A Guide for the Married Man CD

Now Available! Previously Unreleased JOHN WILLIAMS Score!

News flash by Lukas Kendall

Three issues ago we released Ron Grainer's The Omega Man, a cult sci-fi score if there ever was one. Two issues ago we compiled the ultimate Beneath the Planet of the Apes CD, a powerhouse Leonard Rosenman effort. Last issue we rescued from oblivion Tora! Tora! Tora!, an awesome Jerry Goldsmith war score.

We're on a roll: available right now -- as in holding-them-in-our-hands -- is a John Williams score that nobody has ever had before. It now stands as the earliest John Williams feature film original soundtrack you can get on CD, in complete form from the original masters. It predates The Reivers by three years and Star Wars by ten -- written when the composer was 35 years old. It's Lost in Space meets Carl Stalling meets '60s go-go music meets dramatic arrangements as only Williams can do. It's "Johnny" Williams's last big comedy score and arguably the most elaborate and best:

A Guide for the Married Man.

During the first decade of his career in Hollywood, Williams scored no fewer than eight comedy films. While the classiest was William Wyler's How to Steal a Million (and the biggest turkey was John Goldfarb, Please Come Home), perhaps the downright funniest was A Guide for the Married Man, directed by Gene Kelly and starring Walter Matthau and Robert Morse. Matthau plays Paul Manning, who is being tutored in the ways of marital infidelity by his friend Ed Stander (Morse). Each lesson in how not to get caught cheating on your wife is illustrated by a vignette starring one or more big-name guest stars, including Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Art Carney, Carl Reiner, Phil Silvers and many others.

The year 1967 was an important turning point in John Williams' career. He would soon leave Hollywood for significant periods of time, working in England on the screen musicals Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Fiddler on the Roof, and scoring the TV movies Heidi and Jane Eyre. These projects proved to be stepping-stones to more high-profile assignments upon his return to the United States, beginning with The Reivers and The Cowboys. The year also marked the beginning of a 25-year partnership with orchestrator Herbert Spencer, and was the last year he would be credited on screen as "Johnny" Williams.

Williams' score for A Guide for the Married Man is a veritable catalog of the diverse styles in which he had become adept at writing over the previous decade: everything from goofy, faux-hip source music to bold orchestral scoring featuring brass fanfares and his trademark woodwind runs. The film's episodic nature provided Williams with an opportunity to showcase his blossoming talent in a way few other films could: many of the "instruction" sequences play without dialogue and are carried by Williams's beautifully finessed music -- many with their own new melody for the unique sequence. Astute listeners will note many instances that foreshadow the music he would provide a decade later for space epics and adventure films -- as well as moments that recall his earlier stylized writing from Lost in Space.

Until now, the only music available from A Guide for the Married Man was the title song, as performed by The Turtles. Our CD release includes Williams' complete score in stereo, restored and sequenced in predominantly chronological order by Michael Matessino (of Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition and Superman 2CD fame); the title song performed by The Turtles; and a bonus section of nearly 15 minutes of damaged or unused cues and alternate takes, including a hilarious, never-before-heard rendition of the title song performed by a studio chorus.

This album not only fills an important void for the John Williams completist, it serves to introduce a neglected entry in Williams' filmography to a wide audience, and provides a fascinating glimpse at musical ideas that would later become famous in everything from Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace.

Yeah, baby!

$19.95 plus shipping

A Guide for the Married Man

Music Composed and Conducted by Johnny Williams

Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse

1. Prologue/Off to Work (2:24)
2. Main Title: "A Guide for the Married Man" (3:12) (The Turtles)
3. Why Do They Do It? (2:27)
4. Backyard Barbecue (1:07)
5. The Bust-Up Scene (3:05)
6. The Perfume Problem (2:41)
7. The Globetrotters (5:12)
8. Smelly Concoction (4:12)
9. The Party (2:13)
10. What Was I Wearing? (1:55)
11. Piano Bar (2:47)
12. Search for the Hideaway (2:34)
13. The Considerate Husband (1:38)
14. Misdirection/Emergency Kit (2:43)
15. Bantu Cuisine (2:13)
16. Trial Run (4:39)
17. The Divorcee (3:09)
18. Making the Move (3:59)
19. Second Thoughts (2:22)
20. The Race Home (alternate) (1:56)
21. Finale -- No Place Like Home (1:43)

Bonus Tracks

• 23. Off to Work (alternate) (0:40)
• 24. The Movie Star (0:52)
• 25. TV Music (2:18)
• 26. Who Was the Most Attractive? (0:44)
• 27. Romanoff's (1:27)
• 28. The Real Thing (1:23)
• 29. The Race Home (film version) (1:56)
• 30. Finale -- No Place Like Home (alternate) (1:41)
• 31. End Title: "A Guide for the Married Man" (0:59)

Album produced by Lukas Kendall & Nick Redman

Total time: 73:23

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Subscribers to our "Classics Charter Club" series who have asked for Silver Age Classics -- your disc is in the mail! Go here for more info on our Club if you want to sign up.

Coming next month: a pair of western scores by composers seldom represented on CD.

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