2.00PM FILM:
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Marvellous Powell & Pressburger film made in the early part of the Second World War as a propaganda piece. The story of a stranded U-boat crew attempting to escape from Canada to a then neutral United States features powerful performances from Laurence Olivier, Eric Portman, Anton Walbrook, Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey.
Vaughan Williams’ score, both haunting and majestic, is an atmospheric match for the Canadian landscape.
Vaughan Williams on composing for films
I am only a novice at this art of film music and some of my more practised colleagues assure me that when I have had all their exerience my youthful exuberance will disappear, and I shall look upon film composing not as an art but as a business. At present I still feel a morning blush which has not yet paled into the light of common day. I still believe that the film contains potentialities for the combination of all the arts such as Wagner never dreamt of.
I would therefore urge those distinguished musicians who have entered into the world of the cinema—Bax, Bliss, Walton, Benjamin and others—to realise their responsibility in helping to take the film out of the realm of hackwork and make it a subject worthy of a real composer.
From ‘Composing for the Films’ The R.C.M. Magazine (1945).