Tommy Morgan, a harmonica soloist who contributed to hundreds of movie and TV shows including “Roots” and “Dances With Wolves,” died June 23. He was 89.
Morgan played on film soundtracks and record dates going back to the early 1950s. His estimated 7,000 recording sessions, according to statistics on his website, suggest that more people have heard his harmonica work than that of any other player of the instrument.
That’s Morgan’s harmonica on Quincy Jones’ “Sanford and Son” theme, Mike Post’s “Rockford Files” theme and the scores for numerous shows including “Maverick,” “The Waltons,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “China Beach,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Family Guy.”
He played on the Emmy-winning score for “Roots” and its sequel, “Roots: The Next Generations.” And his bass harmonica was the signature sound of Arnold Ziffel, the pig on “Green Acres.”
In addition, Morgan played on dozens of classic films including “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,...
Morgan played on film soundtracks and record dates going back to the early 1950s. His estimated 7,000 recording sessions, according to statistics on his website, suggest that more people have heard his harmonica work than that of any other player of the instrument.
That’s Morgan’s harmonica on Quincy Jones’ “Sanford and Son” theme, Mike Post’s “Rockford Files” theme and the scores for numerous shows including “Maverick,” “The Waltons,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “China Beach,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Family Guy.”
He played on the Emmy-winning score for “Roots” and its sequel, “Roots: The Next Generations.” And his bass harmonica was the signature sound of Arnold Ziffel, the pig on “Green Acres.”
In addition, Morgan played on dozens of classic films including “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,...
- 7/2/2022
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
Alexander Mackendrick’s exhilarating pirate adventure mixes accurate history with a fine story of innocence corrupting the corrupt: Anthony Quinn’s pirate goes soft for a 12 year-old girl, and jeopardizes his highly insecure professional standing. James Coburn is superb as the first mate trying to keep the skullduggery on course with a passel of interfering kids on board. And young Deborah Baxter offers an un-sentimentalized portrait of the ordinary magic of childhood. No Summer Magic this! Region-Free German disc.
A High Wind in Jamaica
Blu-ray Caution This May be Region B only see below
Explosive Media GmbH
1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date July 20, 2018 / Sturm über Jamaika / Available at Amazon.de
11.99 Euros Starring: Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, Deborah Baxter, Dennis Price, Lila Kedrova, Nigel Davenport, Isabel Dean, Kenneth J. Warren, Gert Fröbe, Vivienne Ventura
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe
Art Director: John Hoesli
Film Editor: Derek York
Original Music: Larry Adler
Written by Stanley Mann,...
A High Wind in Jamaica
Blu-ray Caution This May be Region B only see below
Explosive Media GmbH
1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date July 20, 2018 / Sturm über Jamaika / Available at Amazon.de
11.99 Euros Starring: Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, Deborah Baxter, Dennis Price, Lila Kedrova, Nigel Davenport, Isabel Dean, Kenneth J. Warren, Gert Fröbe, Vivienne Ventura
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe
Art Director: John Hoesli
Film Editor: Derek York
Original Music: Larry Adler
Written by Stanley Mann,...
- 8/31/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This month, Kate Bush will release The Other Sides, a stand-alone four-cd set of B sides and rarities, previously available only as part of larger vinyl and CD box sets released last year. One of the highlights is an elegant, sultry cover of the Billie Holiday signature “The Man I Love.”
The arrangement has some echoes of Lady Day’s 1939 Vocalion recording, but Bush makes it her own both vocally and in a classy video, previously unreleased, where she wanders a soundstage among musicians in a cinch-waisted, trench-cut leather jacket,...
The arrangement has some echoes of Lady Day’s 1939 Vocalion recording, but Bush makes it her own both vocally and in a classy video, previously unreleased, where she wanders a soundstage among musicians in a cinch-waisted, trench-cut leather jacket,...
- 3/5/2019
- by Will Hermes
- Rollingstone.com
'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...
- 11/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Director Alexander Mackendrick was unhappy with studio changes to his work, but this unsentimental critical and boxoffice failure remains a compelling adaptation of Richard Hughes' disturbing Lord of the Flies-like novel about hapless pirates undone by their juvenile captives. Harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler's symphonic score is first rate. Note James Coburn's positioning in this trailer as a hot young star-to-be. Look for acclaimed author Martin Amis as the kid who falls from the brothel window.
- 9/25/2015
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
'Cat People' 1942 actress Simone Simon Remembered: Starred in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic (photo: Simone Simon in 'Cat People') Pert, pouty, pretty Simone Simon is best remembered for her starring roles in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie Cat People (1942) and in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938). Long before Brigitte Bardot, Mamie Van Doren, Ann-Margret, and (for a few years) Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm in a film career that spanned a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both sides of the Atlantic – at times, with fatal results. During that period, Simon was featured in nearly 40 movies in France, Italy, Germany, Britain, and Hollywood. Besides Jean Renoir, in her native country she worked for the likes of Jacqueline Audry...
- 2/6/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
From a grumpy Ariel Sharon to a splenetic Tracey Emin, some of the most entertaining, controversial – and cringe-making – encounters from the Guardian's daily features section, G2
Thora Hird
Simon Hattenstone
12 April 1999
She introduces me to Scotty by way of a photograph on her sideboard. "That is the best picture of my husband and my grandson. He was a good man." The picture is taken in Beverly Hills where her daughter, the former child movie star Janette Scott, used to live. "We had 54 years together. It was a wonderful life. And you see, Simon, I was ashamed that I didn't know it was a stroke he'd had. I was getting ready to go to work in the back, and we've got two bedrooms, and I was in one and he was in the other, not because we didn't speak to each other, because my arthritis, well, with all this you wouldn't...
Thora Hird
Simon Hattenstone
12 April 1999
She introduces me to Scotty by way of a photograph on her sideboard. "That is the best picture of my husband and my grandson. He was a good man." The picture is taken in Beverly Hills where her daughter, the former child movie star Janette Scott, used to live. "We had 54 years together. It was a wonderful life. And you see, Simon, I was ashamed that I didn't know it was a stroke he'd had. I was getting ready to go to work in the back, and we've got two bedrooms, and I was in one and he was in the other, not because we didn't speak to each other, because my arthritis, well, with all this you wouldn't...
- 10/17/2012
- by Simon Hattenstone, Emma Brockes, Decca Aitkenhead
- The Guardian - Film News
British agency concluded that actor – described by Us counterparts as 'parlour Bolshevik' – was no security risk
MI5 opened a file on Charlie Chaplin while he was being hounded by J Edgar Hoover's FBI for alleged communist sympathies.
The FBI, which described the star of Modern Times and The Great Dictator as one of "Hollywood's parlour Bolsheviks", asked MI5 for information to help get him banned from the Us. The results, including information gathered through eavesdropping, are contained in an extensive personal MI5 file released on Friday at the National Archives.
"Chaplin has given funds to communist front organisations … He has been involved in paternity and abortion cases," an MI5 liaison officer in Washington warned in October 1952.
MI5 noted that a decade earlier Chaplin had told the Los Angeles branch of the National Council of American Soviet Friendship: "There is a great deal of good in communism. We can use the good and segregate the bad.
MI5 opened a file on Charlie Chaplin while he was being hounded by J Edgar Hoover's FBI for alleged communist sympathies.
The FBI, which described the star of Modern Times and The Great Dictator as one of "Hollywood's parlour Bolsheviks", asked MI5 for information to help get him banned from the Us. The results, including information gathered through eavesdropping, are contained in an extensive personal MI5 file released on Friday at the National Archives.
"Chaplin has given funds to communist front organisations … He has been involved in paternity and abortion cases," an MI5 liaison officer in Washington warned in October 1952.
MI5 noted that a decade earlier Chaplin had told the Los Angeles branch of the National Council of American Soviet Friendship: "There is a great deal of good in communism. We can use the good and segregate the bad.
- 2/17/2012
- by Richard Norton-Taylor
- The Guardian - Film News
British agency concluded that actor – described by Us counterparts as 'parlour Bolshevik' – was no security risk
MI5 opened a file on Charlie Chaplin while he was being hounded by J Edgar Hoover's FBI for alleged communist sympathies.
The FBI, which described the star of Modern Times and The Great Dictator as one of "Hollywood's parlour Bolsheviks", asked MI5 for information to help get him banned from the Us. The results, including information gathered through eavesdropping, are contained in an extensive personal MI5 file released on Friday at the National Archives.
"Chaplin has given funds to communist front organisations … He has been involved in paternity and abortion cases," an MI5 liaison officer in Washington warned in October 1952.
MI5 noted that a decade earlier Chaplin had told the Los Angeles branch of the National Council of American Soviet Friendship: "There is a great deal of good in communism. We can use the good and segregate the bad.
MI5 opened a file on Charlie Chaplin while he was being hounded by J Edgar Hoover's FBI for alleged communist sympathies.
The FBI, which described the star of Modern Times and The Great Dictator as one of "Hollywood's parlour Bolsheviks", asked MI5 for information to help get him banned from the Us. The results, including information gathered through eavesdropping, are contained in an extensive personal MI5 file released on Friday at the National Archives.
"Chaplin has given funds to communist front organisations … He has been involved in paternity and abortion cases," an MI5 liaison officer in Washington warned in October 1952.
MI5 noted that a decade earlier Chaplin had told the Los Angeles branch of the National Council of American Soviet Friendship: "There is a great deal of good in communism. We can use the good and segregate the bad.
- 2/17/2012
- by Richard Norton-Taylor
- The Guardian - Film News
(Alexander Mackendrick, 1965, PG, Eureka!)
Alexander Mackendrick made several of Ealing Studios' finest films (Whisky Galore, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers among them), but only two of his post-Ealing pictures approach greatness. One is the devastating attack on demagogic journalism, Sweet Smell of Success (1957), the other his neglected version of Richard Hughes's 1929 novel, A High Wind in Jamaica, a book that anticipated Lord of the Flies.
Superficially an exciting nautical adventure yarn, the subtle, psychological fable centres on a party of Victorian children, captured by Caribbean pirates on their way to England, who send their accidental captors to the gallows. Its real theme is a continuing preoccupation of Mackendrick's, the idea of innocence as a destructive force rather than a simple virtue, and the children come over as merciless, unaccountable subversives. As the chief pirates, Anthony Quinn and James Coburn head an excellent cast.
Douglas Slocombe...
Alexander Mackendrick made several of Ealing Studios' finest films (Whisky Galore, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers among them), but only two of his post-Ealing pictures approach greatness. One is the devastating attack on demagogic journalism, Sweet Smell of Success (1957), the other his neglected version of Richard Hughes's 1929 novel, A High Wind in Jamaica, a book that anticipated Lord of the Flies.
Superficially an exciting nautical adventure yarn, the subtle, psychological fable centres on a party of Victorian children, captured by Caribbean pirates on their way to England, who send their accidental captors to the gallows. Its real theme is a continuing preoccupation of Mackendrick's, the idea of innocence as a destructive force rather than a simple virtue, and the children come over as merciless, unaccountable subversives. As the chief pirates, Anthony Quinn and James Coburn head an excellent cast.
Douglas Slocombe...
- 8/13/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Director Alexander Mackendrick was unhappy with studio changes to his work, but this unsentimental critical and boxoffice failure remains a compelling adaptation of Richard Hughes' disturbing Lord of the Flies-like novel about hapless pirates undone by their juvenile captives. Harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler's symphonic score is first rate. Note James Coburn's positioning in this trailer as a hot young star-to-be. Look for acclaimed author Martin Amis as the kid who falls from the brothel window.
- 1/20/2011
- Trailers from Hell
American-born singer and actor who spent the war years in Britain
For those people for whom the words Itma, "Big-Hearted Arthur" and Ambrose conjure up fond memories, and the blitz less fond ones, the name of the American-born singer and actor Evelyn Dall, who has died aged 92, might ring a few syncopated bells. Dall spent the war years in Britain, during which time she co-starred with Tommy "It's That Man Again" Handley and Arthur Askey in a few musical-comedy films, and was a featured soloist with Bert Ambrose's dance band, performing at the Holborn Empire and the Mayfair hotel.
Billed as "The Blonde Bombshell", having filched the sobriquet from Jean Harlow, who had died some years before, the petite Dall, who was cute rather than sexy, gave chirpy support to the two cheeky comedians who traded on their radio fame for their lingering appeal. Dall ("doll" when pronounced by...
For those people for whom the words Itma, "Big-Hearted Arthur" and Ambrose conjure up fond memories, and the blitz less fond ones, the name of the American-born singer and actor Evelyn Dall, who has died aged 92, might ring a few syncopated bells. Dall spent the war years in Britain, during which time she co-starred with Tommy "It's That Man Again" Handley and Arthur Askey in a few musical-comedy films, and was a featured soloist with Bert Ambrose's dance band, performing at the Holborn Empire and the Mayfair hotel.
Billed as "The Blonde Bombshell", having filched the sobriquet from Jean Harlow, who had died some years before, the petite Dall, who was cute rather than sexy, gave chirpy support to the two cheeky comedians who traded on their radio fame for their lingering appeal. Dall ("doll" when pronounced by...
- 5/23/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
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