Dudley Moore from the movie “Arthur.” 1981. Internet photo. 2023
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.net. Re-post. 2023
I always liked the theme from the movie (1981) Arthur. It is heard during the opening montage and aerial shots of New York City at night. Arthur stars Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli among a gaggle of other stars. It won Best Picture at the Golden Globes.
The song , which won an Oscar for Best Original Song, actually is known by 3 names: “Between the Moon and New York City,” “The Best That You Can Do, ” and “Arthur’s Theme.”
The film was ready to be released, but it needed music for the opening shots of New York City. Carole Bayer Sanger was working on the movie score with Burt Bacharach. Christopher Cross, a pop singer who was to sing the song, got involved and help write part of the piece, and Peter Allen got a credit for the title which Sanger pulled out of an old song file. So, at the Oscars, all 4 received statues from Bette Midler.
Dudley Moore died of a neurologic disorder when he was in his 60’s. Christopher Cross won 5 Grammy’s for his first album. He continues to perform at the age of 71.
CHRISTOPHER CROSS “Arthur’s Theme.”
Arthur is a movie with many funny scenes and quotable lines. I haven’t actually watched it in some time but when you blogged about it – that’s the first line I thought of – one of my favorite. My friends and I used to yell it at each other many times. The expected response is -” My husband has a gun.”
Paul, thank you for posting the song. As I said, I haven’t seem the movie in many years and that was by choice. The whole Dudley Moore story is just so sad. But you have reminded me what a great movie (and song) it was so I am planning to watch it soon.
Also, I just stumbled onto this article about DM’s final years. He was lucky enough to have a friend take care of him in of all places – Plainfield NJ. Here is the link to the story.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3618589/The-last-days-of-Dudley-Moore.html
Don’t you just hate Perry’s wife?!
Editor’s note: Tom. You win the Blogfinger award for the most obscure reference in our history. For this you get no prize, because I had to Google that You-tube video, and you right, that is one nasty termagant. Now you can look up that word, and we will be even!
For the rest of you, go to You Tube and search for “Screaming wife scene from Arthur”
Tom— What explains your recollection?
Found Christopher Cross’s concert tour coming up for 2018-2019 https://www.songkick.com/artists/289343-christopher-cross