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The people preparing the DVD evidently didn't notice they had an early version of the titles in the source they were using.
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We've been discussing this for awhile now and no one's mentioned region codes, catalog numbers, UPC numbers . . .
Is everybody talking about the same DVD in this thread, just for the record?
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It seems that the U.S. DVD credits Walton because it uses the original main titles created before Goodwin was brought in; the U.K. DVD uses the revised main titles with the Goodwin credit, with Walton only for "Battle in the Air."
I think I know who made these decisions . . .
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I was playing the D.V.D. of "The Battle Of Britain" and noticed that in the opening titles it carried the credit, "Music by Sir William Walton" whose music was rejected, and yet it had the Ron Goodwin score. Was this for the European release version?
The DVD main title music credit is exactly the same as the original film. It says "Music by Ron Goodwin" followed by a second credit "Battle in the Air by Sir Walton Walton"
This is a different D.V.D., because it carries Walton's credit only, not Goodwin's. Also, the music heard in the final scene was indeed Walton's.
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Hmmmmmm...
According to the above posts, the US DVD carries the Walton-only credit. I have the US DVD put out in 2005 (2-disc set), and it has the Goodwin/Walton credits.
Annoyingly, if you're listening to the Walton score, the DVD chops off the end of the end title music.
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Didn't Olivier complain so much about Walton's score being dumped, that the producer kept a part of it? Was that really it? I have read that countless times it seems. Olivier wanted his name taken off the picture (even though he wasn't the star, but apparently carried enough weight with someone). Apparently Olivier and Walton were chums. I've sometimes wondered how much truth there was to that story.
Yes, Olivier and Walton were good friends, and Walton scored four Shakesphere adaptations with Olivier ("As You Like It", "Henry V", "Hamlet" and "Richard III") plus the limited score for the adaptation of Chekov's "Three Sisters". He was to score Olivier's adaptation of "Macbeth" but plans fell through when Olivier failed to come up with the financing.
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Perhaps WILLIAMDMCCRUM can enlighten you with precise historic details.
Ach, das ist sehr gut. Grecchus has gefallen fur mein gummy-puppen rubber tanks Ich habe placed as decoys along the South Coast. He thinks Ich bin ein expert. Now the war is ours.
I can't help really. I know that I glanced at the movie on TV some years ago and was surprised to hear Walton's march at the END as Dowding walks off into the sunset as a good understating English bloke should, rather than Goodwin's. That foxed me. It seems that some prints did restore Walton's finale march (a piece very similar to the opening march) instead of playing Goodwin's Finale.
Goodwin's finale is the best part of his score, so it was sad to lose that. It really is a tour de force with all its staccato mute brass machine gun bursts, soaring string leaps, heroic motifs and crash-bang.
Walton's score is amazing too, but be reminded that certain parts of 'Battle in the Air' were ghost-written by Malcolm Arnold, and you can hear that plainly in the big uprushing brass scales etc., his trademarks. Walton and Arnold were always conspiratorially practical about films, they knew each other, they helped each other. It was 'take the money and run' for them, and they often said as much.
I think Guenther Koegebehn has details of the precise cue-listings, who scored what, but it was an Arnold/Walton/Goodwin mix in the end! Arnold did about half of Walton's credited score, believe it or not, so it's not as odd as folk think that MGM might've raised an eyebrow....
But Walton's score is good too. For a guy from humble origins he was a bit of a chancer at the 'patrician elite' type of royal music, and his score (look at 'The Young Siegfrieds') is as affectionate towards the Luftwaffe 'young men' as to the RAF 'young men'. He always plays the aristo musically, as here. The music doesn't really take sides, it's elitist. He was not Alex North or any English equivalent.
The Ryko CD 10747 of the score has both scores together, so you get everything.
It's funny: the title music by Goodwin is clearly a very convincing totally Nazi march based loosely on 'Deutschland Uber Alles', with a melodic twist. As such it fits with the shots of the Luftwaffe airbase. Walton's very British, Elgarian march would have looked odd in that slot, and probably does look odd in the version the OP mentions above. Yet the RAF brass bands frequently play Goodwin's 'Aces High' at their march-pasts and displays and ceremonies, which is CHILLINGLY inappropriate, but they don't seem to notice!
That sort of awareness could cost lives.... let's hope they differentiate better if the balloon goes up ....
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