BTW, does anyone have any clue about why the collaboration between John Morris and Mel Brooks ended after SPACEBALLS? (Or did it continue?)

KEN

As to why it ended afterwards, here's what Mel Brooks said in an interview with FSM:

quote:

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It had to do with logistics. I'm getting a little crazier! When I work with a composer, I give him the script in pre-production and I want him with me for five months at my side. John has other commitments. He still is one of the best composers who ever lived. He is an unsung hero.

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quote:

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Mel and I are little estranged. I admire him greatly, but I did 10 movies with him after all. First of all, in terms of the schedule, I am a morning person. He is an evening person. I had an apartment in California and Mel would call up and tell me he's coming over at eight o'clock at night. But, he doesn't come over at eight. He comes over at nine thirty. I had to play things for him and people in the building would want to go to sleep. It just got to be nuts!

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So there you go. Do read the whole John Morris interview, it's quite great.
Part 1, Part 2.

And here's the Mel Brooks one.

And Ken, I do hope you're familiar with Young Frankenstein and The Elephant Man. Two absolutely gorgeous John Morris scores with two themes as beautiful as any ever written.

Kirk

In its original incarnation, The Producers was a comedy about a musical--not itself a musical. Brooks' decision to turn his comedy about a musical into a musical is, I believe, a miscalculation. The songs aren't particularly funny or noteworthy in any way; they give the impression of being bland time-fillers, padding out a 90-minute movie into the requisite 2 1/2 hours for a Broadway show.

Thus in the original film, Max says to Leo, "Do you know who I used to be? Max Bialystock, King of Broadway!" resulting in (of course) the song King of Broadway. Most of the songs in the score seem to have been contrived in this way, ad-hoc improvisations keying off some phrase from the original screenplay. The problem is these songs don't flow organically from the original screenplay, so they don't add anything to it. Precisely the reverse, in fact; they dilute it, reducing what was originally a work of comic genius into something comparatively tepid and bland.

Yes, I am familiar with YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and THE ELEPHANT MAN - and with most of the other excellent Brooks/Morris works, such as THE TWELVE CHAIRS, BLAZING SADDLES, THE SILENT MOVIE, HIGH ANXIETY, TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THE DOCTOR AND THE DEVILS, and SPACEBALLS. I actually put together a CD compilation of the Morris/Brooks collaboration, and now, while planning to update and expand it, I wanted to know why these two great men didn't continue their beautiful musical affair.

Not having heard anything from the stage musical THE PRODUCERS, I shouldn't be saying, but I say it anyway that it was a bit pity that Morris didn't supervise the music. There is a distinct magic touch in Morris' music - even when he's just supervising, arranging and orchestrating the songs by Mel Brooks.

Waiting to hear from someone who has seen/heard the stage musical!! And that is the CD release of THE PRODUCERS movie soundtrack worth of buying? (Otherwise I just transfer the music & dialogue from the movie by myself).