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Alexander Courage's career as a film composer spans nearly four decades since coming out to California after World War II. From that point he began composing and conducting for CBS Radio. In 1948 he joined MGM where he worked for the next twelve years as an orchestrator with Adolph Deutsch and Andre Previn. His feature film credits include TOKYO AFTER DARK, THE LEFT HANDED GUN and THE SUN ALSO RISES. He has also arranged the scores for such motion pictures as DR. DOOLITTLE, GUYS AND DOLLS, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and HELLO, DOLLY. Courage's work in television includes the background scores for such series as LOST IN SPACE, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA and THE WALTONS. His involvement with STAR TREK came about as a result of his friendship with Wilbur Hatch who gave him his start in the business at CBS Radio.
Hatch had become head of music for Desilu when it was purchased by Lucille Ball and he referred Courage to Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry. Courage's music for STAR TREK includes the main title theme, both pilots "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" as well as the episodes "The Man Trap", "the enterprise Incident", "Plato's Stepchildren" and "The Naked Time."
Says Courage: "The score for 'The Naked Time' was composed and orchestrated in five days at Desilu Studios (now part of Paramount Pictures) on August 31st, 1966. On August 19, I had recorded 'The Man Trap' for the STAR TREK series.
The month of August was a 'Star Trek' month for me jammed in between the work I was doing for 'Dr. Doolittle,' at the time the most complicated and expensive musical ever made. In the same year, I was composing for eight different television series, including others at Fox, which was the reason I had to tell Gene Roddenberry I had to leave the series. At the time Star Trek wasn't doing well. Some clairvoyant I!
'The Naked Time' was fun and a challenge to score because of the variety of the story. An insidious disease which releases pent-up emotions of the crew members (significantly Mr. Spock) was a rich vein for composing. Majel Barrett, the future Mrs. Roddenberry, was especially good as the nurse. Mr. Sulu got to indulge in some swordplay and a sentimental Irish ballad is being wailed in the engine room! I must say the remastering by Crescendo is truly excellent. I don't recall the music sounding this good when it was recorded!"
Gerald Fried has enjoyed a prosperous career as a film and television composer with such credits as THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, LOST IN SPACE, ROOTS and many others. In the episode "Shore Leave" an opportunity was presented for Fried to create a myriad of different themes for the many different types of characters presented. Fried creates a rather whimsical tune to mark the appearance of Alice and the White Rabbit, a beautiful flute motif as the love theme for Kirk's old flame, Ruth, and a happy-go-lucky Irish jog to underscore the appearance of Kirk's academy nemesis, Finnigan.
When Dr. McCoy and his love interest, Tonia Barrows discover a medieval princess gown and later, a black knight, Fried uses passages remniscent of old English countrysides and heroic jousts.
Says Fried: "STAR TREK once again astonishes us with yet another bold plunge into not just an unknown area of the possible physical universe, but also into a little-explored area in the minds of us Earthlings. The story for 'Shore Leave' concerns a planet designed by a higher intelligence to provide rest and recreation for weary space travellers by inducing a state of pleasure in each subject. This is accomplished by providing that subject with the simulated reality of their private fantasies. But some of the shown ways of achieving pleasure are not altogether benign.
Yes, there are the traditional images: childlike memories of Alice in Wonderland and the White Rabbit, a first love (for Captain Kirk), the rescuing of a princess in distress, and the acting out of male sexual fantasies. But most interesting is the use of fear in this process of achieving pleasure: a fiercly charging Bengal tiger, low-flying airplanes on lethal strafing runs, a murderous knight in armor, and a taunting college bully.
The pleasure induced in these cases came from the subject's first having to acknowledge the realities of both the jeopardy in which they found themselves and of their own terrors, and then successfully confronting these terrors. Only then was a truly satisfactory level or rest and recreation achieved. My job as composer was to help bring into reality both the various fears, and, then, the resulting delights of having absorbed and mastered them.
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