SONG SPOTTING: The Cotton Club

Most recently screening on CineMax’s MAX HD channel, this epic crime drama, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is centered around the famed Harlem Jazz Club of the 1920’s, The Cotton Club.

The 1984 film features several Jimmy McHugh songs including Exactly Like You and his iconic ‘hot jazz’ barn-burner, Diga Diga Doo.

Jimmy was the club’s first Musical Director a coveted position which he held during the Club’s most celebrated years. Under his musical direction he discovered Duke Ellington and brought the young, novice songwriter Dorothy Fields to the Club to write songs with him.

Richard Gere, Diane Lane and Gregory Hines head up the cast which includes Nicolas Cage, Bob Hoskins, Laurence Fishburne, Maurice Hines and Gwen Verdon.

The film received several Golden Globe © and Academy Award© nominations.

Try to catch The Cotton Club on the tube- you wont be disappointed!

Click to hear:

Duke Ellington & His Orchestra performing

Jimmy McHugh’s Diga Diga Doo

Song Spotting

Film Noir takes a Detour

Jimmy McHugh’s I Can’t Believe That You’re in Love With Me is the theme song of the 1945 film noir Detour.

This is particularly interesting in that McHugh’s upbeat tune greatly contrasts with the film’s sinister tone.

In both it’s style and content, Detour is considered to be one of the darkest film noir ever produced during the classic 1935 to 1955 period. Director Edgar G. Ulmer’s work was heavily influenced by the 1920s German Expressionism Movement.

To quote Chicago Sun-Times Film critic Roger Ebert: ‘No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.’

http://youtu.be/PkJ5XSx7i7c

http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=eBVyA9Dqr00&feature=related

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1005744-detour

Good Things Come In Small Packages

Although it’s only 16 seconds long, people all over the world are familiar with the Universal Pictures Fanfare that opened all of the films released by the studio from the mid-1930s. Whether in theatres or on TV, everyone has heard the triumphant orchestral soundbite which, most notably, trumpeted the start of Universal’s Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman movies.

Jimmy McHugh composed this iconic bit of motion picture history to accompany Universal’s ‘globe and stars’ logo.

The Fanfare was retired in 1946, but has often been revived to open such films as the recent Jack Nicholson remake of The Wolfman, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid starring Steve Martin and director Ron Howard’s fantasy flick, Willow.

http://youtu.be/Aop_7Q3PoW0