hammerfilm

In the decade of the thirties, it was founded in England, a
small production company and film distribution.

Their name was, Exclusive Film, and its promoters, the
british William Hinds and the Spanish Enrique Carreras.
After the Second World War, with the unavoidable stop,
this resurge again half-filled the fifties, but having changed
their name for the most mythical and well-known in
HAMMER FILMS.

In this new stage of the company, their old founders,
left the management of the same one in their two children's
hands, the famous producers of Hammer, Anthony Hinds
and Michael Carreras.

The rest is already history. The small production
company, would become soon after, in the most legendary
factory in the Gothic horror, revisiting all the previous
myths of the horror, taken place by the Universal Pictures in
the years thirty and forty. All this happened from final of the
fifties, until the beginning of the eighties, when for
imperatives of the own industry, Hammer Film was being
darkened little by little, until its step to television and its
later disappearance toward 1982. Nevertheless, Hammer
Film, it has been personally the only distinguished british
production company for the queen Elizabeth II, for the
repercussion and diffusion of the British cinema in the
entire world.

In spite of the total inclination of Hammer for the Gothic
cinema of horror, the company, took place half-filled the
decade of the sixtis, a series of titles that changed of its
habitual line of production.

The tìtles of this stage was: " SHE ",; directed in 1966 by
Robert Day and played by Ursula Andress. "PREHISTORIC
WOMEN", directed by the own Michael Carreras in 1966,
and played by the Jamaican actress, Martine Beswick, one
of the feminine stars of Hammer that is also present in "ONE
MILLION YEARS, B.C", directed by Don Chaffey in 1966.
This is part of the well-known prehistoric trilogy, completed
with "WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH", directed in
1968 by Val Guest, and finally "CREATURES THE WORLD
FORGOT", directed again by Don Chaffey in 1970.

Surprisingly, except in " SHE ", and PREHISTORIC
WOMEN", fixed composers of the company, as their star-
composer, James Bernard, or some other of the category of
David Whitaker, John Mccabe, Christopher Gunning or
John Hollinsworth that composed all the big titles of
Hammer practically, were remove of this trilogy. The reason
was that the producer associated of Hinds and Carreras,
Aida Young, had a good friendship with the maestro
Nascimbene, and she had also done some films with the
author's music, for what decided to call to Mario so that
charge of the music was taken for "ONE MILLION YEARS,
B.C", and that finally, after the good obtained result and
Aida's satisfaction, made possible that the maestro also
works, in the music of the two following films of dinosaurs.

The first of them is "ONE MILLION YEARS, B.C", a
comic of the prehistory, counted in a completely fictitious
way and without any historical rigor, when mixing the man
with antediluvian creatures, that which, it was historically
erroneous, although being a film of Hammer, neither cared
too much. Lacking almost completely of dialogues, the
skilled photography on location of Wilkie Cooper that used
with great profit the Technicolor and the format 70MM,
would be, together to Mario's score, the two fundamental
supports of the film, as well as the magnificent visual effects
of the great Ray Harryhausen.

Nevertheless, the music of Nascimbene, would be
finally the true narrator of the story, the meaning of the
expression of each one of the characters and its reactions,
elaborating a sound musical archaic, knowingly designed
mixing various technicals.

The composer, it has used in a deliberately fantastic
way, their technical MIXERAMA, name with which
the maestro has baptized to his invention.

The MIXERAMA, is a console able to harbor twelve
magnetic tapes, all them at the same time, being able to
make infinite combinations of the sound. These sounds
have been registered previously in those more than a
thousand tapes that the maestro has in his archives of the
Meridiana Studio Recording. In them, Nascimbene has
registered a great number of different sounds. Firstly, all the
instruments of an orchestra, tenors' voices, sopranos,
baritones, mezzos, all the natural sounds: wind, rain,
automobiles, explosions, etc., and finally, all the notes of
the musical scale.

The possibilities therefore, are truly limitless, being able
to carry out twenty-four different sounds for example at the
same time. Each note, has their own sound, but if three or
four are used at the same time, logically the sound
changes. It is therefore, an alive sound, because contrarily
to the synthesizer, the MIXERAMA works with pure sounds
and human voices.

It has not used in this score, electronic music, for what
the author has wanted that the music is as the own
conception of the film.

In the "main-title", titled by the maestro "cosmic
sequenza", the MIXERAMA has used with sixty seven
effects of sound prerecorded, twelve of them to oneself
time. The composer and their inseparable engineer of
lifelong sound, Gianni Mazzarini, took four days in having
just edited the effects and the music of this sequence.

The impression of the wind, at great speed moving,
manipulated knowingly in the recording, and their potent
and deliberate stereofonic sensation, they get a wonderful
result , propitiated by the magnificent orchestra
combination and Mixerama. This beginning, is maybe the
most complicated point in realization of the whole score,
and in the one that has made a bigger experimentation of
the sound-musical universe.

The used orchestra, with few professors, but of a great
effectiveness, power and sound results, it is formed in their
majority for integral of the Orchestra of the Opera of Rome,
as well as the combined corals that it has used in some
passages of the score.

We could say that the main instrument of the score is a
little the "Rastrophon", a rare name and unusual to describe
what is in fact: the rake that the teacher had for the
arrangement of the garden of his house. This proves in the
first place, Mario's inexhaustible sense of humor, and in
second that the important thing was not the use of
sophisticated instruments, but their desire of creating a
pure and different sound, with the first thing that had by
hand and to take place in all moment, that constant
primitive atmosphere that requires the film in all moment.

The following topics, are characterized by their
atonality, their almost total absence of the melody, but with
an indescribable beauty, in union of the images, equally
beautiful, of the locations of the film, filmed in different
places of the island of Lanzarote. The second of the topics,
"Paessaggio lunare", it describes in their magnitude the
solitude of these places, it stops soon after, to go into in the
sequence of the tribe of hunters, giving death to an animal.
It begins with the sound of an organ, slow and of leisurely
rhythm, to show a primitive percussion later on, with an
almost obsessive and enervating rhythm, using the
rastrophon, united everything it to sounds altered in their
speed, coming from the Mixerama. The absence of
melodies is total and absolute.

In "Tumak incontra Loana", the character of Tumak
(played by John Richardson), warrior and hunter of the
tribe of the mountains, it is expelled with violence of the
territory by their own father, going into later on in an
unknown environment for him, plagued of dinosaurs and
other antediluvian creatures, fruit of the genius of Ray
Harryhausen.

Our character finally arrives to an idyllic place of the
coast, where he will meet to Loana (played by Raquel
Welch) that belongs a little to a tribe more evolved. The
music of this fragment, is majestic and symphonic in its
beginnings, describing all the solitude of the places for
where the central character moves. Brief melody notes
appear, endowed with an almost biblical sense, and that the
authentic Nascimbene-touch constitutes, for their historical
films of the American stage. Subsequently, for the
encounter with Loana, a romantic reason appears, very
slow in this its first exhibition, and that he melts with the
first planes of both characters. For the following topic of the
score "Tumak nel regno dei Biondi", it shows us to the
character, in the daily life of the tribe of fishermen. Their
habitual visual prances with Loana, they have been
captured by the maestro's score, using in a more romantic
way, the notes of the topic of love. "Dances of Dupondi", it
introduces us in the savage it dances ritual of Dupondi
(Martine Beswick). For it has composed it only, an
absolutely brutal rhythm, with the help of leaning very
repetitive percussions almost exclusively in the sound of
the rastrophon, with a final result that would not have been
able to be realler, if for that time, has existed some
rudimentary form of musical expression.

Subsequently," Loana rapita dallo pterodatilo", it is a
new incursion in the topic of love, this more vigorous time,
and endowed with a bigger dramatic load, helped by the
use of big masses corals, on the other hand very used by
the maestro in almost all their works enhancing them in
more measure, although the critic's sectors reproach him
that it has used them in excess.

In this sequence, Loana, it is captured by a gigantic
pteronodom, being able finally to get rid of him falling to
the sea. The dramatic of the images, melts with the
maestro's notes, not reaching bench marks of beauty
equaled in other parts of the score. After all, this is their
favorite court that he still likes of humming vocally when
we speak of the movie.

Lastly, we meet with an extensive compound block for
three topics in long suite that understands the part more
elaborated in sound shades. It opens up with "Tumak saves
Loana", in the one that after getting rid of the pteronodom,
Loana looks for Tumak again, in a variation a lot but
symphonic of the topic of love, accompanied by a powerful
orchestration, abandoning the slowest and romantic
treatment in the previous topic, like in kind of a definitive
vision. It has used the choirs again and has carried out a
bigger melodic use. However, for "Eruzione dei vulcano",
there is using the main topic of the credits again, although
with numerous variations. The employment of the
Mixerama is fundamental in this block, since it has been
the part with more number of sound effects, while the
masses corals, they have put the necessary counterpoint to
the final resulting sound. The musical supervision of the
whole work, ran in charge of one of the mythical names of
the musical department in Hammer; a man that would
deserve a homage to part: Philip Martell.

To difference, "WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE
EARTH", it is a work that differs completely of the previous
one. Directed by Val Guest, one of the directors that more
films carried out for Hammer, "When dinosaurs...", leans
on in a much more symphonic base, with a bigger
development of the melody and he comes closer more, to
the music of the cinema of adventures par excellence. Their
musical vicinity with "The Vikings", it is more than
notorious, if we also keep in mind that both main titles,
begin with identical notes.

Contrarily, it loses the musical primitivism and the
sound experimentation of the previous film, although it is
another great score, different but equally interesting. A
much bigger orchestra has used in professors, and there is
constructed some topics of great narrative effectiveness and
sound possibilities. He leans on almost completely in the
"main-titles", main support on which has developed the
entirety of the score. " Main-theme ", by way of overture,
opens up with the same notes of "The Vikings"", helped of
a numerous section of wind and strong percussions and
brass, by way of fanfare. The section of strings takes
possession little by little of the melody it stops soon after, "
main-titles ", suggests a vision different from the previous
topic, although this time only played by the choirs. The
orchestra, won't enter until the end of the same one, taking
advantage of the highest registration in the voices, to cause
an authentic and majestic explosion of all the sections,
perfectly orchestrated and conducted. Finally, it was this
last topic, the elect to accompany the credit titles, being
discarded the overture of the final assembly and that it is
only possible to listen in the recording of the Fanfare label.

This magnificent overture, by way of prelude of
longitude varies, suggests the action and subsequent
scenes. Nascimbene reinforces the rhetorical development
of the topics, expressed its turbulent genius in vehement
contrast and it enlarges them in long coda until the final
apotheosis, synthesis of the previously developed topics.

The third of them are "Storm over the sea", scene in
which Sanna, main character of the film and played by the
Rumanian Victoria Vetri, escapes from their tribe rushing
to the sea, fair when it will be sacrificed in the sun. Amid a
great storm, it is rescued on board a primitive craft by
Tarak (Robin Hawdon). In him, Mario Nascimbene has
looked like the storm musically in the sea, helped of
powerful sections of wind and brass instruments, taking
place with it, sounds that represent with great accuracy the
storm, and that it concludes with brief notes of the topic of
love in the first encounter of both characters. All this was
enhanced with a percussion in fortissimo and a fleeting
and new variation of the "main-titles".

In opposition, "Sanna escapes and meets the little
dinosaur", already begins with the same percussion used in
"ONE MILLION YEARS, BC", while the notes go taking an
infantile character to present us to the small dinosaur that
constitutes the best visual creation in the film little by little
and that it is an old pupil's of Harryhausen work, the
exciting Jim Danforth.

For "Love scene", it has used the violin almost
exclusively like main instrument, being able to snatch him
registrations of an incomparable beauty. As counterpoint,
the flute, melting with the violin in serene passages and of a
deep romanticism.

Later on, it returns to the action music in " Pursuit ", for
which has appealed to the percussion in their beginning,
with some brief and fleeting chords of the instruments of
wind. A constant of the score, they are the orchestra's brief
appearances in the entirety of their formation that the
composer has dosed to only show it in the most important
topics.

"Funeral", one of the best themes in the score
constitutes, since without a single instrument, it is able to
reach the peak of the work only using masses corals "a
capella", exempt of all musical accompaniment. This
different and on purpose slow exhibition of the main-title,
acquires the absolutely sacred tone that require the images
of the film in that moment, the funeral one of one of the
members of the coast tribe, died by a ptriceratops.

The results are so satisfactory that evokes in certain
moments another funeral one particularly achieved of the
maestro, that of the film "THE VIKINGS", although contrary
to this, here only being served as the human voice.

" Cataclism ", relates the natural catastrophe that puts
an end to the movie, musically in this occasion a gigantic
seaquake, and that the same as in the other films, was
always a good reason to put into practice the knowledge of
the responsible for visual effects. Nascimbene, it has solved
the sequence using all the sound force of the orchestral
formation, with a rolling musical power. It uses
percussions in fortissimo, brass and a section of wind
tremendously protagonistic.

In sum, the "End-title", supposes the summary and final
summary of this whole magnificent work. It begins with the
choirs without any instrumental, the same as Funeral
accompaniment, but to difference, here it has wrapped up
them with an entire orchestral explosion in their final part,
like a definitive vision of the main-theme, and that it
supposes the fastener of gold to a clearly perfect and
balanced score, and although it is quite difficult of selecting
one among all the big works of Nascimbene, this continues
looking like each other the best in their works.

In "WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH", the
maestro has not used in any moment his procedure
MIXERAMA, and it has followed the purest symphonic
outlines. Identical form of proceeding, although with more
unfortunate results, it's the used in "CREATURES THE
WORLD FORGOT", also directed by Don Chaffey and
produced by Aida Young and Michael Carreras in 1970
again for Hammer Film.

In this their third work for a film of previous identical
characteristics of both, Nascimbene did show their fatigue
for a topic that it had already developed thoroughly.
Another film of dinosaurs, could no longer have anything
new that to count musically, and Nascimbene was limited to
repeat a musical passage that had not been used in the final
assembly of "SOLOMON AND SHEBA." On this topic, it has
structured the whole work, only making slight variations on
him, and that it is a precedent in a way of very similar work,
as the one used by John Williams in "Accidental Tourist."

It has been in definitive the less imaginative score of the
prehistoric trilogy, where it has appealed in occasions to
the dodecafonism and the melodic segmentation, with
completely atonal and obsessively repetitive topics. The
context is definitely monotonous, but nevertheless it has
returned a little to the primitivism of "ONE MILLION
YEARS, B.C", although the final results, are notoriously
inferior.

The score opens up with " Dawn ", an atonal and slow
topic until the exasperation, where you grieve notes of a
melody they shine and for the one that uses a limited
orchestra, instruments of wind, brass and some
percussionists of the Opera Orchestra of Rome.
Subsequently, the main-theme, only supposes an
inperceptible variation of " Dawn ", provided of a different,
excessively marked rhythm and in very short compasses.
The orchestra's composition continues being limited. In "
Defeat ", it varies slightly on the main-theme again, what
seems already the author's deliberate intent to maintain a
constant and indifferent line that nevertheless, it is in
consequence with the scarce rhythm of the film, very below
the other ones two previous.

In "Eruption of the volnano", the score aims intention of
wanting to evolve, but after a brief and fleeting orchestral
vigor, it previously already returns to the topics developed.

For "Wild dances", it has created an identical topic to
the one used in Dance of Dupondi of "ONE MILLION
YEARS, B.C", with percussions for those that it has
appealed again to the rastrophon. " Quiet ", begins
something new and different, although soon after it returns
to the main-theme, this time played by an violin solo, with
few hopes of introducing new comments of the followed
formula until that moment.

Later on " Duel ", the sequence of the fight between two
tribes, begins with the main-theme, with the single
innovation of an effect distorsionante and of a slight
tension, created by the brass instruments. Harmonic
distortion, propitiated by the winds, and strong
percussions, is the dynamics of " Pursuit " that on the other
hand continues without contributing anything new to the
general context.

The last three courts, "Life on the tribe"; "Fight among
brothers"; " End-titles ", comes to be the same example,
where Nascimbene has made an effort lightly in relation to
the rest of the score, assembling minimumly the orchestra's
sections and endowing to the group of a bigger brightness;
abandoning for some moments, the languid and tortuous
tone of the whole work.

The film in question, didn't achieve in consonance to
obtain the commercial success of its precedents, since well
began to happen in fashion and that the cinema type that
the public demanded, was centered in goods very different
to this, in agreement with the decade than it had finished.
The central characters were interpreted by the scandinavian
actress Julie Ege, another present actress in numerous titles
of Hammer, and for Tony Bonner. The musical supervision
was again carried out by Phillip Martell.

Rafael Martinez, 2002.