20th Century Fox: Music from the Golden Age *****

Various - Varese Sarabande VSD 5937 - 28 tracks

Review by John Cutts

Talk about Christmas in July--my chance finding of this knockout compilation--knowingly as well as lovingly assembled by Nick Redman--of Fox main titles and themes, had me as flushed and chipper as on any Christmas morn as I can recall. Even when self-bought it's the best of gifts. As rich a potpourri of long-held favorites, drawn (mostly) from the period 1947-1959, with at least two genuine surprises for added delight, as might be wished for. St. Nicholas Redman, indeed. A Santa for all seasons.

Of all the major studios still in existence, Fox ever seems the most guarded and the last forthcoming in appreciating the immense value of their past achievements and endeavors. It's as if there is a corporate mindblock cornering the past. Thanks to cable TV most of us no know every film MGM or Warners made. But the Fox vaults, excerpt for a few titles on license to AMC, remain coyly closed--or is it that the key is rusted in the lock?

At the start of the '90s the Fox video arm made a great to-do about getting organized: a club was formed and member requests were solicited with a promise of a steady stream of reissues to mix with the flow of current titles. But a change in management--one of many--defaulted on all that was promised. Nothing but the more obvious old warhorses made it into circulation with the bulk of their tantalizing catalogue lying there still in yesterday's undisturbed dust.

You might recall a recent FSM letter lamenting on the poor selling performance thus far of David Raksin's fine Forever Amber lately issued CD (another against-the-odds coup); but if today's mainstream audience have never been properly alerted to the likely potential of such material, who can blame them for believing, as many do, that the Fox music department sprang up overnight with the advent of Star Wars.

As some of us with longer memories know, no studio was better run musically than Fox. Alfred Newman's tenure as general music director stretched over three decades and his exacting standards became the stuff of Hollywood musical folklore. The recent renaming of the studio's main recording stage as "The Newman Scoring Stage" is but another acknowledgment of the respect in which he is still held.

No great surprise then, that 10 Newman pieces lead the way here (with main titles from The Razor's Edge, Captain from Castile, Leave Her to Heaven, All About Eve, Song of Bernadette, The Best of Everything and The President's Lady, and extracts from The Seven Year Itch, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and A Man Called Peter, along with his CinemaScope fanfare). Bernard Herrmann (shortly to be accorded his own Fox compilation) follows close with 7 entries (the main titles to Beneath the 12 Mile Reef, Anna and the King of Siam, Prince of Players, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Garden of Evil, plus chunks of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Journey to the Center of the Earth), whilst Jerry Goldsmith clocks in with just 3 tracks: a selection from Patton, the Rio Conchos main title and the seldom-performed The Stripper theme. As to my most repeatedly played tracks (my surprises mentioned earlier)? I'm staggered to say that they come from movies I'd long shunted from memory--i.e., a Cyril Mockridge episode from Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and a Victor Young chunk, "The Cattle" from The Tall Men.

The Mockridge piece is a study in musical ingenuity: a meandering melody that turns richer and more seductive by the moment. Mockridge was a dab hand at this sort of thing (remember his wonderfully infectious credits for Miracle on 34th Street?) and it's a shame he isn't better known and remembered. The Young piece truly beguiles--setting its melody line firmly then running variations of it until it friskly settles into a reprise of the title-song sung earlier by Jane Russell.

There isn't a dull moment on the CD--everything, in its own way, works and counts. One of the Herrmann tracks--"Sunrise" from Journey to the Center of the Earth--might seem less than fresh due to its inclusion on the recent Journey CD reissue; but it's such a taking piece, so thoroughly worthwhile on its own, that you don't feel that it takes up otherwise wanted space. Another likewise, recently available again piece is the "Evening" extract from Friedhofer's Rains of Ranchipur score. Marco Polo did a more fully-rounded issue on this, but the extract here makes for a fascinating contrast. The conductor (Lionel Newman I'd guess, though not credited) takes it at a slightly slower, less showy pace, infusing it with a sense of the near-mystical. A sublime rendering.

The overall sound quality, considering the age and likely condition of the source material, is splendid--with only Captain from Castile sounding in need of a vitamin injection. Incidentally, a word of wonder and admiration at the way composers back then had to cram their musical statements in the tightest of running times. If they got a full two minutes to themselves they jumped for joy at the thought. No back-end credit crawls of 20 minutes or so then. Many of Alfred Newman's full-throated own credit scorings clock in at under two minutes. Leave Her to Heaven, in as satisfying fullness as you could possibly want, comes in under a minute and a half!

With the exception of the accompanying booklet, a meager 8-page affair, and tamely written to boot, this is a CD to cheer for all the way. Now back to the vaults for Music from the Golden Age II.

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