2021

December 2021
It’s a Wonderful Life issued by La-La Land Records

Posted on January 10, 2022 by wsherk

La-La Land Records and Paramount Pictures have teamed up to release a remastered CD of music by Dimitri Tiomkin from It’s a Wonderful Life in honor of the film’s 75th anniversary. The 75th anniversary edition is produced by Dan Goldwasser and restored and mastered by … Read More…

Tagged Dimitri Tiomkin, It’s a Wonderful Life, La-La Land Records

November 2021
Gottlieb Wallisch records Dimitri Tiomkin’s Créoles Blues

Posted on December 1, 2021 by wsherk

Pianist Gottlieb Wallisch includes a delightful rendition of the original piano version of Dimitri Tiomkin’s Créoles Blues on the Grand Piano label release, 20th Century Foxtrots, volume 3: Central and Eastern Europe. To show the influence of American jazz on … Read More…

Tagged American jazz, Créoles Blues, Dimitri Tiomkin, Gottlieb Wallisch

October 2021
Dimitri Tiomkin options Jorge Amado’s novel Home is the Sailor

Posted on November 3, 2021 by wsherk

by Warren M. Sherk During the summer of 1965 Dimitri Tiomkin plops down a $2,000 advance, based on a $10,000 option, for the right to film Jorge Amado’s novel Home is the Sailor. At the time, Jorge Amado (1921–2001), a … Read More…

Tagged adapted screenplays, Alfred A. Knopf, Anthony Quinn, Brazilian writers, David Gorton, Dimitri Tiomkin, Elliott Silverstein, Frank Pierson, Harriet de Onis, Home Is the Sailor, Inc., Irwin Margulies, Jorge Amado, Max Bercutt, Tiomkin Musical Enterprises, Warner Bros.

September 2021
Dimitri Tiomkin options Will Henry’s novel and co-produces Mackenna’s Gold, part two

Posted on October 9, 2021 by wsherk

READ Part one: August 2021 Dimitri Tiomkin options Will Henry’s novel and co-produces Mackenna’s Gold A new approach to scoring A composer “who scores a film should be involved in everything about it from the very beginning,” maintains Dimitri Tiomkin to a … Read More…

Tagged A.R. Rahman, Ballad of Jim West, Carl Foreman, CBS television music, Columbia Pictures, Dimitri Tiomkin, Highroad Productions, José Feliciano, Julie Newmar, Larry Stanto, Mackenna's Gold, Old Turkey Buzzard, Ole Turkey Buzzard, Paul Francis Webster, Pupi Hurtado, Quincy Jones, RCA soundtracks, Rick Jarrard, Robert S. Ferguson, Sidney E. Cohn, The Wild, Tiomkin Musical Enterprises, Wild West

August 2021
Dimitri Tiomkin options Will Henry’s novel and co-produces Mackenna’s Gold

Posted on August 28, 2021 by wsherk

by Warren M. Sherk As 1964 draws to a close, Dimitri Tiomkin secures an option from American novelist Will Henry for the motion picture rights to his Western novel, Mackenna’s Gold, published by Random House the year before. With a penchant … Read More…

Tagged adapted screenplays, books into film, Carl Foreman, Chuck [Charles] Braverman, Columbia Pictures, David MacDougall, Dimitri Tiomkin, George Lucas, Gregory Peck, Guy Endore, Harry E. Sokolov, Henry Wilson Allen, Highroad Productions, J. David Wyles, Mackenna's Gold, Old Turkey Buzzard, Ole Turkey Buzzard, Open Road Films Limited, runaway production, Sidney E. Cohn, Super Panavision, Technicolor, Will Henry

July 2021
More letters from Leonid Kinskey to Dimitri and Olivia Tiomkin

Posted on August 15, 2021 by wsherk

Leonid Kinskey, best known for portraying the character Sascha the bartender in the film Casablanca, sent three letters to Dimitri (“Dimochka”) and Olivia Tiomkin in March and April 1977. Similar to the letters previously profiled from 1978, these letters are filled … Read More…

Tagged Academy Awards acceptance speech, Anna Sten, Boris Ingster, Dimitri Tiomkin, Eugene Franke, George Korngold, Gloria Korngold, Leonid Kinskey, Olivia Douglas, The High and the Mighty

June 2021
A musical version of The Trials of Oscar Wilde by Dimitri Tiomkin

Posted on July 1, 2021 by wsherk

by Warren M. Sherk After producing the film and adapting the music for Tchaikovsky, Dimitri Tiomkin is ready for his next project and considers a musical version of the film, The Trials of Oscar Wilde. The Trials of Oscar Wilde … Read More…

Tagged Alan J. Lerner, Dimitri Tiomkin, films adapted to stage musicals, homosexuality, Ken Hughes, LGBTQ, Oscar Wilde, Tchaikovsky, The Trials of Oscar Wilde

May 2021
The Hermitage: Tiomkin’s proposed television spectacular

Posted on June 9, 2021 by wsherk

Dimitri Tiomkin, Red Square, Moscow, Russia, 1966

by Warren Sherk During Dimitri Tiomkin’s decades long friendship with broadcaster Lowell Thomas, one of the more unusual projects he pitched was a television spectacular on the Hermitage Museum in Russia. READ MORE: The Lively Letters of Dimitri Tiomkin and Lowell … Read More…

Tagged B. Yakoviev, Dimitri Tiomkin, filming in the Soviet Union, Gregori Ivanovich Britikoff, Hermitage Museum, Heroes and Hermitage, Jack Gordean, Leonard “Buzz” Blair, Lowell Thomas, Michael Burke, Milton Fruchtman, Norman Felton, Odyssey Productions, State Hermitage Museum, Tchaikovsky, The Hermitage, V. Sofinsky

April 2021
The extra-musical fame of films scored by Dimitri Tiomkin

Posted on April 26, 2021 by wsherk

by Warren M. Sherk When faced with the COVID pandemic and working from home, I decided to attempt to read in its entirety the ten-volume series, “History of the American Cinema.” Nearing the end of that journey it struck me … Read More…

Tagged Dimitri Tiomkin, History of the American Cinema

March 2021
Behind the Photograph: Robert Russell Bennett presents a special award to composer Dimitri Tiomkin

Posted on March 28, 2021 by wsherk

Dimitri Tiomkin with Robert Russell Bennett, 1949

In its heyday from the 1930s through 1960s, the National Association for American Composers and Conductors (NAACC) was devoted to the promotion and performance of American concert hall music. In the mid-1970s—some years after the deaths of both its founder, … Read More…

Tagged Academy Award acceptance speeches, Behind the photograph, Dimitri Tiomkin, NAACC, NACUSA, National Association for American Composers and Conductors, National Association of Composers, President's Favorite Music, Robert Russell Bennett, Sigmund Spaeth, USA

February 2021
Dimitri Tiomkin underscores race conflict, mob violence, and redemption in the 1951 film The Well

Posted on March 1, 2021 by wsherk

By Warren M. Sherk “An exciting movie, filled with drama and tension…” Eleanor Roosevelt “An honest effort and, at times, a powerful result.” Newsweek Dimitri Tiomkin’s music score for The Well, at times tender and lyrical, builds tension and drama … Read More…

Tagged Black History Month, Cardinal Pictures, Clarence Greene, Dimitri Tiomkin, Gwendolyn Laster, Harry M. Popkin, Kathy Fiscus, Leo M. Popkin, Motion Picture Center Studios, Russell Rouse, The Alamo: The Essential Dimitri Tiomkin Film Music Collection, The Well

January 2021
International Film Music Critics honor the re-recording of Tiomkin’s Dial M for Murder score

Posted on January 31, 2021 by wsherk

The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) named the re-recording of Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for Dial M for Murder (1954) as the winner of the “Best Archival Release of an Existing Score – Re-Release or Re-Recording” for a 2020 release. … Read More…

Tagged Dial M for Murder, Dimitri Tiomkin, Douglass Fake, International Film Music Critics Association, William Stromberg