The Cuckoo Waltz [SEP] creator
The Cuckoo Waltz
The Cuckoo Waltz was a British television sitcom made by Granada Television for the ITV network between 1975 and 1977 and in 1980, written by Geoffrey Lancashire, produced and directed by Bill Gilmour.
The series, which was set in 1970s and early 1980s Manchester, dealt with the comic complications that ensue when impoverished newly-weds Chris and Fliss Hawthorne (David Roper and Diane Keen) take in lodger Gavin Rumsey (Lewis Collins) to ease their financial problems. Collins left after three series and was replaced
, he heard "The Cuckoo Waltz" playing in the background, and the whimsical music made him even more depressed.
Kurosawa decided to use this same effect in the film, at the low point in the life of Matsunaga, when the character realizes that he was being used all along by the crime boss. Kurosawa had the sound crew find the exact recording of "The Cuckoo Waltz" that he had heard after his father died, and had them play the instrumental beginning of the song repeatedly for the scene in