In a message dated 1/2/03 4:04:15 AM Eastern Standard Time,
Jim writes:
<< One correction. The "dum-de-dum-dum" music was
alleged to have been cribbed not from THE NAKED
CITY,
but from another Hellinger-produced crime film,
THE
KILLERS. Walter Schumann, the composer of the
DRAGNET
theme, was working at Universal at the time THE
KILLERS was being shot, and it was alleged in a
lawsuit that, Schumann, perhaps unconsciously,
had
copied that memorable four-note intro from THE
KILLER's musical theme, "Danger Ahead." From that
point on singles of the DRAGNET theme were sold
under
the title of "Danger Ahead," and the composers of
THE
KILLERS music got a cut.
>>
I really need to let a post "cool" and then reread it for
bonehead mistakes like the above. You are exactly right, Jim.
I know that and can only imagine that my aging brain was
tripped by the fact that Mark Hellinger produced both "The
Killers" and "The Naked City." My apologies. It does provide
me with the opportunity to say that Hellinger's contributions
to film and our subset were powerful. Including the two above
mentioned classics, the former newspaper columnist was
associate producer on "The Roaring Twenties," "They Drive By
Night," "High Sierra" and he also produced "Brute
Force."
Certainly the movie Webb worked on and met the technical
advisors was a greater influence. I've read the excellent
book on "Dragnet" and talked to the writer at our old time
radio club here in DC. Nothing influences the future like a
big money hit. "He Walks By Night" was well received by
critics but "The Naked City" was a mega-hit in 1948. In that
same year, another major movie success was "Call Northside
777" starring Jimmy Stewart that featured a similar
semi-documentary style. So granted the greater impact on Webb
of "Night" I think the popularity of this style of
story-telling as demonstrated by the big hits had to be an
influence on the overall entertainment industry as well as to
some extent on Webb.
My apologies for the music mistake and also for making the
impact of "The Naked City" so specific to "Dragnet."
Richard Moore
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 02 Jan 2003 EST