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Posted: |
Jul 22, 2013 - 2:44 AM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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.....I would actually like a soundtrack from "Yankee Doodle Dandy" because that eponymous production number is just marvellous - dancing and orchestration providing a heady cocktail......
There WAS a soundtrack CD from YANKEE DOODLE DANDY released some years ago by Rhino from the Turner/Warner library.
The underscore orchestral elements don't exist anymore, of course, but the CD was expertly made up of lifts from the mixed soundtrack (and likely some music/fx stems and acetates), primarily featuring the song and dance numbers from the film. I was just listening to it again several days ago. It gives a very good overview of the film's musical presentations and is quite enjoyable. You might want to look for it on Amazon.com or the eBay markets.
.....Speaking of FP, whatever happened to Pat Boone? I think this was an unusual choice to sing the title song for a film set during the Civil War. Boone's voice gave it a modernity which I didn't think quite fitted the era, but the melody itself is to-die-for.....
Pat Boone was not the first choice to sing the title song for this film.....Perry Como was! But Perry, for whatever reasons, turned it down. (The rumor was---not enough money.) But Boone's managers thought it might be a good fit for him and were willing to do it for the budget price the producer's were going to pay. In the end, Boone's recording became a BIG hit and probably pushed his career into the Fox film contract.
Pat Boone is now very involved with religious broadcasting activities. His public and private life had been going in that direction for many years and seems to have been a natural evolution for him, though this is somewhat surprising now that a few quite revealing (and startling) photographs of Boone in his early-20s have turned up on the internet. Ahhh, youth! 
No one has talked about the other FRIENDLY PERSUASION recordings which appeared concurrently with the film, and with the release of the OST on RKO Records. Boone had a 45rpm EP recording on Dot of the four songs from the film, and Dimitri Tiomkin also had a 45rpm EP recording with Tiomkin conducting orchestra and chorus---this one on Coral---of the four songs and themes featured in the film. They are both interesting in their limited way, but it would have been nice to have Boone on the soundtrack LP---and unfortunately the Tiomkin EP is more popularly-arranged than the soundtrack album.
I just recalled another sidelight. David Gooch/David Cunard, who used to run/own AEI records
once searched out the rights to the soundtrack album in the 1970s. David was a casual friend of mine in those days and would occasionally come by and chat about his latest projects and pick my brain as to other albums he might license and release.
As I recall, he found that the LP masters of FP were with a company which was not involved with soundtracks or record producing at all. It's my understanding that David licensed the album from this company and then set about putting the score cues into chronological film order. (The original LP album jumps all around in continuity.) Having done that, he produced a jacket cover and was preparing to release his album. It was at that point that another company---was it Varese?---came out with their version and there was some sort of cease-and-desist contretemps between the parties. From David's comments, it appeared to me that the mysterious "owners" of the music were perhaps dealing in rights they didn't own and David got caught up in it. I don't believe his discs were yet pressed, but he did print up the jacket covers. He gave me one of them, kept a few for himself, and trashed the rest, I believe. It's too bad, because David's jacket cover is quite beautiful (unlike the rather boring and bland original.)
Gooch became seriously ill in the 2000s, I understand, and he died several years ago. He had tried to sell his AEI masters before he died---I saw several online letters touting what he had in his catalog---but I haven't heard that anyone ever bought the masters he owned. Before coming to the US, David had been a successful record producer of show music for one of the major labels in England from, I believe, the late 1950s to the early 1970s. In the US he was, like Tony Thomas, one of the key independent people producing eclectic and sometimes arcane film and theater recordings on the fringe of the record business in the 1970s-1990s period.
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Posted: |
Jul 22, 2013 - 10:39 AM
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By: |
Morricone
(Member)
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Absolutely, without question!
But I wonder if Warners can actually put their hands on the D-M-E tracks any more at this late date. It's likely been 25 years since you've actually investigated this hasn't it, Joe Caps?
And who would do it as a CD release?
Lukas Kendall still seems to have an ongoing, strong, and probably exclusive relationship with Turner/Warner/Rhino---at least as a middle-man executive producer-type---but also seems to have abandoned accessing any of the Warner pre-1960s (MGM, WB, Allied Artists/Monogram, RKO Radio) library since the demise of FSM as a soundtrack releasing company.
Has ANY record company released ANY original recording from this pre-1960 overall Warner library since FSM ended their release program including this material???
As someone who lived through the 1950s and remembers it all quite well, I continue to be surprised at how little FRIENDLY PERSUASION is remembered today. It is a fine, fine production, beautifully directed by Wyler and beautifully and sensitively cast and performed.
Though it was once important enough to be one of the five Oscar nominees for Best Production of the Year in 1956, I guess what doesn't work in its favor today is that it is a quiet, thoughtful piece, with no action to speak of (other than a carriage race and a mini-Civil War episode) and simply moves along in a bucolic way, telling a lovely story of the life of a family at a moment in time.
Unfortunately, we don't make movies like that today and Hollywood is far poorer for the omission.
Since William Wyler is my favorite director, and hence this is one of my favorites, I will not argue it's many qualities. But when WITNESS came out I could not help but notice a similar approach. That is, despite the best scenes in both films reflecting the lives of a kinder gentler culture we know little of (in WITNESS the Amish), the thrust of the stories is how the "normal" American culture intrudes upon them (in PERSUASION, like SGT. YORK Coop ends up rejecting his own original values). They probably thought a tale totally told from the inside would kill the box office and they were probably right. Nevertheless I found the most mechanical parts of both is when this intrusion comes in. I can't even remember the murder witness elements in WITNESS half as much as the barn raising. The Civil War aspect seemed very sudden, and not too fraught over. In SGT. YORK the Gary Cooper character at least seemed majorly conflicted about his values, here it is simply a knee-jerk concern about his sons. Just wanted to add a tiny element of "the more things change the more they stay the same" to the mix.
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Posted: |
Jul 22, 2013 - 12:31 PM
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By: |
Regie
(Member)
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Morricone, these are very interesting ideas about the similarity in the films "FP" and "Witness" (I taught the latter a few years ago to matriculation English students in school). "Witness" is, indeed, much like "Friendly Persuasion" but with the one significant difference: there's not the slightest hint of humour in "Witness". I think this suggests a lot about modern society and its self-actualizing aggression and sense of entitlement. Not to mention hubris!!
One may write about several differences, in fact, and suggest that these might tell us something about the way society functions today and we might be found wanting in such a comparison. So, I would agree that "the more things change the more they stay the same" - but I believe it is only partially true.
How might things stay the same? We all want to love and be loved; to have the values of friendship, trust and self-respect and to lead fulfilling lives with the freedom to practice the religion of our choice. The idea about living in a cult or sect isn't new; what IS new is the ultra violence which exists in the city and society generally which easily impacts on all of us, not just a religiously-based sect such as the Amish. A society which worships the gun and consumerism is not remotely like any civil war where the points of difference may be delineated by North and South; indeed, it is difficult to identify the real 'enemies' of modern life because we have all so inextricably bought into its 'persuasive' promises of a better life. This is, then, UNFRIENDLY persuasion!! I see modern consumerism and the 'bread and circus' mentality of mass entertainment as a quasi-religion anyway. So, "Witness" is about one 'religion' versus another - IMO.
It's a good discussion to have.
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Posted: |
Jul 22, 2013 - 5:27 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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Why did Pat Boone sing the title song and not first choice Perry Como? Simple ......
"Please Don't Hate Me" by Dimitri Tiomkin.
Pages 243 - 244
Perry Como wanted $50,000.00 Pat Boone did it for $3,000.00
In today's dollars maybe Como $500,000.00 to Boone's $30,000.00
A wise move on Pat Boone's part. It made him a big star. Tiomkin said in 1958/59 the song sold 1,400,000 records!
Thanks for adding the prices and further detail to clarify that, PFK!
I said.....
"Pat Boone was not the first choice to sing the title song for this film.....Perry Como was! But Perry, for whatever reasons, turned it down. (The rumor was---not enough money.) But Boone's managers thought it might be a good fit for him and were willing to do it for the budget price the producer's were going to pay. In the end, Boone's recording became a BIG hit and probably pushed his career into the Fox film contract."
.....and at least it's encouraging to me to know that at my age my memory is still fairly accurate on the substance---if not the absolute details!.....
Perry Como's choice---whether on his own or on the advice of his agent---is only reflective of the choices of many of Hollywood's creators as to what they will do or not do. Occasionally they are absolutely right, but sometimes they make big career mistakes. Fortunately Como COULD afford not to do it---Boone COULDN'T, and it was a wise decision.
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Posted: |
Jul 22, 2013 - 9:55 PM
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By: |
PFK
(Member)
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Why did Pat Boone sing the title song and not first choice Perry Como? Simple ......
"Please Don't Hate Me" by Dimitri Tiomkin.
Pages 243 - 244
Perry Como wanted $50,000.00 Pat Boone did it for $3,000.00
In today's dollars maybe Como $500,000.00 to Boone's $30,000.00
A wise move on Pat Boone's part. It made him a big star. Tiomkin said in 1958/59 the song sold 1,400,000 records!
Thanks for adding the prices and further detail to clarify that, PFK!
I said.....
"Pat Boone was not the first choice to sing the title song for this film.....Perry Como was! But Perry, for whatever reasons, turned it down. (The rumor was---not enough money.) But Boone's managers thought it might be a good fit for him and were willing to do it for the budget price the producer's were going to pay. In the end, Boone's recording became a BIG hit and probably pushed his career into the Fox film contract."
.....and at least it's encouraging to me to know that at my age my memory is still fairly accurate on the substance---if not the absolute details!.....
Perry Como's choice---whether on his own or on the advice of his agent---is only reflective of the choices of many of Hollywood's creators as to what they will do or not do. Occasionally they are absolutely right, but sometimes they make big career mistakes. Fortunately Como COULD afford not to do it---Boone COULDN'T, and it was a wise decision.
You are welcome Manderley. I always enjoy your very interesting posts.
The Tiomkin autobiography is a great book. Back in 1971 a friend in Franklin Mass. found a copy in a small Franklin book store for $1.00 !! He gave it to me as a gift and I treasure it to this day.
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