic H, ol pal.

tim

The first time I became aware of his name was when I saw THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK at a jammed-packed theatre back in its original theatrical release. It's been a while since I last saw it, but I recall the score as being rather effective considering the rock bottom budget of the film that the music was in.

I happened to pick up a soundtrack in the cutout bins to a picture called THE SAVAGE WILD on AIR (American-International Records) and was very surprised at what a lovely and charming score that this basically forgotten little outdoors/nature picture had. Earl E. Smith, who also did THE SHADOW OF CHIKARA and worked on BOGGY CREEK wrote and directed this obscure film. Had this picture been better know and Mendoza-Nava's score better distributed, I think that M-N would be a quite well know film composer now.

Of the several other films scored by M-N that I have heard, I would also recommend THE HOSTAGE (very effective), THE BOYS OF COMPANY C (one of the more underrated Vietnam War pictures to have come out right after the War), THE EVICTORS (erratic, but with inspired and creepy moments, and last, but not least, the very effective BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN. BOTHERHOOD is one of the unsung horror classics of the '70s, great atmosphere, terrific tension and a pretty, yet creepy and unsettling score by M-N.

Probably the weirdest score in M-N filmography is GREYEAGLE. Large chunks of this imitation of Ford's THE SEARCHERS have actually been tracked by Mendoza-Nava himself (who only composed a few moments of music in the film) with Les Baxter's GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS score, originally written for large orchestra and chorus and performed by The New Philharmonia of London with Muir Mathieson conducting, written in a very modern idiom. Baxter didn't find out about GREYEAGLE until years later.

When I first saw this film in 1980, the effect was not unlike how an audience might have reacted if HIGH NOON had been rescored with some of the more dissonant passages of Alex North's SPARTACUS. It was really quite a surreal experience.

Never saw GRAYEAGLE, but sounds interesting. BLACK LAKE has its share of sappy moments, but also a couple that I thought were genuinely terrifying; there was always the sense that the Creature RULED the territory, and it's something that the residents had to learn to live with. Objectively this makes no sense at all (move to the next county, for God's sake!), but it grabbed me as a kid.

Ey, Timster, that's the same William Smith from RICH MAN, POOR MAN (for which he received his one Emmy nomination). I think he's an awesome actor -- not just a remarkable PRESENCE, but a genuinely fine PERFORMER -- who's never quite gotten his due.

He has a couple of fan pages (I've been alarmed to discover how many even more forgotten actors also have home pages) which can be found through the links at www.moviedatabase.com (look up Smith and follow the links).

For a more comprehensive biography in Spanish that appeared in the Bolivian press, see:
http://www.lostiempos.com/noticias/17-06-05/tragaluz.php

The foregoing Spanish obituary, like many others in the US and overseas, mistakenly states that Mendoza-Nava was survived by only four children, whereas, in fact, he was survived by five children, as the first cited webpage biography prepared by his family confirms.

Mendoza-Nava was, indeed, a brilliant composer and a Bolivian cultural icon whose colorful piano works are still regularly performed by another stellar Bolivian musical talent, the virtuoso pianist Grace Rodríguez Radic. Furthermore, Mendoza-Nava's father, Vicente Mendoza López was an attorney, university professor, former Mayor of La Paz in 1928, former Bolivian Minister of Finance in 1938 and distinguished Bolivian diplomat whose 1924 collection of legal materials, "El litoral de Bolivia ante el derecho internacional" was prepared under the auspices of the League of Nations in support of Bolivia's claim to the coastal land seized by Chile in the so-called Pacific War (1879-1884).

Thus, for many reasons musical and political I felt that Mr. Rocco's originally mistaken reference to Mendoza-Nava as a "Chilean-born composer" and Mr. Scofield's oddly self-assured, but nonetheless erroneous affirmation that "Mendoza-Nava is indeed Chilean by birth" had to be corrected for the record. Jaime-Mendoza Nava was born in Bolivia, not Chile, and, despite having worked for most of his adult life as a permanent resident in the US, he proudly remained a Bolivian national until his death in 2005.