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Q1 2020

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64 C I N E M O N T A G E J U M P S Sally Boldt: "I always thought of 'Groundhog Day' as a Buddhist parable." P H O T O : C O U R T E S Y S A L L Y B O L D T Tomorrow CONTINUED FROM PAGE 58 who remembered having some reserva- tions while watching the early scenes. "Bill Murray had this kind of sarcastic humor, which is funny, but it went on for a while," she said. "I thought, 'If this is what this movie is, I don't know if you can really sustain this for a whole feature-length movie.' But then, as soon as he repeats the first day, it just became entirely hilarious." Ramis and Herring certainly enjoyed the reaction of their small audience. "They were pleased to see us just crying from laughter," Boldt said, "and later they cut down the front of the movie, and then it played great." Meanwhile, Fenton traveled from London to Hollywood, where he set up shop at a villa at the Sunset Marquis Hotel to begin composing the score. Boldt observed that the process of composing for comedies was distinct from compos- ing for dramas. "In comedies sometimes y o u c a n m a k e a c o m m e n t w i t h t h e genre of the piece of music that you're choosing," Boldt said. "With a drama, you're probably going to have a narrower universe, a narrower kind of wheelhouse that the sound of your score is going to sit within, but in comedies, you can play around with different genres." At the time that Boldt was hired to work on "Groundhog Day," several pieces of music that would become widely as- sociated with the film had already been selected, including the "Pennsylvania Polka" and Sonny and Cher's "I Got You B a b e" ( P h i l's o f t - re p e a te d m o r n i n g wake-up music). The music editor was present, however, for the creation of a county-western song heard in the back- ground when Phil takes up bowling. "It's called 'Take Me Round Again,'" Boldt said. "George wrote that in about five minutes, but it's great. The lyrics play on going around and around, and over and over." Boldt also remembered Fenton having a similar stroke of inspiration for a song to be played over a portion of the opening titles. "He said, 'Well, Harold, I've written this song for the main title,'" she recalled. "Harold said, 'What's it called?' George said, 'Guess.' Harold thought for a second and said, 'Weatherman.' And that's ex- actly what it was." Perhaps one of Boldt's most signifi- cant contributions to the film came when she counseled Ramis to follow his own musical instincts in selecting a song to be heard over the end titles. Although the studio was pressuring the director to use a current or soon-to-be-released pop song, Ramis had his heart set on Nat King Cole's "Almost Like Being In Love." Boldt saw a version of the film that included one of those au-courant pop tunes. "I remember watching that and thinking, 'This has no place here,'" she said. "I called Harold up, which isn't something that I ever really did, and I said, 'I want you to love this movie from the first frame to the very end of the end credits when you see it again a year from now or five years from now or fifteen years from now. Stick by your guns.'" Of course, Boldt can't be sure if her advice was a difference-maker, but, as she put it, "he ended up with the song that he wanted." Although the music editor went on to work with many notable directors — including Paul Mazursky on "Faithful" (1996), John Woo on "Face/Off ' (1997), a n d D av i d O. R u s s e l l o n "A m e r i c a n Hustle" (2013) — Ramis emerged as a stand-out. "Harold just had a lovely presence," Boldt said. "He led quietly. He definitely played to win, for sure, but he was very sane and humane in his approach and in his consideration for the crew. I think I had one night of overtime on 'Groundhog Day.'" S u c h v i r t u e s a r e a t t h e h e a r t o f what makes the film lasting, too. "I do remember at one point he said that he considered himself to be a little bit of a Buddhist," Boldt said. "And I always thought of 'Groundhog Day' as a Bud- dhist parable." ■

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