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Posted: |
Sep 29, 2014 - 10:24 AM
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By: |
Ron Pulliam
(Member)
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Back in 1958, 20th Century-Fox cast French actress Christine Carère and Rossano Brazzi in a Françoise Sagan story called "A Certain Smile." As it had been doing for some time, Fox packed its CinemaScope cameras and went on location to combine its storytelling with glorious cinematography to show off CinemaScope. In "A Woman's World", we got the beauty of mid-1950s New York City; in "Three Coins in the Fountain", we were treated to the timeless charms of Rome and the Italian countryside; and in "Boy on a Dolphin", the glory of Athens and the Aegean were brought into our theaters. For "A Certain Smile", Paris, the Riviera, and other French locales are shown to glorious advantage in this romantic sudser. This soufflè was enhanced by one of the most splendid scores of the 1950s with one its most enchanting title themes sung by Johnny Mathis (it was not sung over the title, but the song's name is the title of the film). Newman worked magic with the theme, just as he did with "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" brilliantly interpolating it with his original music in various cues. The Newman sound is front and center and the recording is a revelation. Newman displays more scoring skill and inventiveness in the main title alone than exists in most complete scores being "written" today. It is with joy that I can relay to you that this score, once only available on a long out-of-print Columbia LP, has been released on a 2-CD issue with "film order" stereo tracks (from 35mm elements) on disc 1, including Mathis' wonderful "film version" vocal of the song, and with the remastered Columbia LP on disc 2, with Mathis' "pop" version of the song. This is a wonderful release. You can hear samples at La-LaLandRecords.com and, if you like what you hear, you can order from them. They are reliable and reasonable. I am a HUGE fan of CinemaScope films and the scores written for them, and I didn't want this opportunity to get away from anyone else who has a love for the music from films.
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