 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I bought the John Morgan / William Stromberg FILM NOIR CD from SAE in 1996 when it came out.
It was a BMG import from Germany at a hefty price. It's worth every penny. It's one fantastic CD.
Besides WHITE HEAT and DARK PASSAGE, it also has suites from ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, THE MALTESE FALCON and THE VERDICT. John and Bill also did at the time for BMG Germany THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN / THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER. Along with Anna they are such a great team, it's a shame a label won't finance another CD or two from them. Let's us know how you like the CD. WHITE HEAT is a GREAT film with a GREAT Max Steiner score!
Sure, I should have it soon and be able to spin it a few times.
Miraculously I just picked this up off eBay for almost nothing. I can't wait to dive in too.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Second the motion, Ray, it's wonderful to think you've got another project in the pipeline. You always come up with a winner.
I know and love every Karloff line -- and every Karloff line-reading -- in THE BODY SNATCHER, but I never would have known what you were getting at from that photo. But it's always sweet to be reminded of one of my favorite films, so thanks for sweetening your post with the picture. (Of course, in motion pictures, they often refer to "sweetening it in post" -- but that's another matter entirely.) I can't say ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT is my favorite Bogart picture, or even my favorite Conrad Veidt/Phil Silvers picture, but I've always enjoyed it since childhood, and for the same reason: that cast. And you know I agree with you about Demarest's pratfalls. Perhaps the greatest movie pratfall of Demarest or anybody else is in THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN"S CREEK. I'm sure you can guess which one I'm talking about, when he tries to kick one of his unruly daughters in the keester.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wasn't LLL also planning some Steiner this year?
Or that was another of the greats?
Certainly no Steiner from LLL.
Last year there was some talk - "hopefully in 2017" - about Newman`s DIARY OF ANNE FRANK:
http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=115151&forumID=1&archive=0
And maybe we will finally see that Waxman double CD (complete SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS coupled with another short Waxman score from WB?) which should have already been released in 2016, but was again delayed for an uncertain time because the double CD of Tiomkin´s GIANT had been such a commercial failure.
|
|
|
|
|
|
MILDRED PIERCE is the Max Steiner score I would most like 
There are only about 5 minutes of MILDRED PIERCE available in the Steiner library. So a CD project with this score is probably impossible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Jan 14, 2017 - 12:52 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
rjc
(Member)
|
It's only been a few years since I've begun regularly using online avenues to track down previously hard to find releases, Film Noir being an example. So being a fan of all things Franz, DARK PASSAGE was the main draw. I haven't seen the movie in many years, so I'll try it again shortly. But what was most interesting to me was the cue "Maggie's Death," with its reworking of material from OBJECTIVE, BURMA! (the post-drop sequence). Exciting to be sure. I prefer it to Steiner's cue used in the movie... but it's Steiner's WHITE HEAT that's the real standout. The whole final sequence is just incredibly stunning, "Top of the World" stuff. No sunny, major-coded wrap up, but a searing, fiery blast of a finish. It kind of put me in mind of how Carmen Dragon capped off his score for INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS some seven years later.
I'm very familiar with THE MALTESE FALCON score, and enjoyed this short suite (and love the longer one on the Marco Polo Deutsch CD). I'll spend more time exploring ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT and THE VERDICT, as I've never seen either movie, so the music was all new to me, but excellent.
And, hey Traveling Matt, I hope you get yours soon and enjoy it as well. It's a great album.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I don't know if GIANT was a failure, but I guess the sales were very low. What a shame, GIANT is a great Tiomkin score..
PFK, these were MV`s comments about the sales of the GIANT double CD last year:
1)
"Nope. Maybe one GA title this year. After the turd the very very expensive GIANT laid last year I figured why bother spending all that time and money on GA titles that no one buys?
MV"
http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=63&threadID=67395&archive=0
2)
"If 1000 units of something like Giant of the Virgin Queen can't even sell then what's the point? It's a business and breaking even on a project doesn't help keep the lights on or even supply toliet paper.
MV"
http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=2&threadID=116233&archive=0
So of course it was a failure for LLL and unfortunately not even the Waxman twofer and the North which had indeed been planned for 2016 have been released anymore till now. So why should we therefore expect a Steiner from LLL now?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jan 15, 2017 - 6:36 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
alintgen
(Member)
|
Tiomkin is not a good example of the sales potential of Golden Age composers. He has his strong fans, but there is also a substantial group of people who do not like his music. I suspect Waxman, Steiner, and Newman would all have more consistent support, and Rozsa seems to do ok.
The picture itself also has something to do with low sales. Giant was a blockbuster and one of Tiomkin's most famous scores, and it still didn't sell. The Virgin Queen is extremely obscure, and could not remotely be considered one of Waxman's better scores, so it is hardly surprising that if it didn't sell. The Spirit of St. Louis is a much better known film, and the score is a masterpiece, so it is reasonable to assume that it would sell better. There are numerous other examples, so selection of the score is important.
|
|
|
|
|
|
But Giant already had 2+ hours of music available if I remember correctly. The La La Land release sounds so much better, but perhaps that was an issue since a few Golden Age fans were happy with their previous CDs?
This is not really true. There was only a Soundstage boot CD available (more than 15 years ago!)with additional music which had not been on the official 40 minute Capitol CD of GIANT.
You could say the same for many other Golden Age scores which also already had boot CD releases a long time ago during the 90s. What about THE TEN COMMANDMENTS or LAND OF THE PHARAOHS or SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS?
So if I follow your logic, the question would therefore be: Why even trying to release a new, expanded SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS CD at all if official Varese and double CD boot have already been available for older Golden Age collectors for a long time?
In addition, GIANT had the big bonus of being a James Dean movie which just for this reason alone should normally have attracted a much larger fan audience, but apparently it didn´t. So you can see how difficult it is nowadays with Golden Age titles in general and there are only a few - most of them already released - which still have a wider appeal. I think that´s the real problem - no matter whether the composer is Tiomkin, Newman or Steiner.
As to the (much too expensive) costs for licensing such older scores for example from Warners, you only have to read these comments by MV:
"For the most part, you would sell 1000 units (if you were lucky). The transfer costs (mandatory to do it in house at a place like WB, for instance), mastering (if they used one of our guys it would be much cheaper, but most likely they would farm it out to a name company and pay 3 to 4 times as much) and assembling (would have to hire someone to produce these things. A third party producer who doesn't work for the studio would most likely be the only economical bet for them) would be about $15k to $20k. And that's before any art, liner notes, printing and manufacturing (or cdr). Even if you do nothing packaging wise you still have to foot the bill for everything else. It ain't cheap, especially with this old stuff.
If companies like us don't do it, it won't get done.
MV"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I, too, love the Deutsch score for THE MALTESE FALCON, in the film and in both its incarnations on CD. What a striking, unusual theme for the black bird, perfectly capturing the portentous and the mysterious.
That said, I wonder if anybody else but me thinks Huston's masterpiece would have been just a little bit even better if, after the main title, it had gone right into the story instead of first giving us the backstory about the statue. How much more dramatic and effective it would be as a mystery if, like Sam Spade, we've never heard of the Falcon, and thus enjoy the pertinent revelations about it as they unfold in his investigation. That prelude in the film is marvelously scored, but really superfluous -- Hammett felt no need for it in his novel, to which Huston was otherwise impeccably faithful -- and really, a bit of a spoiler.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
