I love these stimuli to go and rediscover old and half-remembered back issues.

The interview was conducted by Derek Elley, whom many of us will remember as the author of the early King of Kings analysis that never got beyond the death of John the Baptist. (Happily I can report that Ralph Erkelenz's Ben-Hur piece has not suffered the same fate. Part 4, taking us through the chariot race, will appear in the next issue.) Derek Elley was a kind of journalistic comet who blazed brightly in the 1970s in a series of interviews, photographs, essays, and a veryreadable book, The Historical Epic. Then he vanished. At lease he deparated from film music universe, for he remains, I believe, a professional journalist for the U.K. edition of Variety, with particular expertise on Asian cinema.

Our headnote in PMS 27 says: "Omitted here are an introductory note on the composer, a filmography, and the discussion of Julius Caesar. Two photographs of the composer and four film stills are also not reproduced here." I don't recall why we omitted the JC material. It may have been simply for reasons of space. The photographs may have been unremarkable, and in any event, we've never been strong on graphics. There is just a possibility that the omission may have been a matter of diplomacy. Rozsa always displayed a certain ambivalence toward his former "boss," John Green. The famous episode of the JC Overture was obviously a sore spot with MR. But Rozsa was a gentelman, and he usually hesitated before naming names if there was any possibility of giving offense to a living person. I cannot recall at the moment, but it is just possible that we held back the JC material for that reason. For Rozsa's fullest account see the Rudy Behlmer interview conducted for the RCA Classic Film Score album notes and only printed in full last year in The Cue Sheet.

Anyway, we asked for feedback regarding PMS 27: Should we continue to reproduce such previously published material or should we stick to original writing. The response tended to favor the latter course, though as everybody knows, we've made other exceptions in later years.

PMS 27 is still in stock ($6 in North America). It also features James Marshall on Enzo Masetti's Hercules, a letter from one F. Underhill on The Lord of the Rings (Rosenman), and another letter from William Krasnoborski (another vanished "comet" of the 1970s) with some interesting background on the fate of Herbert Stothart's recorded materials.


Last Edited By: John Fitzpatrick Oct 12 08 2:41 PM. Edited 1 times.