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Some critics have said the best thing about the new movie version of Mission: Impossible is the famous original theme music, a staccato tune for which composer Schifrin won two Grammy awards. TV themes--like those from Mannix and Medical Center--have been just one outlet for Schifrin; his works also include symphonies, operas and jazz compositions. A native of Argentina, he was brought to America in 1960 by Dizzy Gillespie to serve as his pianist and arranger. A Hollywood contract for The Cincinnati Kid followed in 1964, the first of countless film scores. Schifrin continues to adhere to a daily practice and composing schedule. Next week he releases a new album, Firebird: Jazz Meets the Symphony No. 3, featuring a new version of the Impossible theme. He is also writing an opera for Placido Domingo and composing a foreign-film score. Says Schifrin of his enduring success: "My career in the U.S. started at the top and had nowhere to go but downhill. Maybe it was a mixture of luck and determination."
43 YEARS AGO IN TIME
"Third-Dementia"
In the summer of 1953, the big movie special-effect sensation was 3-D: "At Paramount...[out] went twelve days of production on Sangaree, a costume epic starring Fernando Lamas, and the whole thing was shot again in 3-D...'Whaddya mean [the audience] won't wear glasses?' demanded Producer Bill Thomas. 'They'll wear toilet seats around their necks if you give 'em what they want to see!'...At Warners, Brother Jack [rushed] production on a [3-D] remake of that ancient horror about murder in a wax museum [with] the only director on the lot who cannot properly perceive depth: one-eyed Andre de Toth. [Said De Toth]: 'Beethoven couldn't hear music either, could he?'" --June 8, 1953