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Kritzerland is proud to present a new world premiere limited edition release – three great scores on two CDs for the price of one CD:
OVERLORD
THE DISAPPEARANCE
HUSTLE
Overlord and Hustle Music Composed and Conducted by Paul Glass
The Disappearance Music Composed and Conducted by Robert Farnon
Director Stuart Cooper is the common thread for these releases. His 1975 film Overlord should have been the launch pad for a major directorial career. Instead, it had a minor release and disappeared until it was, at long last, resurrected years later and rightfully became the classic it always was, beloved by all who saw it, and having a fan in none other than Stanley Kubrick, who declared the only way it could be improved was to make it twice as long. His 1977 film, The Disappearance, also disappeared, especially in the United States, where it was mangled into awfulness by its crass distributor, who completely reedited the film and changed its score. It, too, was resurrected years later and has recently and found its way to Blu-ray, courtesy of Twilight Time. And Hustle aka A Sordid Affair (2000), was made for TV and seen by only those who happen to catch it. In between these three films, Cooper was constantly busy, doing TV (several mini-series, including A.D., The Long Hot Summer, Mario Puzo’s The Fortunate Pilgrim), but he just never got the brass ring that he should have.
His films are uniquely his and don’t feel like anyone else’s, none more so than Overlord, which seamlessly and brilliantly blends historical footage of World War II from the Imperial War Museum with newly-shot footage that matches perfectly, telling the story of one soldier’s life from his being called up to his taking part in D-Day. Paul Glass’s music for Overlord is one of the movie’s strongest assets, a film music masterpiece – a melancholy, elegiac and at times dissonant tone poem that is both exquisite and hugely moving. The score’s main theme is hauntingly beautiful and is used throughout the film to great effect. There are other themes that weave in and out, each creating a perfect musical landscape to go along with Cooper’s visual landscape. It is an astonishing piece of work and we’re thrilled to finally give it its world premiere release, on the 70th anniversary of D-Day and in conjunction with the film’s Blu-ray release on Criterion.
Hustle, a sexy made for TV neo-noir thriller (shot in Toronto), reunited Cooper and Glass. This was a completely different kind of score for Glass – bluesy, sexy, sultry and dripping with eroticism. It has a beauty of a main theme, but, like most Glass scores, also has moments of dissonance and off-kilter writing.
The Disappearance, the tale of a hit man for an international assassination agency whose wife has disappeared, has a score by Robert Farnon, a wonderful film composer, and also conductor and composer of light music. For The Disappearance, Farnon uses the Ravel Piano Concerto in G major as the basis for his score, but there’s also original Farnon music, too – it’s all of a piece and compliments the film perfectly.
Overlord and Hustle were transferred from Paul Glass’s personal tapes, which we got in the nick of time – they transferred perfectly but as soon as they came off the machine they were literally falling apart. Both scores are in beautiful stereo sound. Sadly, no one, including the Farnon estate, was able to locate any original scoring tapes for The Disappearance, so for those cues we used the film’s mono music track, but thanks to mastering engineer James Nelson, it all sounds excellent.
Overlord/The Disappearance/Hustle is limited to 1000 copies only and is priced at $19.98, plus shipping.
CDs will ship by the first week of June, but we’ve been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.
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I'd never heard of this film at all until I stumbled upon it as a new release at Netflix a few weeks ago. Viewing this film for the first time was an astonishing experience for me, I was blown away by it - a marvelously constructed anti-war film. I can easily see now how Stanley Kubrick became enamored with it, in fact, Kubrick used the film's cinematographer John Alcott to lens his next film which was 'Barry Lyndon'. 'Overlord' has, (for me), a feel of a genuine tragedy and reminded me (in it's own way) of 'An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge' from the early '60's. The music was sublime, I'd never heard of this composer before and it fit the film like a glove. I don't know how it will sound apart from the marvelous film, but the fact I remembered the music in the film, speaks greatly to me of it's valued importance. Thanks Bruce for this!
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Overlord and Hustle were transferred from Paul Glass’s personal tapes, which we got in the nick of time – they transferred perfectly but as soon as they came off the machine they were literally falling apart.
Wow. And I don't mean the tape variety. Really scary things like this can be so close.
Definitely an interesting release and I'll be sure to check out the samples. Thanks Bruce. 
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I'd never heard of this film at all until I stumbled upon it as a new release at Netflix a few weeks ago. Viewing this film for the first time was an astonishing experience for me, I was blown away by it. I can easily see now how Stanley Kubrick became enamored with it, in fact, Kubrick used the film's cinematographer John Alcott to lens his next film which was 'Barry Lyndon'. 'Overlord' has, (for me), a feel of a genuine tragedy and reminded me (in it's own way) of 'An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge' from the early '60's. The music was sublime, I'd never heard of this composer before and it fit the film like a glove. I don't know how it will sound apart from the marvelous film, but the fact I remembered the music in the film, speaks greatly to me of it's valued importance. Thanks Bruce for this!
Overlord is a wonderful movie - I recommend it highly and I'm sure the Criterion Blu-ray coming in a couple of weeks will be stellar. Glass's music is sublime - a simple listen to the samples should tell you how gorgeous his work here is. Frankly, I would have put out Overlord alone, so getting the two other scores is a nice bonus.
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I'm unfamiliar with the films and the director, which fits in to what you wrote Bruce, that he never got the brass ring he deserved. I'll seek out Overlord on Netflix, and am looking forward to the CD.
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I'm unfamiliar with the films and the director, which fits in to what you wrote Bruce, that he never got the brass ring he deserved. I'll seek out Overlord on Netflix, and am looking forward to the CD.
DO rent this from Netflix Michael. It's available now, bluray later. I actually found it initially listed at Amazon, and those reviews were superb. Which is how I rented it at Netflix first - then I purchased it. It's beautifully composed black & white cinematography meshes very well with actual war footage kept by the British Government. Hope you enjoy it! How and why this film disappeared is a mystery. You should love the score in the film; I think.
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I have learned a valuable lesson today. The sales to our usual soundtrack folk here are the worst we've EVER had for any title. These are seriously good scores so it's a little shocking to me. The good news is I don't care because this title is selling to WWII buffs and a whole other audience - so sales are actually just fine. The lesson learned is we could have sold the exact same amount had we just kept it at Overlord, a thirty-six minute score. We would not have sold one less copy, hence the extra time, dough, and effort to make this an incredible deal and keep the price to our regular one CD price was for nothing - it will not happen again, I can assure you.
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I bought it right away, anyway. Big fan of "The Disappearance" (thanks to Twilight Time's blu-ray) and "Overlord," and I love Paul Glass's music. Glad to hear it's selling to a new audience, too - hope they pick up some of the other gems in the Kritzerland back-catalogue while they're at it.
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So wait. Is this a new marketing strategy? Shaming people into buying your releases?
James
No, there's no shaming people who don't even bother to listen to samples or even open this thread
This is exactly what I said - a lesson learned. And thankfully it will turn out all right in the end.
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The lesson learned is we could have sold the exact same amount had we just kept it at Overlord, a thirty-six minute score. We would not have sold one less copy, hence the extra time, dough, and effort to make this an incredible deal and keep the price to our regular one CD price was for nothing - it will not happen again, I can assure you.
That's not the case for me. I didn't much care for the somber Overlord clips and wouldn't have bought it on its own.
I bought it for Hustle, and The Disappearance.
For me, Overlord is no more somber than a Ralph Vaughn-Williams string piece like Thomas Tallis, which was the inspiration for this score - Cooper wanted that kind of sound.
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