Alex North
Alex North 1910-1991
Motion picture music lost a legend on the morning of Sunday, September 8, 1991, when composer Alex North succumbed to the illness that had plagued and pained him for several years. Respected as much by his peers as by the generations of film composers and musicians that succeeded him. North is remembered for his music as well as the gentle and kind personality with which he conducted his craft.
Alex North has always been among my favorite composers, so I eagerly looked forward to meeting him for this interview. I had heard that he was a shy, modest and soft-spoken gentleman. In fact Los Angeles Times critic Charles Champlin recently wrote that North is “reticent to a fault”. Now that I’ve met and talked with him I can report all of that is true, yet his lack of pretension and easy manner is refreshing, especially for someone of such talent and experience. Mr. North doesn’t concern himself with filling his social calendar with parties and meetings, which can perhaps partially explain why he hasn’t written many scores over the years (compared to many other film composers). After all, in the film business “contacts” and meeting the “right” people are often necessary facts of life. Yet North doesn’t seem the least bit concerned that he isn’t churning out four or five scores a year.
At the Ghent Film Festival the newly restored version of SPARTACUS was presented and I didn’t want to miss this presentation in old Hollywood style, complete with overture, intermission and end title music. Even if only 10 extra minutes had been restored, the experience was as grand as seeing the “new” LAWRENCE OF ARABIA two years ago. I have lost count, but I must have seen SPARTACUS more than 15 times by now. At the Festival I also saw North’s last film, THE LAST BUTTERFLY, and I was able to interview both Alex’s son, Steven, (who produced THE LAST BUTTERFLY) and his widow, the German-born Annemarie.
I worked very closely with him, I went to see him in his home, we spoke a lot about it and unfortunately he had a temp score, which is always detrimental to a composer. He eventually used it. Well, you know the story of the temp score; he’d been listening to it for 4 years… He seemed interested in what I had done and actually suggested coming to a particular moment in the score… apprehending horror or preceding the moment on the screen instead of hitting it right on the nose. So I assumed that he liked what I had done and was naturally surprised and somewhat shocked at the turn of events.
Behind the Screen
In 1983 I was working as an art director for the studio which did the special effects for THE RIGHT STUFF. Though I was not personally involved in the effects, my knowledge of film music was well known around the studio and director Phil Kaufman, who was frequently coming in for meetings, asked me who I would recommend to do the score. Without hesitation I said, “Alex North! You couldn’t find anyone better!” A few days later he asked me for another suggestion, telling me Alex North wasn’t available and adding that he had also heard that North was difficult to work with. I had no idea what the Hollywood of 1983 thought of Alex North, so I could not disclaim Kaufman’s statement (though I found it hard to believe). Even so, I suggested to him it would be worth any amount of difficulty for a North score. Kaufman, however, had made up his mind – he wanted other suggestions. Well, without Alex North, who was left? Jerry Goldsmith was the only name I could think of, but I wasn’t surprised to learn that Goldsmith was
Album Notes
The following article was originally written to accompany the Label X [Southern Cross] Records release of Alex North’s DRAGONSLAYER soundtrack, now out of print. After the planned booklet did not materialize, this material was subsequently made available to CinemaScore by Mr. Rosar. While the article concerns specifically the musical cues appearing on the Label X recording, it should also be of interest as a more general analysis of this important film score.
Reviews
North was active in the field of popular music and wrote at least one major hit. This background often shows in the film scores with jazzily symphonic inflections. The present music reminded me of another of my 'discoveries': Michel Legrand's The Thomas Crown Affair. There are quite a few stylistic parallels between the two although Legrand's jazz has a Gallic element absent from North's.
After being removed from scoring 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by director Stanley Kubrick, North scored The Devil's Brigade, the moved onto Fisherman. For which, as part of his large scale and complex score, he recycled some of the modernist, pseudo spiritual music he had written for 2001. This he did amid passages of imaginative Hollywood-Goes-Russian post Maurice Jarre's Doctor Zhivago (1965) and playful 1960's Italian colourings not so far removed from Nino Rota's Fellini scores. There is music of religious grandeur, music of thoughtful introspection and low-key suspense, and the material originally intended for 2001. How this works in the film I have no idea – it was certainly wrong for the space odyssey and however bad Kubrick's personal treatment of North was, the director was right to replace it with iconic classical selections – but perhaps it fares better accompanying the near future speculation of Fisherman. In any case, a comparison can now be made between this use of the material and the cues as c
The introduction (by producer Ford A. Thaxton) in the booklet begins with the sentence "Why in the world would a TV production company want to talk about Africa for four hours?" To which one might equally ask, why in the world would a TV production company would want to talk about America for four hours? Is one more interesting than the other? One also wants to suggest that they do actually have TV production companies in Africa… which companies probably spend all day talking about Africa.
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