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I certainly hope so, filmo! You might also be interested to know that in an email conversation with me about Golden Age scores, MV at LaLaLand said he'd be all over Roy Webb -- it's simply a matter of finding tapes. Sadly since Webb primarily worked for RKO most of his scores no longer survive...but FSM found a source for Herrmann's On Dangerous Ground from RKO so anything's possible and he did do a handful of things for other studios. So keep your fingers crossed that one of the -Land labels will tackle a Roy Webb before long. At the very least if no other tapes are available (which would be tragic) someone could at least remaster and reissue that great Cloud Nine compilation album of Roy Webb original recordings:
http://www.amazon.com/Curse-Cat-People-Roy-Webb/dp/B00005YCQ0/
Getting a bit pricey on the secondary market...
My prayer is that somehow more than those 5 odd minutes of Sinbad the Sailor survive somewhere because it is my favorite Webb score and the best Sinbad score ever written! (I'm a huge fan of Herrmann, Rozsa, and Budd, and even Harry Gregson-Williams, but IT'S TRUE!)
Yavar
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While a complete version of Roy BUDD's Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger would be cool (my least favorite Sinbad score but still very good), what I'm pining after is Roy WEBB's Sinbad the Sailor (late 40s) -- the wonderful film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, and a fantastic young Anthony Quinn as the villain. I love that film to death and the score is sweeping, memorable, and thematic -- three words which, thanks to his association with Val Lewton and other more subtle scores, people sadly rarely associate with Roy Webb.
If it's Roy WEBB's score you have lying around I will seriously freak out with joy, Bruce. The brief suite on the Cloud Nine CD sounds wonderful but it's such a tease in its brevity.
Yavar
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While a complete version of Roy BUDD's Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger would be cool (my least favorite Sinbad score but still very good), what I'm pining after is Roy WEBB's Sinbad the Sailor (late 40s) -- the wonderful film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, and a fantastic young Anthony Quinn as the villain. I love that film to death and the score is sweeping, memorable, and thematic -- three words which, thanks to his association with Val Lewton and other more subtle scores, people sadly rarely associate with Roy Webb.
If it's Roy WEBB's score you have lying around I will seriously freak out with joy, Bruce. The brief suite on the Cloud Nine CD sounds wonderful but it's such a tease in its brevity.
Yavar
I meant Webb but out came Budd. Go know
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Posted: |
Jun 28, 2013 - 9:09 PM
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By: |
shadowman
(Member)
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While a complete version of Roy BUDD's Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger would be cool (my least favorite Sinbad score but still very good), what I'm pining after is Roy WEBB's Sinbad the Sailor (late 40s) -- the wonderful film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, and a fantastic young Anthony Quinn as the villain. I love that film to death and the score is sweeping, memorable, and thematic -- three words which, thanks to his association with Val Lewton and other more subtle scores, people sadly rarely associate with Roy Webb.
If it's Roy WEBB's score you have lying around I will seriously freak out with joy, Bruce. The brief suite on the Cloud Nine CD sounds wonderful but it's such a tease in its brevity.
Yavar
I meant Webb but out came Budd. Go know
Speaking of Budd, any chance for a complete film tracks release of
"Catlow". I love the 7 cues which are available on cd. While they are
nicely representative of the score, there is alot more material in the
film which never made it to cd. I'd say more than an hour's worth
of music if memory serves. "Catlow" is one of my favorite Budd's, and
his only western I believe.
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Posted: |
Jun 29, 2013 - 3:00 AM
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By: |
Jim Doherty
(Member)
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Well, I have to say, after listening to the WAXMAN AT PARAMOUNT CD, it is indeeed wonderful. To hear those pieces from ELEPHANT WALK in stereo is a true treasure. Between this CD and the Varese re-recording of several years ago, we have a pretty conclusive overview of the score.
In addition, I have to say that BOTONAY BAY has always been recommended to me as a great Waxman score. I have never seen the film, and have only heard the Varese re-recording of excerpts of this score. The Varese recording left me rather unimpressed, but hearing this original recording, sharp and clear under Waxman's baton, gives me a new appreciation of this score I didn't have before.
STALAG 17 is what it is. It's not one of my favorite Waxman scores. It indeed serves the film just fine, but as a listening experience, it's just so-so, with its interpolations of "When Johnny Come Marching Home." Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it was preserved, but it's not a Waxman score I'm likely to revisit.
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Posted: |
Jun 29, 2013 - 4:18 AM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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I will certainly second Yavar's request for Webb's SINBAD THE SAILOR score.
It's a wonderful, melodic score for a very entertaining and colorful film.
I've been playing the Waxman/Paramount CD a lot, too, and love it! The BOTANY BAY is excellent (and it's an entertaining film, too), but to me the ELEPHANT WALK is the real gem of this disc, and I've played it over and over. It really is sad that the score isn't complete, because the stereo is excellent, and the score appropriately exotic in delineating Miss Taylor's own tea party with attendant elephants! 
For years I've had a 35mm Technicolor print of ELEPHANT WALK, and it's spectacular to see on a big screen in old 3-strip Technicolor. Taylor was so lovely in this early-1950s period. The movie, itself, is great adventure hokum, with more than a little owing to the 1940 film of REBECCA---with its ancestral home in the country, ELEPHANT WALK (and MANDERLEY).....its property owner and his sudden bride and marriage---PETER FINCH and ELIZABETH TAYLOR (and LAURENCE OLIVIER and JOAN FONTAINE).....the never-seen former occupant of the now-locked room upstairs---FINCH'S FATHER, the GOVERNOR (and REBECCA).....the dedicated family household retainer who loves the house at all cost---APPUHAMY (and MRS. DANVERS).....the helpful "other man" to the new bride---DANA ANDREWS (and GEORGE SANDERS).....and the final destruction of the manse---ELEPHANT WALK by elephants (and MANDERLEY by fire).
They certainly don't make romantic adventure films like BOTANY BAY and ELEPHANT WALK anymore, and they certainly don't write scores like these either, and that's our loss---EXCEPT now we DO have these scores, thanks to Bruce.
Many thanks, Bruce!
Since I'm doing this, I guess I may as well comment on the FAR HORIZONS/SECRET OF THE INCAS disc which I received in the mail today, and have been playing this evening. (That didn't take long to reach me.....although I do only live a few streets away from Mr. Bruce!)
The featured score, THE FAR HORIZONS, is a rousing "northern-western" score which accompanies a colorful and entertaining VistaVision film. Probably because I've been playing the old soundtrack to Hans Salter's James Stewart/Universal-International 1952 western, BEND OF THE RIVER, in the last few days, I find a great deal of similarity in these two scores. Both are melodic, expansive, full of action, and have several scattered themes which are quite lovely.
It was particularly rewarding to hear far more of the HORIZONS music than was on the old Tony Thomas/Hans Salter western compilation LP of 30+ years ago---it helps to pull the whole score continuity together as a listening experience when you have so much surviving material. Though recorded (or now existing) in mono only, the sound quality is excellent---far better than the old LP. The score is very well written, as can be expected from Salter, though my personal feeling is that it does not move in a very different direction or creative space than BEND OF THE RIVER; there's nothing startlingly new or original in this score---just a another fine western piece from Salter. I guess when you have a good track record for a specific genre---and it works---it's probably best to stick with it.
The SECRET OF THE INCAS, on the other hand, sounds very different---and I must confess this is the score I was more taken with. In beautiful stereo, but far too short (at around 26+ minutes), this is the "special" score of the disc. I haven't compared this disc to the film, but what surprises me from what is on the disc is that the "action" music is quite subsidiary to the romantic and somewhat latin sections of the score. There are several beautiful cues I particularly loved---orchestrated gorgeously---and, quite frankly, if I didn't know, I'd probably not have guessed this was a Buttolph score (though I always enjoy his work). As I was listening to these particular cues, I kept thinking that the qualities of the orchestration and development of the music were very Friedhofer-esque in sound and imagination. You can't get much better than that---and since it was NOT Hugo, Buttolph rises even higher in my esteem than I considered him before. I will be playing this score many times again.
I hope that those of you who enjoy Golden Age scores will pick up each of these discs---the Waxman and the Salter/Buttolph. You really can't go wrong.
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Thanks, Manderley. I'm cutting and pasting this into the other thread so it's there for people to see.
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I meant Webb but out came Budd. Go know
Oh, my GOD. A complete (as possible) release of Sinbad the Sailor has long been the only unattainable thing at the top of my holy grail list ABOVE Jeff Alexander's Support Your Local Sheriff! I've long wondered where the suite of the original tracks on the Cloud Nine album came from and whether there was any more of it. If you have it please please please please release it!
Yavar
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Well, you'll need to bother MV at LaLaLand or Roger and Doug at Intrada, then, because Bruce doesn't do Warner Bros. stuff on Kritzerland (yet, anyway). I'd buy ANY Roy Webb but the titles you mentioned sound particularly interesting, especially the former since there's a lot of sweeping seafaring stuff in Sinbad that I love.
Another amazing Roy Webb score is The Spiral Staircase (superb film too -- thanks to John Morgan for introducing me to that one). He was a very gifted and versatile composer who I'M SURE would be very remembered today if he'd been music director for Fox/Warner Bros./MGM/Paramount instead of the smaller RKO studio which closed down in the 50s. His tragic house fire which destroyed most of his scores and completely ended his composing career in the late 50s also didn't help matters much, but at least no less an expert than Christopher Palmer considered him one of the greats and devoted an entire chapter on him in his great book on film composers.
I myself consider him the equal of Alfred Newman or Hugo Friedhofer.
Yavar
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Not a lot of Roy Webb has surfaced - I don't know why I'm thinking what I'm thinking and I'll have to go searching, but I may have Sinbad the Sailor or certainly something that sounds like that
Bruce, Im not sure if this is what you mean --but the only title I can think of that sounds like SINBAD THE SAILOR is SON OF SINBAD .....and that's by Victor Young!
I actually think what I'm half-remembering is Arabian Nights. I moved a bunch of CDs a few months ago and have to find where I moved that stuff.
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