What are the composers who wrote just one score (or just one great/good score) and never returned?

Here are a few I can come up with right now:

Philip Sainton's MOBY DICK. Too bad this was his only shot at a movie.

Peter Schickele composed the wonderful SILENT RUNNING, a superbly scored movie. Sadly, his only film score.

Pat Metheny provided a well written soundscape for John Schlesinger's THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN.

Didn't Andrew Belling write another film score besides the enjoyable music for Ralph Bakshi's WIZARDS? Was it any good?

Leonard Bernstein did ON THE WATERFRONT, got his Academy Award Nomination, and that was it. Wish he'd done more.

Can you come up with some more "One Shots"?

Chareles Koechlin THE JUNGLE BOOK
Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin/David Zinman
(RCA Victor)

But other reasons figure in as well. Take Jerry Goldsmith, whose talent is often wasted on second rate genre fair... well, this guy is known to be a workoholic. He can't be too choosy about his projects, because if you want to do five movies a year, chances are they are not going to be five classics.

Some composers also find it more challenging to score a bad movie. Anyway, I think bad movies can be career breakers for producers, directors and actors, because their status is highly dependent on "public approval", but that's much less true for cinematographers, editors, or composers, who are of interest only to insiders. The people in the position to hire these guys recognize talent even in a bad movie, and the public at large usually remembers the faces that were seen in that bomb, so as an actor you can't have too many of 'em or you're out, but they don't remember who scored it, or who edited it.

Spirit of Mickey, The (1998) (direct to video)

Erotique (1994) (segment "Let's Talk About Love")

Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985)

Dracula's Dog (1978)

Fairy Tales (1978)

Crash! (1977/I)

End of the World (1977)

Wizards (1977)

Summer Without Boys, A (1973) (TV)

Deliver Us from Evil (1973) (TV)

Killing Kind, The (1973)

Peking Remembered (1967)

and finally:

Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving (1999) (direct to video) (music supervisor) (music arranger)

I haven't seen any of these except WIZARDS and DRACULA'S DOG, so cannot comment.

NP: LEVIATHAN (Jerry Goldsmith -- is this his only film? I'm PRETTY sure he did one kind of like it before called ALIEN, that's probably why they would have chosen him for this one)

I thought it was clever of them to bill the actors alphabetically, for the most part, so that you never knew, by billing, quite who was going to get eaten when. (Although not all of the characters even were consumed by the principal beast, some died for peripheral reasons, which I thought was a clever touch. This is really an underrated picture, I think. I didn't say great, I said underrated. Now I want to go rent it, but it's already too late, all the places are closed.)

Miguel Ferrer OWNED that picture, but that's no big surprise. dantoris, have you read any of those comic books he's co-authored with (of all people!) Bill Mumy? I haven't, but it's a curious sideline to his career.

- That's Cindy Pickett (she played Ferris Bueller's mom)

- I like Harry Manfredini's score (didya ever noticed that he isn't talked about AT ALL on this board?)

- I consider this film (and LEVIATHAN) to be guilty pleasures of mine. I saw them back-to-back on the Sci-Fi Channel almost a whole year ago. Though for my money, I gotta go with DEEP RISING, because, unlike the other two films, this one doesn't take itself seriously, and it doesn't even try to.

- Finally, about Miguel Ferrer, I could swear I've heard his voice in a number of trailers, most recently U-571. Does anyone know?

I know Tom Pierson did some arranging work on Altman's next film "A Perfect Couple," but I don't know anything else about him.

I'm rather thinking of those composers that wrote the one or two good scores and then faded back into obscurity. In that list are Craig Safan and Cliff Eidelman and David Shire is a composer that is far too scarce by measure of his talent.

I tried to start a thread about Harry Manfredini a long, long time ago. No responses. Personally, I don't care for his music that much. Usually, his stuff tends to be cheesy, but his Wishmaster score had some nifty moments.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kris Koon:
According to the IMDb, Corigliano has made an appearance on both Ally McBeal and Star Trek: Vogayer. Did anybody catch those episodes?

---

Hahaha!!! That's hilarious! No, no, no, John Corigliano never made appearances on those shows... that was actually an actor by the name of John Cirigliano. Hehehe...

James