Here's a classic. The "Theme from EXODUS" played by Jerry Murad's Harmonicats.
And the theme from THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, which doesn't sound much different from some of the tracks on the Mitch Miller-produced soundtrack album. Sort of fits in with the Greek locale of the film.
This one is taken at a slower tempo than in the film.
Big fan of Hugo Montenegro's "Man from U.N.C.L.E." LPs. When I first had the CD I was disappointed that the rerecordings really didn't sound anywhere near the real music but now that FSM has released most of it, I can consider Hugo's release an added CD to the collection and I can now appreciate it as good to listen to fun standalone music.
Here, you can actually listen to one of these knock-offs--on Crown Records, from a conductor named "William Rodgers," who may or may not exist.
Love all these LP covers (the art, I mean) and even kinda dig this Cleopatra knockoff theme (which starts out sounding to me like it's going to go all From Russia with Love in the strings.)
Since Cleopatra is such a notorious box-office failure, I wonder, seeing all of these albums, if that's actually a little mythical or what? Seems hard to believe that so many would have invested in knockoffs for a score that by all rights shouldn't be that well known? (And yes, I do get it that we've got Liz Taylor here as Cleopatra, and that inspires lots of cover opps, but still.)
Like this one featuring Elmer Bernstein's wonderful HAWAII.
I'm playing it right now and it's actually quite good in orchestrations and presentation. Really enjoyable. The Cinema Sound Stage Orchestra is in top form! These albums have always intrigued me. I would think they had to pay the studio legitimately for the rights. Strangely the album and packaging contain no mention of UNITED ARTISTS who made the film or United Artist Records who put out the Original Soundtrack Album. Picked this sweet puppy up for $1.00 at my local Streetlight Music.
Your thoughts and memories on these types of albums would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Zoob
The Cover Artwork was trying to capture the Original character imagery as best they could I guess.
Richard Harris looks like he's saying to director George Roy Hill, "I'll get you for this!"
I had the Jerry Murad and the Harmonicats EL CID etc. album shown, plus a Don Costa movie themes compilation on Columbia which had some corny renditions but featured an absolute knock-out arrangement of Andre Previn's theme from LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT that I later transferred to CD and still listen to today. One of my favorite knock-offs was a 101 Strings box set of the music from AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (2 LPs if I remember correctly) which I listened to often. (Sorry, I don't have a picture of that cover.)
That would be it, Howard! Makes me happy to know there is some other soul out there who also liked it.
P. S. I decided to check for a picture of the Costa LP I mentioned ("Hollywood Premiere") on Amazon and lo and behold -- there it was as a CD, a two-fer with another Costa album featuring the theme from THE UNFORGIVEN et. al. Darn if I didn't just order it! Now I have to go see if there's a CD of the 101 Strings ATWI80D set!
Such a shame that the DeVol original soundtrack of this one has never been released. I have managed to snatch the songs and themes from the dvd and convert the music as mp3 files.
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