This long-awaited study explores the creation of NBC-TV's landmark 1952-53 WWII documentary series, with particular attention to its evocative Rodgers-Bennett score. Victory at Sea, NBC-TV's innovative 1952-53 WWII documentary, was eventually broadcast to more than 100 million viewers worldwide. Its episodes chronicled the war's conflicts while highlighting the US Navy's contributions, NBC having sourced footage from the military, governments, and newsreel agencies of fourteen nations. Victory's special distinction was its music, with each episode's nonstop score recorded by the acclaimed NBC Symphony Orchestra. The music was credited to Richard Rodgers-then at the height of his fame-as composer, and Robert Russell Bennett as arranger and conductor. In fact, Rodgers composed twelve piano themes; Bennett developed these endlessly for orchestra and, in addition, composed many hours of the score outright. Part One chronicles Victory's gestation and production at NBC, its reception, the series' afterlife in syndication and home video, and the score's "Gold Record" sales success on RCA records. Part Two examines each episode in turn, focusing on how the Bennett-scored music pairs with screen action. Every transformation of the much-used Rodgers themes is cited, along with the episodes' musical inter-relationships. The hundreds of musical examples generously sample the score's 111/2 hours of music. NBC's Victory has been neglected by Richard Rodgers's biographers and by film historians. As the series celebrates its 70th anniversary, the Rodgers-Bennett score here finally receives recognition for its artistry and power.
In the fall of 1973, George, his wife, Sue, and their Italian-born two-year-old daughter Anne noticed a bent-over sign that read Gioviano and, on a whim, decided to see what lay at the end of the road. After twenty-eight hairpin turns up the side of a mountain on the flanks of the Apuanian Alps overlooking the Serchio Valley some twenty miles north of the city of Lucca, the Russell family arrived at one of the most charming and unspoiled villages left in Italy. That little adventure would change their lives forever and perhaps even the lives and future of the little hill town itself. from My Tuscan Window chronicles the experiences of the Russell family over the course of thirty-seven years in the little Tuscan hill town of Gioviano.
The men who ventured into the air in the Navy’s first frail aircraft were not only daring—they had vision, persistence, and a nearly unlimited determination to convince the skeptics that their frail kite-like structures could someday possess military value. This is the story of their trials, tragedies, and triumphs. They patched cooling systems with chewing gum, they lived by “crash, repair, and fly again,” but they succeeded in developing this new service into an effective arm of the fleet. Wings for the Fleet, first published in 1966, covers the fascinating details of those pioneering days from 1910 to the entry of the United States into World War I. All of the heroic “early birds” are here with full accounts of their exploits. Admiral van Deurs, himself a naval aviator since the early 1920s, has rendered a significant service by his careful preparation of this well-balanced, thoroughly illustrated historical account, which comes complete with appendixes listing early naval aviators and the planes they flew. Over one hundred photographs were selected from official and private sources to illustrate this book.
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