Douglas Gamley

John Douglas Gamley (13 September 19245 February 1998) was an Australian composer, who worked on orchestral arrangements and on local, British and American films.

Biography

Douglas Gamley was born on 13 September 1924 in Melbourne to John McKenzie Gamley and his wife, Helen "Nellie" (nee Patrick).

One of Gamley's early teachers was Waldemar Seidel in Melbourne. In September 1944 Gamley appeared as a solo pianist with the ABC Symphony Orchestra at the Melbourne Town Hall. In November of that year, as a student at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, he played piano alongside Ann Molan on violin for César Franck's Violin Sonata and Édouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole.

Gamley was particularly influenced by Modest Mussorgsky, creating a full orchestral version of his Pictures at an Exhibition, and adapting his Night on Bald Mountain for his score for the horror feature film Asylum (1972). David Nice reviewed "The Bogatyr (Heroes') Gate at Kiev" from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and felt that "few have gone quite as far as the brilliant Australian-born arranger and film-score composer [Gamley]", and that he provided "a happier meeting" with Mussorgsky's work than that in Asylum.

According to AllMusic's Bruce Elder, Gamley wrote "'stock music' for the BBC library" including for the Doctor Who TV series; he also wrote for the soundtrack of the Disney feature film, Tron (1982).

Gamley died on 5 February 1998 in Highgate, London.

Selected filmography

Fire Down Below (1957) The Admirable Crichton (1957) Another Time, Another Place (1958) Gideon's Day (1958) Death Over My Shoulder (1958)

Beyond This Place (1959) Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959) The Ugly Duckling (1959) The Rough and the Smooth (1959) Foxhole in Cairo (1960) The City of the Dead (1960) The Canadians (1961) Carry On Cruising (1962) The Horror of It All (1963) The Return of Mr. Moto (1965) Spring and Port Wine (1970) And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) Asylum (1972) Tales from the Crypt (1972) And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) The Vault of Horror (1973) From Beyond the Grave (1974) The Beast Must Die (1974) Madhouse (1974) The Land That Time Forgot (1974) The Monster Club (1980)