New CDs: John Goldfarb, Broken Lance

Film Score Monthly's new limited edition CDs are a wild and wacky, early "Johnny" Williams comedy score and a renowned '50s western score by a composer seldom represented on CD, Leigh Harline.

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! is a 1965 comedy starring Shirley MacLaine which ranks as one of the most bizarre and obscure films John Williams has ever scored, featuring music equally eccentric and outrageous. The film stars Richard Crenna as a U-2 pilot captured in a fictional Arab kingdom and forced by the mad king (Peter Ustinov) to coach the country's football team in an exhibition game against Notre Dame; MacLaine plays a newspaper reporter gone undercover as a harem girl. Wackiness ensues!

The lengthy score by John Williams (from his heydey as "Johnny") features a gonzo title song (performed by MacLaine) which needs to be heard to be believed. His entire score is in the pop/comedic '60s mode miles apart from the symphonic refrains which have made him famous; if anything, the score resembles his music for the early episodes of Gilligan's Island. However, even in the Arab go-go tunes one can hear the germ of Williams's later style, and the wizardry at work behind his seemingly effortless writing in any idiom. A rhythmic theme for the U-2 plane predates his military music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a love theme provides tender refrains. A highlight is a lengthy dance suite in which the famous Notre Dame Fight Song is given a pop Arab arrangement!

The CD features liner notes by Williams webmaster Jeff Eldridge, superb stereo sound, and a host of bonus tracks including alternate versions of the title song.

https://secure.filmscoremonthly.com/store/detailCD.asp?ID=215

Leigh Harline was a Hollywood pro who wrote the songs and score for Pinocchio, including "When You Wish Upon a Star." In 1954 Harline wrote one of his best scores for a superlative Fox western starring Spencer Tracy: Broken Lance, a type of King Lear in which Tracy plays an aging cattle baron losing control of his sons, among them Robert Wagner and Richard Widmark.

The film is a first-rate dramatic western and the score is equally powerful, featuring a dominating, rich theme for Tracy's patriarch character; a melodic, graceful love theme; and galloping action cues in the Americana tradition. The main theme is given mystical overtones with choir in several cues, and an Irish folk song is cleverly quoted for the family's colonialist heritage. All in all, Harline comments profoundly on the mystique of the West and the determination of those who settled it.

Broken Lance is presented in complete form (save one brief cue which was lost), in stereo, with wordless choir intact. Liner notes are by Harline expert Ross Care.

https://secure.filmscoremonthly.com/store/detailCD.asp?ID=214

Still on sale for the holidays is All About Eve/Leave Her to Heaven, marked down from $19.95 to $14.95 -- but order soon, because this offer expires next month!

JEWEL BOX AMNESTY!

We have acquired a number of empty jewel boxes -- the clear variety which we use for our FSM Classics -- and we are prepared to send them out for FREE to anyone placing a new order before Xmas. We will send up to THREE JEWEL BOXES to anyone asking.

Here is how to ask: when you order any item and begin the checkout process, you will get a page which prompts you for your name and address. At the bottom of the page are three YES/NO questions. For the LAST ONE, "Do you have any special shipping instructions?" click YES, and then when prompted, write,

SEND ME [your choice] 1 / 2 / 3 EMPTY JEWEL BOXES.

In case you are wondering, yes, we will wrap the empty jewel boxes securely, so that Mr. Postman does not break THEM too, which would defeat the purpose...any questions, email Orders@filmscoremonthly.com.

Happy Hanukah! We look forward to your orders!

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com