John Addison

Sound

March 16, 1920 (78 years)

† December 7, 1998

Chobham, Surrey

Biography

English composer John Addison (1920-1998) lent his sophisticated—one is tempted to call it "erudite"—symphonic style to such notable pictures as Tom Jones, Hitchcock's Torn Curtain (replacing Bernard Herrmann), Sleuth, Swashbuckler, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and A Bridge Too Far. He also wrote the memorable theme to TV's Murder, She Wrote and composed for the stage and concert hall

Filmography

7.5

Murder, She Wrote

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

7.5

Amazing Stories

A truly amazing, fantastical, science fiction, funny and odd, and sometimes scary, sad and endearing anthology series presented by Steven Spielberg with guest appearances by many famous actors, actresses, and directors.

7.7

Centennial

The economic and cultural growth of town of Centennial, Colorado, through the intertwining lives of the brave men and women inhabiting it. Spanning two centuries from the settling of the area in the 1700s, to the late 1970s.

7.5

Nero Wolfe

Nero Wolfe enjoys a life of refined self-indulgence in his comfortable Manhattan brownstone — reading, dining, spending regular hours in his rooftop plant rooms, and only reluctantly involving himself in the detection of crime. Famously sedentary, Wolfe relies on his legman Archie Goodwin to collect the clues and the suspects in any case at hand, while he spars with his live-in chef Fritz Brenner and bickers with his resident orchid nurse Theodore Horstmann. Often assisted by freelance detective Saul Panzer, Wolfe and Archie customarily gather the suspects in Wolfe's office and present the solution to the exasperated Inspector Cramer of Manhattan Homicide.

7.2

A Bridge Too Far

The story of Operation Market Garden—a failed attempt by the allies in the latter stages of WWII to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of poor allied intelligence and the presence of two crack German panzer divisions meant that the final part of this operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine) was doomed to failure.

9.0

Detective

A BBC anthology series featuring adaptations of detective stories over 45 episodes in three seasons that ran from 1964 to 1969. As with many BBC programmes made before the early 1970s, many of its episodes no longer exist. Of the eighteen episodes from the first season only twelve are currently known to exist; likewise six of the sixteen editions from the second run are considered lost, and just one of the final ten survives in the archives.

6.0

Pearl

Miniseries about the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

7.2

The French Atlantic Affair

When the SS Festivale sets sail from New York to France, its 3,000 passengers include Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harold Columbine and 146 members of the Church of the Cosmic Path, led by Father Craig Dunleavy, their charismatic messiah. Seizing control of the ship, Dunleavy demands $70 million in gold, intending to kill everyone onboard once it's paid. Without knowing which passengers are cultists and warned that 12 will die for every hijacker harmed, Columbine and the captain search for a way to save 3,000 lives before Dunleavy makes good on his threat. Based on a novel by screenwriter Ernest Lehman, this mini-series was broadcast over three nights in November 1979.

7.0

Black Beauty

Born free in the American West, Black Beauty is a horse rounded up and brought to Birtwick Stables, where she meets spirited teenager Jo Green. The two forge a bond that carries Beauty through the different chapters, challenges and adventures.

5.1

Ellis Island

Ellis Island is a television miniseries broadcast in three parts in 1984 on the CBS television network. The screenplay was co-written by Fred Mustard Stewart, adapted from his 1983 novel of the same title. The series tells the story of several immigrants from the late 1800s until the early 1910s, trying to achieve the American Dream and arriving on Ellis Island, hoping for a better life. Ellis Island highlighted numerous important events which occurred up to and during World War I, and many of the characters are based on real persons, such as Irving Berlin.

7.7

Sleuth

A man who loves games and theatre invites his wife's lover to meet, setting up a battle of wits with potentially deadly results.

6.6

Torn Curtain

During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution—but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.

7.3

The Phantom of the Opera

Comte Philippe de Chagny discovers Christine Daaé's singing talent at a county fair and sends her to his friend Gérard Carrière, director of the Parisian opera. However, just when she arrives, Carrière is dismissed. His successor, the arrogant Alain Choleti, refuses to allow a woman of low birth perform in his opera, but graciously employs Christine as gadrobiere for his primadonna wife Carlotta, who's installed as first singer. He also battles the Phantom, an unknown figure in the catacombs below, granted privileges by Carrière. Christine becomes the Phantom's protégé, unaware that her being his muse makes him increasingly dangerous.

7.0

The Bastard

Phillipe Charboneau is the illegitimate son of an English duke. When he travels from France to England to claim his inheritance, he incurs the wrath of his father's family and is forced to flee to America, where he becomes involved in the events leading to the American Revolution.

6.4

Dead Man's Folly

During a murder hunt game at a country house, to which Hercule Poirot is invited as an "expert", a real murder occurs.

6.2

The Loved One

Newly arrived in Hollywood from England, Dennis Barlow finds he has to arrange his uncle's interment at the highly-organised and very profitable Whispering Glades funeral parlour. His fancy is caught by one of their cosmeticians, Aimee Thanatogenos. But he has three problems - the strict rules of owner Blessed Reverand Glenworthy, the rivalry of embalmer Mr Joyboy, and the shame of now working himself at The Happy Hunting Ground pets' memorial home.

5.9

Tom Jones

Tom loves Sophie and Sophie loves Tom. But Tom and Sophie are of differering classes. Can they find a way through the mayhem to be true to love?

6.2

The Charge of the Light Brigade

During the Crimean War between Britain and Russia in the 1850s, a British cavalry division, led by the overbearing Lord Cardigan, engages in an infamously reckless strategic debacle against a Russian artillery battery.

6.1

Swashbuckler

A pirate and a hot-tempered noblewoman join forces to protect Jamaica from a tyrant.

5.8

Thirteen at Dinner

Actress Jane Wilkinson wants a divorce, but her husband, Lord Edgware, refuses. She convinces Hercule Poirot to use his famed tact and logic to make her case. Lord Edgware turns up murdered, a well-placed knife wound at the base of his neck. It will take the precise Poirot to sort out the lies from the alibis - and find the criminal before another victim dies.