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The Music of Treasure Island
John Huntley
The music for TREASURE ISLAND, produced by Walt Disney at Denham Studios, England, may be divided into two sections. First came the question of sea shanties, to be sung in the film. Under the general supervision of Muir Mathieson, (music director to the production) Mrs. Buck, his personal assistant, conducted a research during which over three hundred sea shanties and old maritime songs were examined before a final selection was submitted to the production chief, Perce Pearce. It was essential that the songs chosen should not only be correct for the period (1765) but also that they should be suitable in lilt and tempo to the scenes involved. Walt Disney himself heard a number of test recordings before the final selection was made. The first of the shanties, "Johnny, Come Down to Hilo" will be heard sung to the accompaniment of a guitar, while "Tom's Gone Down to Hilo" has been recorded by a solo voice, accompanied by a group of pirates humming, and a guitar. The third sea song to be heard in TREASURE ISLAND is not a traditional number as such, but was specially set by Marcus Dods, of Cambridge University; it is the old number "Yo-Ho-Ho, and a Bottle of Rum." The second aspect of the music was looked after by the composer of the main musical score, Clifton Parker. This young English writer has been associated with a large number of films and by a strange coincidence, many of them have been about the sea or adventure stories in which the sea played a large part. One of his first successes was the music for WESTERN APPROACHES, the story of a dozen shipwrecked Merchant Seamen adrift in an open boat in mid-Atlantic during the war. There was JOHNNY FRENCHMAN, which dealt with two rival groups of fisherfolk on either side of the English Channel. Many will remember Clifton Parker's music for THE BLUE LAGOON, with Jean Simmons on a tropical island. Of course, not all his scores have been about the sea. For example, there wasn't a drop of water for miles in BLANCHE FURY(except during the fire sequence!), CHILDREN ON TRIAL or WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS . Clifton Parker is a composer whose views on film music are well-defined. "A composer faces two main problems in films", he will tell you. "Firstly there are moments when he is allowed to have his say, not as in a symphony but rather as in opera or ballet, where the eye and the ear must be equally intrigued. Secondly, there are the sections when the sound track must be divided into its three main ingredients - dialogue, sound effects and music. Here the composer must arrange that the music calls for no strong line of its own, but rather the qualities that make it flow smoothly into the general pattern of the sound track. As we are working in the age of sound film, although our eyes are on the screen, our ears are on the sound track. When the composer has it all his own way, he can command half our attention. When he hasn't, then he's lucky if he has one tenth." "TREASURE ISLAND has proved to be a most interesting task. First of all, there was the little matter of sea shanties. You have heard how one or two are sung in the film. Then came the great point – should they come into the main musical score. In my younger days, I learned quite a lot of them direct from the first mate of one of the old China Tea Clippers. When it came to the final scoring, it was found impossible to use them because they were too recognisably tuneful. They broke through the action and would have claimed too much of the audience's attention. However, there is one scene in which the composer was able to include a sea shanty. It comes in the scene where young Jim Hawkins arrives in Bristol for the first time. Everything is new to him: be sees the busy port, the sea, the ships – and then he sees his first sailor walking down the street with a nautical roll, whistling "Johnny, Come Down to Hilo". Jim promptly imitates the sailor's walk and the music follows him closely as an orchestral echo of the sailor's whistle. There are many interesting musical moments – for example, a wonderful montage in which the Hispaniola sets to sea on the great voyage of adventure, or a furious scene on the beach when the pirates are grovelling in the sand, hunting for the treasure. But perhaps a description of the music for the opening scenes will in itself sum up the detailed approach that the music writer must adopt on a film of this type. The first shots show a deserted cove, silent and still except for the sound of the sea. The music establishes the mood, carrying the sound of the wind appears, and the music makes a transition to a recitative treatment. We see the Smuggler's Inn; Old Captain Bones makes an appearance; there is mystery and drama in the air – but few people will notice the extent to which the mood of the scene has been discreetly launched, not only in the shots themselves, but also in Clifton Parker's music. TREASURE ISLAND.. RKO-Radio, Walt Disney. Technicolor. Bobby Driscoll, Robert Newton, Basil Sydney. Director Byron Haskin. Music, Clifton Parker.

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Title
Source type Magazine
Volume 10.1
Published
Language en
Document type Feature
Media type text
Page count 2
Pages pp. 16-17

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Id 3215
Availability Free
Inserted 2017-04-27