FILM SCORE FRIDAY 11/21/08

Composer Irving Gertz (It Came from Outer Space, The Alligator People) died on November 14th in Los Angeles, at the age of 93. We will feature a more detailed obituary in an upcoming column.

LITTLE MONSTERS presents David Newman's complete score for the little-seen 1989 juvenile fantasy-horror film, starring Fred Savage and Frank Whaley, with a screenplay by future A-list writers Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott (Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean). This disc is limited to 1500 copies, and is available this week.

Shipping in three weeks is Intrada's release of the LP tracks for 9 TO 5, the hit comedy from 1980 (which has just been turned into a Broadway-bound stage musical), featuring the classic, Oscar-nominated title song by co-star Dolly Parton as well as Charles Fox's inventive and lively score. This disc is limited to 3000 units.

From the Golden Age, Varese brings us THE PRESIDENT'S LADY, Alfred Newman's popular (but never before released) score for the romantic drama teaming Charlton Heston (as Andrew Jackson) and Susan Hayward. This disc is limited to 1500 copies.

From the 1970s, Varese brings us the first-ever release of Elmer Bernstein's score for the urban cop drama REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER, starring Michael Moriarty, Susan Blakeley and Yaphet Kotto. Varese's release is taken from the surviving mono score tapes, with a few cues in stereo. This disc is limited to 1500 copies.

From the 1980s, Varese presents David Shire's score for the John Badham-directed sci-fi comedy hit SHORT CIRCUIT, a precursor to WALL-E and Stealth, about a military robot who gets struck by lightning and develops consciousness. Badham and Shire worked on musicals at Yale together, and Short Circuit is their only feature collaboration with an original score (Shire contributed arrangements and incidental music to Badham's Saturday Night Fever). This disc is limited to 2000 copies.

The final Varese disc presents the LP tracks from their album release of SILVER BULLET, the 1985 film version of Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, with Corey Haim, Megan Follows and Gary Busey battling a lycanthrope. The film's melodic orchestral score was written by Jay Chattaway, taking a break from Cannon action films, and a few years before he became one of Star Trek's most prolific composers. This disc is limited to 1000 copies, and is already sold out from the label.

Their second new release is THE MIKLOS ROZSA COLLECTION: MUSIC FOR GUITAR, featuring Rozsa concert pieces as well as themes from such scores as El Cid, Madame Bovary and Providence, performed by guitarists Gregg Nestor, Raymond Burley and William Kanengiser, oboist Francisco Castillo and violinist Carole Kleister-Castillo. This disc is limited to 1000 copies.

Bolt - John Powell - Disney
Little Monsters - David Newman - Intrada Special Collection

Bolt - John Powell - Score CD on Disney
The Dukes - Nic. tenBroek
Eden - Stephen Rennicks, Hugh Drumm
I Can't Think Straight - Raiomond Mirza
The Matador - John Califra
Twilight - Carter Burwell - Score CD due Dec. 9 on Atlantic

November 25
Fable II - Russell Shaw - Sumthing Else
Gears of War 2 - Steve Jablonsky - Sumthing Else
The Miklos Rozsa Collection: Music for Guitar - Miklos Rozsa - Buysoundtrax
Milk - Danny Elfman - Decca
Star Crash - John Barry - Buysoundtrax
Synecdoche, New York - Jon Brion - Lakeshore
Too Human - Steve Heinlein - Sumthing Else
24: Redemption - Sean Callery - Varese Sarabande
December 9
Cinema Symphony - Andrew Pearce - MovieScore Media
The Dark Knight: Special Edition - Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard - Warner Bros.
Defiance - James Newton Howard - Sony Classical
9 to 5 - Charles Fox - Intrada Special Collection
The President's Lady - Alfred Newman - Varese Sarabande CD Club
Report to the Commissioner - Elmer Bernstein - Varese Sarabande CD Club
Sex and the City - Aaron Zigman - New Line
Short Circuit - David Shire - Varese Sarabande CD Club
Silver Bullet - Jay Chattaway - Varese Sarabande CD Club
Twilight - Carter Burwell - Atlantic
Valkyrie - John Ottman - Varese Sarabande
December 16
Che - Alberto Iglesias - Varese Sarabande
The Day the Earth Stood Still - Tyler Bates - Varese Sarabande
Frost/Nixon - Hans Zimmer - Varese Sarabande
Marley and Me - Theodore Shapiro - Lakeshore
Pushing Daisies - James Dooley - Varese Sarabande
Seven Pounds - Angelo Milli - Varese Sarabande
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Bear McCreary - La-La Land
December 23
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Alexandre Desplat - Concord
January 13
The Dead Pool - Lalo Schifrin - Aleph
Date Unknown
A Christmas Carol/A Child Is Born - Bernard Herrmann - Kritzerland
The Day of the Dolphin - Georges Delerue - Percepto
Doctor Who: Series Four - Murray Gold - Silva
Le Cinema du Georges Delerue - Georges Delerue - Universal France
Le Cinema En Chante: Michel Legrand/Jacques Demy - Michel Legrand - Universal France
Quest for Fire - Philippe Sarde - Universal France

November 21 - Malcolm Williamson born (1931)
November 21 - The Best Years of Our Lives premieres in New York (1946)
November 21 - Don Ellis begins recording his replacement score for The Seven-Ups (1973)
November 21 - Ralph Burns died (2001)
November 22 - Benjamin Britten born (1913)
November 22 - Craig Hundley aka Craig Huxley born (1954)
November 22 - W. Franke Harling died (1958)
November 23 - Jack Marshall born (1921)
November 23 - Johnny Mandel born (1925)
November 23 - David Spear born (1953)
November 23 - Clifford Vaughan died (1987)
November 23 - Irwin Kostal died (1994)
November 24 - Manuel De Sica born (1949)
November 24 - Pino Donaggio born (1941)
November 25 - Virgil Thomson born (1896)
November 25 - Stanley Wilson born (1915)
November 26 - Bernardo Segall died (1993)
November 27 - Stanley Black died (2002)
November 27 - Richard Stone born (1953)
November 27 - Arthur Honegger died (1955)
November 27 - Bernard Herrmann marries Norma Shepherd, his third and final wife (1967)

QUANTUM OF SOLACE - David Arnold

"Where 'Quantum' falls well short of 'Casino Royale' is in the ending. This one is bland, James Bland. Key characters meet their fates off-screen, and it's only because the Bond music blasts you out of your seat to hustle in the next crowd that you know the thing is done."

Kyle Smith, New York Post

"Though pic is the first in the series in which the action follows directly from the previous film, the differences in tone, look and tempo are instantly apparent. As the camera zooms across northern Italy's Lake Garda to pick out Bond (Daniel Craig) being chased in his Aston Martin by armed villains, it's clear that the elegance of the franchise that 'Royale' director Martin Campbell resuscitated is already a thing of the past. Even David Arnold's music seems to punch the clock rather than elevating the visuals."

Derek Elley, Variety

"Jack White's title song passes without notice, but composer David Arnold provides a top-flight action score, keeping the familiar themes to a minimum as they hardly suit Daniel Craig's James Bond."

Ray Bennett, Hollywood Reporter

FROM: "Maurizio Caschetto"

You did a pretty good job in your column of John Williams' incomplete and still unreleased film scores list. However, I'm sure you know there are still other scores that imho would be nice to see expanded or properly released:
 
The Eiger Sanction (1975) -- MCA OST album (then released on CD by Varese) is a re-recording of the original score. The actual original film tracks remain unreleased. [Universal]
 
1941 (1979) -- the OST album contains just a 40 minute selection of the 85 minute score. However, the full isolated score can be heard on Universal DVD. [Universal/Columbia]
 
Empire of the Sun (1987) -- the original Warner Bros OST album contains almost the full score, even though oddly re-arranged by the composer. However, there are at least a couple of striking and moving cues that remain yet unreleased (especially the one that underscores Jim's futile efforts to bring back to life the Japanese kamikaze kid). [Warner Bros.]
 
The Witches of Eastwick (1987) -- The majority of the score is available on the OST album released by Warner Bros at the time (then finally re-released a couple of years ago by Collector's Choice). A few interesting and intriguing cues -- especially the bombastic take-off on Dvorak's Cello Concerto during one of the seduction scenes -- remain yet unreleased [Amblin/Warner Bros.]
 
Home Alone (1990) -- The OST album released by Sony/CBS contains the bulk of this popular Williams' holiday score, even though interspersed along with source carols and period songs. Some really nice cues remain yet unreleased. [20th Century Fox]
 
Far and Away (1992) -- MCA released a generous 70 minute album at the time of the film's theatrical release. However, a good 35-40 minutes of the score have still to see the light in a proper and official release. [Universal]
 
Jurassic Park (1993) -- MCA again released a very good and lengthy album, but some pivotal cues -- like the thrilling music for the T-Rex chasing the jeep and some haunting choral music for the amber mine sequence at the beginning -- were not included. [Amblin/Universal]
 
Schindler's List (1993) -- The OST album contains almost the entire Academy Award-winning score. However, bits and pieces of underscore were left out (the film version of the "I Could Have Done More" sequence being probably the most important). There are also some interesting alternates (reportedly, a take on the "Remembrances" theme with a prominent flute solo) that would be great to have; also, all the period source music cues that were adapted and arranged by Williams, Angela Morley and John Neufeld remain unreleased. [Amblin/Universal]
 
Nixon (1995) -- The score for the glooming Oliver Stone's take on Tricky Dick sports an appropriately dark and gloomy Academy Award-nominated score by Williams, nicely represented on Hollywood Records' original OST album (which was one of the first issued "Enhanced CD" and included a video interview with Williams), but a few good cues didn't find a spot on the album. [Cinergi/Hollywood Pictures/Illusion Entertainment]
 
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) -- again, MCA Records released a lengthy 70-minute album, but some great cues were left off in favour of moody and creepy atmospheric cues, while some of the major set-pieces (like the T-Rexes attack on the trailer) were weirdly 'micro-edited', leaving out some impressive action, percussive writing. [Universal]
 
Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace (1999) -- Sony Classical's much-discussed "Ultimate Edition" (published just a year after the film's release) presented the full score as exactly heard in the movie, with all the tracked and edited pieces. It would be very welcome to listen to this score as originally written and recorded by Williams before all the post-production tinkerings. [Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox]
 
The Patriot (2000) -- Hollywood Records OST album presents a good selection of this underrated Williams score, which clocks almost at 2hrs in its complete form. [Sony/Columbia]
 
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) -- Williams' now classic score for the first chapter of J.K. Rowling's popular wizard kid was released on a very good 70-minute CD by Warner Bros/Nonesuch, but it's only the half of what Williams written and recorded for the film. Lots of great, shimmering and exciting cues are still unreleased, as is also the complete "Harry Potter's Children Suite" that Williams reportedly recorded during the scoring sessions. [Warner Bros.]
 
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) -- The first sequel of the Harry Potter saga was composed by Williams, but scheduling conflicts forced him to ask William Ross to adapt cues and themes from the previous film (and also taking conducting duties during the scoring sessions, which were not attended by Wiliams). The result is a classic Williams score, even though largely based on previously written material. The OST album presents a good deal of concert suites of new themes penned by Williams and all the main set-pieces -- it seems almost all the selections presented on the album were the cues handled by Williams. However, a good deal of underscore cues (and the majority of Ross' contributions) remain unreleased. [Warner]
 
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) -- Williams' third and last (so far) outing in the Harry Potter world is probably the best of the bunch. The OST album presents an impressive array of the best cues from the film, but typically several great moments didn't find space (like the reprisal of Buckbeak's theme when the boys frees Sirius Black). [Warner]
 
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cystal Skull (2008) -- The fourth and last adventure of Indiana Jones is set again to a robust, adrenaline-rushed score by Maestro Williams. Concord issued a generous 77 minutes album including lots of great material and the typical Williams concert suites adapted from the new main thematic material. However, large chunks of exciting action sequences were inexplicably cut out (like the whole first half of "Jungle Chase" and virtually the entire prologue) in favour of moody atmospheric cues. [Lucasfilm/Paramount]

FROM: "Preston Neal Jones"

If you're going to mention Gilligan's Island, you've got to include in your compendium Alcoa Premiere, (ABC, two seasons, circa 1960-1962).  This was the Johnny Williams I first discovered and fell in love with, composing different themes and scores every week for this anthology drama series.  An Irish-tinged opus for a Charlton Heston mystery, a sensitive, urban-contemporary score for a drama of suburbia -- in which Bradford Dillman was cast as the lady-killer and Robert Redford as the cuckold -- that'll tell you how long ago this was!, Americana, farce, etc., etc., there wasn't anything Williams couldn't do.  I can still hum some of his themes.  What a tragedy that all of this creativity was under the umbrella of Universal, and may never again be heard...

FROM: "Paul Conway"

Thank you for the insightful piece on unreleased/incomplete John Williams's scores. One of the real losses to John Williams' fans is the unusable tracks to his Valley of the Dolls underscore, his first Oscar nomination. I pestered Lukas Kendall for years it seems (probably to him, anyway, sorry Lukas!) to please release this complete score in any form whatsoever. With The Satan Bug being released from a music/effects track, perhaps we can have Valley of the Dolls this way someday. Or a decent re-recording. Conductor John Mauceri was quoted as saying that John Williams kept everything in his house of his music so the arrangements, etc. must exist. Not surprisingly, it's the most effective part of the film. A queasy sense of unease flows throughout the score, one of Williams' best in my non-humble opinion. I believe his score to The Accidental Tourist owes much to his Valley underscore.

FROM: "Miguel Andrade"

Regarding your fine column, I would have to add, that while The Killers score hasn't been released on CD, can be heard as an isolated score+sfx track on the Criterion DVD release.

AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR
THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON)
BLESSED IS THE MATCH: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HANNAH SENESH
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
FUEL
THE GARDEN
GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS
I.O.U.S.A.
IN A DREAM
MADE IN AMERICA
MAN ON WIRE
PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
THEY KILLED SISTER DOROTHY
TROUBLE THE WATER

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