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Posted: |
May 9, 2013 - 11:37 AM
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By: |
Ray Faiola
(Member)
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Announcing a special reduced-price, $19.95, on a Dynamite 2-CD album featuring 4 scores composed by Max Steiner for DISTANT DRUMS, CLOAK AND DAGGER, SOUTH OF ST. LOUIS and MY GIRL TISA. http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm/ID/580
These pictures were produced by Milton Sperling's United States Pictures Company and released by Warner Bros. between 1946 and 1951. The scores are taken from acetate recordings in the Max Steiner Collection at Brigham Young University and the album is produced under license from Richard Feiner and Company.
These four scores represent a fine cross-section of Steiner's versatility. From tender period drama to World War II espionage to post-Civil War splash action, Steiner's amazing gift for mood and melody is in rare form.
The scores are presented, for the most part, in comprehensive format. While merely an overture from CLOAK AND DAGGER survives (produced using the composite soundtrack's main and end cast cues), all of Steiner's underscore for MY GIRL TISA was preserved in his private disc collection. Steiner's contribution to TISA amounted to just over 13 minutes of music, the rest of the film's score accounted for by "source" music (played by an on-screen band, phonograph etc.).
SOUTH OF ST. LOUIS survives almost in its entirety and in remarkably clean condition. Only the music from the last reel was not preserved in the Steiner collection. In addition to Max's score, you will be able to hear Bonnie Sue Williams' vocal (lip-synched by Alexis Smith in the picture) on Ray Heindorf's "Too Much Love."
DISTANT DRUMS is a favorite score of Steiner fans. The film is a re-working of OBJECTIVE BURMA with plenty of tense and evocative drama. The star of the hour is the on-location photography done in the Florida Everglades. Steiner responded to this unusual setting and his music has a tropical serenity permeating the suspenseful atmosphere as Gary Cooper and company are on the run from a band of renegade Seminoles. While all of the primary motifs are original in this score, Steiner fans will pick up on some mood and action bits that Max originally wrote in 1933 for Merian C. Cooper's KING KONG. The recycling of score material by composers was a logical practice since there was never any thought paid to the idea that, once a film concluded its theatrical run, the music would very likely ever be heard again.
SOUTH OF ST. LOUIS is a prime example of Steiner's approach to western and American historical dramas. In addition to the expected quotes from period melodies, Steiner's score features a beautiful love theme and a uniquely rhythmed battle motif for the rivercrossing shootout. It was later revived for the runaway stagecoach music in THE HANGING TREE.
One of the themes in 1948's MY GIRL TISA has an interesting lineage. It originated as a Russian folk song and was adapted by Steiner as the film's love theme, "Ever Beginning." However, during the course of the film's production, producer Milton Sperling hired Mack David to write lyrics to the tune so that MY GIRL TISA might benefit from some added exploitation. The result was a beautiful ballad, "At the Candlelight Cafe," sung by Al Jolson on NBC's KRAFT MUSIC HALL and recorded for Capitol Records by Gordon MacRae.
DISTANT DRUMS: MAX STEINER AND THE UNITED STATES PICTURES SCORES includes a lavish 32 page booklet featuring poster art reproduction, original stills and advertising art, reproductions of published sheet music from two of the films featured, and detailed notes on the films' production and scoring. The special revival promotion price is $19.95 only at Screen Archives Entertainment!
http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm/ID/580
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TO ZOOBA- When you said you were back to thrill us again, I thought you were going to sing the MAIN THEME from that movie, I am very disappointed.
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