John Morris

John Morris

Birth : 1926-10-18, Elizabeth, New Jersey, USA

Death : 2018-01-25

History

John Leonard Morris (October 18, 1926 – January 25, 2018) was an American film, television, and Broadway composer, dance arranger, conductor, and trained concert pianist. He collaborated with filmmakers Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Morris (composer), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Profile

John Morris

Movies

Within the Shadow of the Tree: Dark Dreams
The Small One's Father
A little character named The Small One must try and set a spell right that was cast by his adopted father, a powerful wizard, who was once the protector of the land Marimdorph before he died.
Silent Laughter: The Reel Inspirations of 'Silent Movie'
Self
A featurette about Silent Movie's origins, inspirations and development, direct cinematic influences, cast and performances, some gag specifics and cut scenes, Brooks’ directorial style, and a few other tidbits.
Musical Mel: Inventing The Inquisition
Self
Documentary on the making of Mel Brooks' classic comedy "History of the World, Part 1."
The Blackwater Lightship
Original Music Composer
A man in the final stages of AIDS is cared for by his sister and mother and grandmother.
The Making of 'The Producers'
Self
An hour-long making-of featurette which features interviews and anecdotes from the likes of Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, Lee "Ulla" Meredith, assistant director Michael Hertzberg, composer John Morris, choreographer Alan Johnson, production designer Charles Rosen, casting director Alfa-Betty Olsen, among others.
Fools Rush In
Supervising Sound Editor
After a one night stand with Alex, Isabel realizes that she is pregnant and they decide to get married. However, along with the marriage comes compromise of one's own cultural traditions.
Life Stinks
Original Music Composer
A rich businessman makes a bet he can survive on the streets of a rough Los Angeles neighborhood for 30 days completely penniless. During his stay he discovers another side of life and falls in love with a homeless woman.
Our Sons
Original Music Composer
When James admits to his mother that he is gay it strains her liberal attitude. A San Diego businesswoman, Audrey believes she is a modern, open-minded mother, but the news sends her reeling. However, the real shock comes when James asks her to travel to Arkansas and inform his lover's estranged mom, Luanne, that her son has AIDS. As Audrey and Luanne learn to put aside their prejudice toward each other, they soon discover how to share their thoughts, hopes and fears for their sons.
The Last to Go
Music
Tyne Daly plays a woman who sees the dreams of her youth change over a 22-year period as, first, her surgeon husband leaves her for another relationship, and then, her children, on reaching adulthood, go their separate ways. Adapted from the 1988 novel by Rand Richards Cooper.
Stella
Original Music Composer
Barmaid Stella Claire and blueblood Stephen Dallas have very little in common -- except they've fallen in love. When their relationship fails, Stella decides to raise the child they had, Jenny, alone. But Jenny and Stella are far from the perfect mother-daughter pair.
Second Sight
Original Music Composer
Wills is an ex-cop who pairs up with Bobby, a wacky psychic, to form the "Second Sight Detective Agency." Bobby's clairvoyant abilities come in handy during their investigations. When a nun recruits them for a case involving car theft, they suddenly find themselves dealing with the abduction of a prominent cardinal who has a chance of becoming the next pope. Bobby's psychic powers go haywire as they pursue the case.
Johnny Handsome
Sound Editor
A career criminal who has been deformed since birth is given a new face by a kindly doctor and paroled from prison. It appears that he has gone straight, but he is really planning his revenge on the man who killed his mentor and sent him to prison.
D.O.A.
Dialogue Editor
Dexter Cornell, an English Professor becomes embroiled in a series of murders involving people around him. Dexter has good reason to want to find the murderer but hasn't much time. He finds help and comfort from one of his student, Sydney Fuller.
Ironweed
Music
Albany, New York, Halloween, 1938. Francis Phelan and Helen Archer are bums, back in their birth city. She was a singer on the radio, he a major league pitcher. Death surrounds them: she's sick, a pal has cancer, he digs graves at the cemetery and visits the grave of his infant son whom he dropped; visions of his past haunt him, including ghosts of two men he killed. That night, out drinking, Helen tries to sing at a bar. Next day, Fran visits his wife and children and meets a grandson. He could stay, but decides it's not for him. Helen gets their things out of storage and finds a hotel. Amidst their mistakes and dereliction, the film explores their code of fairness and loyalty.
Dirty Dancing
Original Music Composer
Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer—and unexpectedly falling in love.
Spaceballs
Original Music Composer
When the nefarious Dark Helmet hatches a plan to snatch Princess Vespa and steal her planet's air, space-bum-for-hire Lone Starr and his clueless sidekick fly to the rescue. Along the way, they meet Yogurt, who puts Lone Starr wise to the power of "The Schwartz." Can he master it in time to save the day?
Haunted Honeymoon
Original Music Composer
Larry Abbot, speaker in the radio horror shows of Manhattan Mystery Theater wants to marry. For the marriage he takes his fiancée home to the castle where he grew up among his eccentric relatives. His uncle decides that he needs to be cured from a neurotic speech defect and exaggerated bursts of fear: he gives him a shock therapy with palace ghosts.
Clue
Original Music Composer
Clue finds six colorful dinner guests gathered at the mansion of their host, Mr. Boddy -- who turns up dead after his secret is exposed: He was blackmailing all of them. With the killer among them, the guests and Boddy's chatty butler must suss out the culprit before the body count rises.
Johnny Dangerously
Original Music Composer
An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.
The Woman in Red
Original Music Composer
When a happily married family man, who would never consider an affair, meets a beautiful woman in red, he is totally infatuated and desperate to make her acquaintance. However, as he tries out various schemes to sneak out to meet her, he realizes that adultery is not quite as easy as it looks.
To Be or Not to Be
Original Music Composer
A bad Polish actor is just trying to make a living when Poland is invaded by the Germans in World War II. His wife has the habit of entertaining young Polish officers while he's on stage, which is also a source of depression to him. When one of her officers comes back on a Secret Mission, the actor takes charge and comes up with a plan for them to escape.
Yellowbeard
Original Music Composer
For years Yellowbeard had looted the Spanish Main, making men eat their lips and swallow their hearts. Caught and convicted for tax evasion, he's sentenced to 20 years in St. Victim's Prison for the Extremely Naughty. In a scheme to confiscate his fabulous treasure, the Royal Navy allows him to escape and follows him, where saucy tarts, lisping demigods and some awful puns and punishments await.
Table for Five
Original Music Composer
J.P. Tannen (Jon Voight) wants a second chance to be a father to his children ... but someone else has taken his place. Determined not to just be a friendly 'uncle' in their lives, he gets permission from his ex-wife Kathleen (Millie Perkins) and her new husband (Richard Crenna) to take the kids on a Mediterranean cruise. On the journey he comes to realise it's not that easy and, feeling overwhelmed, begins to doubt his abilities until a tragedy back home forces him to become the father he always hoped to be.
Splendor in the Grass
Original Music Composer
Two teenagers, in love in pre-Depression Kansas, cope with parental pressure and the strict sexual mores of the day.
History of the World: Part I
Original Music Composer
An uproarious version of history that proves nothing is sacred – not even the Roman Empire, the French Revolution and the Spanish Inquisition.
The Mating Season
Original Music Composer
They say opposites attract, but could a romance possibly develop between an attorney, successful at work but unlucky in love, and a divorced man whose main interest is birdwatching?
The Elephant Man
Original Music Composer
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.
In God We Tru$t
Music
A naive monk, named Brother Ambrose, is sent by the abbot on a mission to raise $5,000 in order to save their monastery from closing. He goes to Hollywood where he encounters a number of eccentric characters.
Doctor Franken
Music
This variation of the Frankenstein legend, set in a brownstone in present-day Manhattan, has Robert Vaughn as a determined New York surgeon bringing "parts" home from work -- the hospital where he does experimental research -- to painstakingly rebuild the shattered body of an anonymous patient with organs from various donors.
The In-Laws
Music
In preparation for his daughter's wedding, dentist Sheldon Kornpett meets Vince Ricardo, the groom's father. Vince, a manic fellow who claims to be a government agent, then proceeds to drag Sheldon into a series of chases and misadventures from New York to Central America.
High Anxiety
Orchestrator
A psychiatrist with intense acrophobia (fear of heights) goes to work for a mental institution run by doctors who appear to be crazier than their patients, and have secrets that they are willing to commit murder to keep.
High Anxiety
Conductor
A psychiatrist with intense acrophobia (fear of heights) goes to work for a mental institution run by doctors who appear to be crazier than their patients, and have secrets that they are willing to commit murder to keep.
High Anxiety
Original Music Composer
A psychiatrist with intense acrophobia (fear of heights) goes to work for a mental institution run by doctors who appear to be crazier than their patients, and have secrets that they are willing to commit murder to keep.
The World's Greatest Lover
Music
When frustrated movie studio mogul Adolph Zitz announces a talent search for a romantic leading man to rival the great Rudolph Valentino, thousands of hopefuls decend upon Hollywood. Rudy Valentine, a neurotic baker from Milwaukee, knows little about romance or acting. But when his wife leaves him for the real Valentino, Rudy goes to outrageous lengths to win the role of a lifetime and win back the love of his life.
Silent Movie
Original Music Composer
Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them.
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother
Music
After spending decades living in the shadow of his more famous and successful sibling, Consulting Detective Sigerson Holmes (Wilder) is called upon to help solve a crucial case that leads him on a hilarious trail of false identities, stolen documents, secret codes... and exposed backsides.
Young Frankenstein
Conductor
A young neurosurgeon inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback, a pretty lab assistant and the elderly housekeeper. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather was delusional, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind.
Young Frankenstein
Original Music Composer
A young neurosurgeon inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback, a pretty lab assistant and the elderly housekeeper. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather was delusional, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind.
Young Frankenstein
Orchestrator
A young neurosurgeon inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback, a pretty lab assistant and the elderly housekeeper. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather was delusional, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind.
Blazing Saddles
Orchestrator
A town—where everyone seems to be named Johnson—stands in the way of the railroad. In order to grab their land, robber baron Hedley Lamarr sends his henchmen to make life in the town unbearable. After the sheriff is killed, the town demands a new sheriff from the Governor, so Hedley convinces him to send the town the first black sheriff in the west.
Blazing Saddles
Songs
A town—where everyone seems to be named Johnson—stands in the way of the railroad. In order to grab their land, robber baron Hedley Lamarr sends his henchmen to make life in the town unbearable. After the sheriff is killed, the town demands a new sheriff from the Governor, so Hedley convinces him to send the town the first black sheriff in the west.
Blazing Saddles
Original Music Composer
A town—where everyone seems to be named Johnson—stands in the way of the railroad. In order to grab their land, robber baron Hedley Lamarr sends his henchmen to make life in the town unbearable. After the sheriff is killed, the town demands a new sheriff from the Governor, so Hedley convinces him to send the town the first black sheriff in the west.
The Twelve Chairs
Original Music Composer
In 1920s Soviet Russia, a fallen aristocrat, a priest and a con artist search for a treasure of jewels hidden inside one of twelve dining chairs, lost during the revolution.
The Producers
Conductor
Broadway producer, Max Bialystock and his accountant, Leo Bloom plan to make money by charming little old ladies to invest in a production many times over what it will actually cost, and then put on a sure-fire flop, so nobody will ask for their money back – and what can be a more certain flop than a tasteless musical celebrating Hitler.
The Producers
Original Music Composer
Broadway producer, Max Bialystock and his accountant, Leo Bloom plan to make money by charming little old ladies to invest in a production many times over what it will actually cost, and then put on a sure-fire flop, so nobody will ask for their money back – and what can be a more certain flop than a tasteless musical celebrating Hitler.
The New Clue
Compositor
Six guests are anonymously invited to a strange mansion for dinner, but after their host is killed, they must cooperate with the staff to identify the murderer as the bodies pile up.