FROM MEXICO TO HOLLYWOOD TO DISNEY HALL,
THIS PROGRAM OF FILM SCORES ENTHRALLED
With John Williams’s name attached to the program that played last weekend at Disney Hall, I knew had to attend. From Mexico to Hollywood: Golden Age Cinema contained some of the most memorable scores from the best films of Mexico’s Época de Oro del Cine Mexicano, roughly from 1936 to 1956, and Hollywood’s Golden Age from about the 1930s through the 1960s. Co-curated by Williams and conductor Gustavo Dudamel, the phenomanal program is part of LA Phil’s multi-year John Williams Spotlight series (Star Wars in Concert plays next beginning Nov. 21, 2024), which features his and others’ scores in themed concert programs. Dudamel credits him as an inspiration, and Williams — in his ninth decade with six decades of film scoring (over 100!) — has been closely affiliated with the orchestra through many programs of his iconic film scores.
First, I will shamefacedly admit that this is the first time I’ve seen Dudamel conduct live. The beloved music director of the LA Phil exceeded all expectations with his enthusiasm and the amazing sound he extracted from his players. As many know, he’s sadly departing for New York in 2026, so do catch him while you can.
An exceptionally informative Upbeat Live pre-concert discussion by conductor/composer Professor Geoffrey Pope pointed to a “shared musical ancestry,” between the two countries’ movie music. Both were heavily influenced by 2th-century European composers, a number of whom emigrated and worked in Hollywood, and the commingling of classical, Latin, indigenous and folk sounds in the Mexican movie scores.
Not every musical piece was accompanied by film but when they were shown together, the essential nature of music to the art of film came to vibrant life. The program was narrated onstage by Robert Rodriguez, whose 1992 debut film, El Mariachi, was made with only $7,000 and became a commercial success, grossing $2.5 million. He went on to make Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
The opening film montage, projected to an excerpt from “Suite Mexico 1910” by Manuel Esperón — who wrote 500 film scores and lived to be 100 — consisted of a pastiche of traditional genres, ballads, military marches and fanfares written to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Mexican independence and the 100th anniversary of the day the Mexican Revolution began.
Perhaps one of Mexico’s most revered composers, the tragically short-lived but prolific Silvestre Revueltas, was featured next with his scores for La noche de los Mayas and Redes, two distinctly different films showcasing his stylistic breadth.
In La noche de los Mayas, a contemporary man discovers an indigenous tribe living the way their Mayan ancestors did. As the excerpt played without film to accompany it, I could easily conjure him slowly making his way through a jungle landscape, climbing up a hill to the sight of the group dancing in a ritualistic circle. I don’t actually know if that’s what takes place but it is what the music allowed me imagine.
The clip from the revolutionary film Redes (translated as “nets”) takes us into the ocean for a scene acclaimed as the best example of Mexican modernist realism, representing the struggle of poor fisherman to overcome exploitation. The audience rides the waves to the sound of plucked strings as they slap oars in the water, the pace and volume of the music increasing as they drop their net in a circle to round up their catch. The trumpets sound during a closeup of the netted fish, then the music slows to match the shots of the men’s tightening muscles in their effort to grip a rope, pulling the boat to shore. They triumphantly toss the fish into another boat, and the music swells to a grand finale.
Shifting to a more romantic mood, a trio of female mariachis joined the orchestra for a look at clips featuring Emilio “El Indio” Fernandez, the star of many Mexican melodramas. In the clip from Enamorada, Dudamel had to match the changing tempos of the mariachi ballad on screen, aided by the mariachi guitarists onstage, live with the orchestra, without a click track.
The Genre of La Commedia Ranchera was represented by a film clip from Dos tipos de cuidado (Two Guys to be Afraid Of). Two former friends, now enemies, challenge each other to a sing-off at the the wedding of one to the other’s ex-girlfriend, featuring two of Mexico’s biggest stars of the era, Jorge Negrete and Pedro Infante. Esperón’s score shows how widely his grasp of movie composition ranged from one film genre to another.
Spanish-born surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel made a number of films in Mexico. The film El, scored by Luis Hernández Bretón, captures the maddened-mind of an abusive husband consumed with jealousy of his wife. The clip and the music were disquieting and dissonant, with increasingly blaring sounds and an ever-growing sense of hysteria.
Finally, one of Mexico’s most beloved performers, Mario Moreno, known as Cantinflas, carries the truly hilarious scene in the movie El Bolero de Raquel, featuring Maurice Ravel’s famous Bolero (remember the movie 10?). He’s been hired at a night club as a shoe shiner (in Mexico known as boleros), and accidentally stumbling onto the stage, he joins a beautiful, slinky dancer performing a very sexy version of the Ravel piece. That man had some serious moves, from snaky to twerky and everything in between. The music gets louder, the dance gets hotter, and the bolero gets fired for screwing up the show.
The second half of the program was pure joy for anyone who’s a fan of classic Hollywood movies, opening with a film montage of some of the greatest of all time. It was introduced by the orchestra playing John Williams’s own arrangement of “Hooray for Hollywood,” in which you can hear snippets of other show biz tunes, “Another Opening, Another Show,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and more. It was dazzling paired with the beautiful collection of recognizable images of actors and iconic movie scenes.
Miklós Rózsa may credited with the creation of film noir music. His score for Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity was hated by the studio’s music director, but was overruled by the studio’s chief, who loved it. There was no film clip but the music was so evocative we didn’t need to see it. It begins with lush romantic strings, as if we’re headed into a field of flowers and woodlands. A light flute trills, the clarinetist repeats the phrase, then the basses enter and it’s a bit more staccato. When the French horns come in there’s a dark turn, moving into musically ominous territory, and with drama building it momentarily moves back to the more romantic flow, until the horns and trombones take on a more threatening sound for the finale.
The perfect antidote to that drama is Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, in one of the most poetic, amorous and beloved scenes, the ballet sequence from An American in Paris with that unforgettable score by George Gershwin. Hot-red and golden-yellow gowns swirl, keyboard and percussion combine, and the infamous taxi cab horns honk, the jazz-inspired trumpet solo, it’s all pure romance and grace, until it appears it was just a dream, ending as Kelly discovers a single red rose on the ground, and the camera fades to black around him.
A beautifully edited tribute to Bette Davis’s many film appearances was then on the screen in front of Disney Hall’s massive organ, and Max Steiner’s all-embracing score for Now Voyager, arranged by Williams, earned a standing ovation for violinist Bing Wang, who brought the poignancy of the music to a quiet crescendo. The score has eight primary themes, the most recognizable being “It Can’t Be Wrong”, with lyrics by Kim Gannon, which remained on the popular music charts for an amazing nineteen weeks.
With “The Suite from Dr. Zhivago,” adapted by Eddie Karam, no film was needed to evoke the clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages over snow-swept vistas, the domed buildings of Moscow recalling the handsome visage of Omar Sharif and the fur-wrapped beauty of a young Julie Christie. As the six-minute excerpt from Maurice Jarre’s Academy and Grammy Award-winning score was played, I couldn’t help but sing the lyrics to the leitmotif “Lara’s Theme” in my head.
A heart-rending tribute to James Dean provided a montage of clips from Giant, East of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause. He died tragically young; his pained and triumphant expressions and intensely penetratingly blue eyes were matched by an excerpt from Leonard Rosenman’s epic score to East of Eden. Dean was award two posthumous Oscars for both this film and Giant. Who knows what greatness he might have achieved had he not been killed in a car crash.
The program would’ve ended perfectly with its tribute to Steiner’s amazing score playing under film clips of one Hollywood’s most memorable movies, Casablanca. It’s proof positive that music exponentially lifts the emotional impact of any movie scene, especially the ending to this one (“We’ll always have Paris” ’¦ sigh!). Steiner had to work with a song (he didn’t like) that had already been written and built his leitmotifs into the scoring, including the Nazi’s “Deutschland Uber Alles” and France’s national anthem “La Marseillaise” woven around and elevating elements of “As Time Goes By.” A swelling of musical sorrow mixed with patriotic heroism brings the film to its conclusion.
But there were two rousing encores, one a montage of clips from some seriously scary, nightmare inducing Mexican horror movies, especially with the special arrangement of excerpts from a number of different Mexican horror film scores. And the big bang finale, Leonard Bernstein’s rhythmic “Mambo” from West Side Story, included Dudamel pointing his baton at the audience to yell “Mambo” in all the right places. A rousing standing ovation closed the show.
Any time I get a chance to go back for a program like this, I’ll be the first in line. Did someone say, Star Wars?