A Fish Called Wanda: (John Du Prez) As one of the
few films to have been confirmed by the media to be the cause of "death
by laughter" for an audience member,
A Fish Called Wanda resides
on many lists of critics' funniest movies of all time. It represents the
combined efforts of two legendary British comedians, John Cleese and
Charles Crichton, the former famous for his involvement with Monty
Python and the latter an established director and editor of English
comedies from the 1940's to 1960's before coming out of retirement for
A Fish Called Wanda, his final venture on the big screen. Both
were nominated for Academy Awards (Cleese for just the screenplay,
though he did reportedly direct some of the film as well), and Cleese
also earned a BAFTA for his performance as a stuffy barrister in the
movie. Fellow Monty Python alum Michael Palin stuttered his way to a
BAFTA win himself while Jamie Lee Curtis earned Golden Globe and BAFTA
nominations for playing a seductive con artist. The most recognition was
saved for Kevin Kline, however, who followed his BAFTA nomination by
winning an Academy Award for his memorable supporting role as Curtis'
accomplice in the convoluted crime plot. The heist tale in
A Fish
Called Wanda is only a basic template (or an excuse, one might say)
for the clashing of ridiculous characters in Cleese's story, all four
leads exhibiting personality quirks that make each of their interactions
hysterically funny. After a successful London robbery of precious
diamonds, the American duo betrays their British counterparts and spend
the rest of the film attempting to lure Cleese's character into
divulging where the Brits hid the loot before their arrest. The death of
animals in the movie is grotesquely entertaining, as is the unrestrained
anti-American viewpoints reflected by Cleese's drawing of the
characters. Fallacies of logic are aplenty in the script and often serve
one-liners that, in the case of several of them, have become classics
("You're the vulgarian, you
fuck!"). The ensemble cast reunited
in 1997 for
Fierce Creatures, an attempt to capture the same
undeniable spark with slight alterations to essentially the same
characters, but without the same success.
One of the intangibles of
A Fish Called Wanda is
its completely unheralded and rather short but highly effective score by
English composer and conductor John Du Prez. The film and television
scoring career of Du Prez traces in most assignments back to his
association with Eric Idle and other Monty Python connections, though he
did follow
A Fish Called Wanda with the music for the
Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise and contributed material to Hollywood
as late as in portions of 2006's
The Wild. He is likely best
known for writing music for the "Spamalot" stage musical. The most
intriguing aspect of his career was his name change; he abandoned his
birth name of Trevor Jones in part to help distinguish himself from the
South African-born composer of the same name who rose to stardom in the
1980's and made a fortune in the 1990's. His music for
A Fish Called
Wanda is, on the surface, not much different from the pop/orchestral
blend that you'd expect to hear from any comedy during the 1980's, but
Du Prez was forced to add significantly more intelligence to the mix
because of the need for parody seriousness and source material sprinkled
throughout the film. While the source-like sequences don't sound much
like anything in the rest of the far more contemporary-styled score,
these parody cues are handled quite well by the composer and will, for
many listeners, yield the highlights of the work. Very tight budgets
(only three hours of recording time was afforded with the orchestra) and
a near rejection from studio head Lionel Newman caused Du Prez and
Cleese a fair amount of stress, but the result of the final recording is
impressive given the circumstances. The heart of the score is Du Prez's
love theme for the Cleese and Curtis characters, heard in a wide range
of guises and lending the upbeat, sappy tone to the score's majority.
The performances of the love theme are usually the duty of guitarist
John Williams, whose acoustic tones are timeless compared to the
snazzier light rock renditions of the idea that exist elsewhere. In
"Main Title," you hear both sides of this equation, the guitar with soft
string backing at 1:20 still easily digestible decades later while the
rendition at 2:00 in the same track adds electric guitar, bass,
keyboarding, and percussion that clearly dates the music.
The prettier orchestral and guitar versions of the main
theme for
A Fish Called Wanda continue in "Wanda Meets Archie"
and are joined briefly by piano in "Otto Jealousy." Extended treatment
of the theme in "Wanda Visits Archie at Home," "Wanda Meets Archie at
Flat (1)," and "Wanda Meets Archie at Flat (2)" includes some
exploration of secondary phrases built upon the primary melody.
Together, these cues occupy about ten minutes in the score, highlighted
in between by a somber cello solo variation on the theme (expertly
taking its main descending phrase and shifting it to ultra-melodramatic
rising progressions) in "Archie's Sadness," forty seconds of string
lament far too beautiful for this film but at least making an impact on
screen while practically alone in the mix. Several secondary themes and
instrumental motifs exist throughout
A Fish Called Wanda. Du
Prez's intermingling of their melodies and exchanging of instrumentation
is far more intriguing than one would expect to hear in this context,
exponentially increasing its impact. A forceful identity for the crime
gang's exploits is heard almost immediately, bursting forth at 0:30 into
"Main Title" and occupying almost all of "Robbery." Its ballsy brass
phrases over electric guitars and aggressive drum pads add a touch of
high style to their activities. In both of those aforementioned cues, Du
Prez inserts a magical motif specifically for the diamonds, using
metallic percussion and high strings to whimsically convey their value.
He later admitted that this passage in "Robbery" was modeled after John
Williams' (the composer, not guitarist) fantasy mode of the era. The
diamond and crime themes briefly merge in the latter half of "Robbery,"
and at about 1:25 into that cue, Du Prez's suspense motif is introduced.
This nervous, harp-plucked rhythm in the minor-key with ominous string
layers and occasional wailing guitars in "animal cry" mode is developed
fully in "George Arrested" and is reprised in the more emotionally
suspenseful "Assasination (3)." The prior two attempts by Ken to shoot
the lone witness to the crime (which only succeed in killing her dogs)
are treated to the main crime theme, as are the two chase sequences that
close out the film. Interestingly, "Chase (1)" overlaps the crime theme
with the instrumentation of the love theme, while the suspense motif is
layered over the same crime theme in "Chase (2)," continued complexity
where none really needed to exist.
Kline's famous character, Otto, receives the most
contemporary identity, its funk heard with electric bass and electric
guitar pizzazz in "First Encounter With Otto" before dissolving in
"Empty Safe," answering the love theme in "Otto Jealousy" and using its
instrumentation to appropriately inform the suspense theme in "Archie's
Robbery." Palin's stuttering Ken receives, not surprisingly, a
melancholy theme for all of his unintentional executions of animals,
this lovely oboe identity heard in "Ken's Sadness." Directly connected
to this idea is Du Prez's source piece, "Choir Boy's" (yes, the grammar
mistakes are in the cue titles), a brief performance by exactly what the
title suggests for the funeral scenes involving the dead dogs. The Latin
lyrics do indeed refer to dead dogs. The "Main Title" has something of a
unique melody for London itself, a pompous march with snare introduction
and tolling chimes in heroic fanfare form that foreshadows the score's
sex theme at about 0:25 into the cue. Its distinctly British tone adds
later to the austere sincerity of Cleese's character. By the "End
Title's," however, the score disintegrates unfortunately into a straight
contemporary jazz performance of the love theme, a bright, saxophone-led
expression of coolness that isn't surprising given the period (it was
added late in the post-production process) but a bit disappointing when
considering the intelligent secondary ideas conveyed by Du Prez
throughout the rest of the score. The rambling tribute to the love theme
is joined by orchestra for its midsection and ends on the solo guitar in
satisfying fashion, but it never shakes its dated personality. Special
mention is saved in this review for Du Prez's intentionally Wagnerian
sex theme, heard in only one scene but making such a tremendous impact
on screen that it remains the unquestioned highlight of the score.
Extending out of the fully orchestral pomp of the British motif at the
outset of the score, this remarkably fluid symphonic idea is built upon
operatic glory of the highest order, leaving behind all of the
contemporary elements for an outstanding moment of orchestral bravado.
It accompanies Otto's famous faux-Italian seduction of Wanda and his
outrageous antics before and during sex. How Du Prez wrote this music as
source for the film, however, is the key to its success. In "Sword
Ballet," slightly distant sound mixing introduces the idea to suggest
Otto's fencing practicing while listening to this dramatic music, and Du
Prez reaches his crescendo just as Kline stabs a dummy at 0:40 into the
cue, an important foreshadowing of the orgasm scene soon to come.
In "Humping," the sound quality returns to full, and
the Wagner-like opus is developed gloriously over the next two minutes
in specific coordination with Kline's performance (and the disparate
boring lifestyle of Cleese shown at the same time). As Otto rips off
Wanda's boots and blows into them like horns (or an elephant's trunk),
Du Prez does the same with his brass, unleashing a hilarious
counterpoint sequence at 0:50 in response. Bold ensemble notes accompany
each time Otto bangs a boot off himself before flinging it aside. The
composer matches the key of his music to Otto's wild singing of the 1958
song "Volare" in Italian, using Kline's voice as victorious counterpoint
at 1:46 into the cue. The album releases do not include these vocals,
which is something of a shame given how well the score augments them on
screen. Intrepid amateur music editors might be best served extracting
Kline's vocals and adding them to the remastered album's orchestral
backing. After Otto's ridiculously hyperactive humping motions and
legendary, cross-eyed orgasm abruptly begins (Curtis had to bury her
face into the pillows to keep from laughing while filming), Du Prez at
1:54 repeats the stabbing motif from the preceding cue in blissful
harmony. Indeed, "Humping" is one of the most effective and funny
orchestral film score cues ever written for film, and it alone merits a
search for the rare albums for the
A Fish Called Wanda score. The
identical Milan and Soundscreen commercial CD releases in Britain and
France only (but long available for about $10 on the used market) are
equal in contents but all feature track listings that omit two cues
actually on the product. In 2017, Music Box Records worked with Du Prez
to assemble a complete and impressively re-mixed album of 1,000 copies.
The stereo remastering is noticeably better, and the 13 minutes of
alternate takes feature much of the Otto-related funk that was dropped
or replaced in the final cut. The four demo cues include the love theme
adapted into a song, one of the renditions a highly comedic performance
by Cleese with lyrics about cooking fish. The instrumental "Love Theme"
demo is perhaps the best addition to the whole presentation. An earlier
version of "Front Titles" also makes more obvious use of the Wagnerian
sex theme. That said, a fair amount of the additional material on the
2017 album is redundant, and the Otto-related outtakes may be
inconsequential. Overall, while both albums are solid souvenirs from the
film, the Music Box Records product is a far superior presentation, and
if you love the movie as many do, don't hesitate to seek it out if only
for its famously grandiose "Humping" cue. Definitely don't call it
stupid.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
The inserts of the 1988 albums include notes about the composer and director. Most
online track listings for this score's albums reflect the packaging's erroneous track
names and times. The listing at Filmtracks recreates the misspelled titles but
corrects the ordering and times. The 2017 Music Box album corrects all these mistakes as
well, and its insert contains notes about the film and score.
