Thanks very much, Mr. Lichty, for preserving some of my self-confidence! I see I did read one of zooba's threads when I was still a lurker locally. And Yavar, thanks for freeing me of remorse by sharing that you are so ... fluid in your choice of a personal favorite Goldsmith score. Besides, maybe Dante told zooba that HOGUE was his favorite before he had seen or heard LONELY ARE THE BRAVE! (I don't know if it's likely, but I'm tossing you a lifeline.)
As for my regret over ANGIE's showing in this poll, I meant its amassing zero points, since it forfeited Mr. Lichty's sole vote.
It's delightful to learn that you and Kevin hold THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE in such high regard. I'm the rare hardcore Peckinpah fan who holds this as my personal favorite film (as it remained the director's favorite among his own work). I don't actually expect the label would bother expanding this one
But at least we a have a very good release of CABLE HOGUE. I would like to see unreleased scores first, especially Fielding's JUNIOR BONNER.
But at least we a have a very good release of CABLE HOGUE. I would like to see unreleased scores first, especially Fielding's JUNIOR BONNER.
I'm very grateful that HOGUE was released in my lifetime; I cited my few issues about content only within the context of this thread, not for whining. And I'm sorry that JUNIOR BONNER never got out before the institution holding those Fielding elements so raised their prices as to make a CD release impossible. (According to what I remember being stated by Intrada.)
Fielding's material at the open and close of BONNER remain the most beautifully poignant Country/Western music I've ever heard. (Which isn't all that much, since it's not my milieu.) At least, chriss, a friend tipped me off years ago that the film's two C&W songs by Rod Hart (that originally connected to those Fielding cues in the picture) had been issued together as a 45rpm. At least I found that on eBay ... even though it would have been preferable to have them on a full BONNER release.
Fielding's material at the open and close of BONNER remain the most beautifully poignant Country/Western music I've ever heard.
Well said, Steven! But I suppose the release of the title song is not the beatifully arranged version by Fielding from the movie with his great writing for strings.
Tough, but thanks so much for waiting! I've been playing through selections all afternoon/evening to help me! Here we go...
1. Matinee - my top choice and one I hope we get someday! 2. City Hall - saw the movie recently and would love to see this complete. 3. Medicine Man - such a beautiful score and interested to hear it in complete form. 4. Looney Tunes: Back In Action - fun and goofy with some similar vibes to "Gremlins 2" (one of my all time favorites!) 5. Angie - beautiful main theme and interested to hear the missing selections 6. Damien: Omen II - thought complete, always happy to have our "audio masters" clean up scores that could use a little extra TLC 7. The Ballad Of Cable Hogue - would be interested to hear the missing cues 8. Love Field - curious as to the unreleased music on this one 9. Mom And Dad Save The World - curious to see how the missing music would change the listening experience on this one 10. The Other - beautiful cues on this one and could use a remaster plus expansion
This is a great Top Ten and I was happy to wait for it! The best part of it is that by including Angie, it means that all of the scores in this poll will have at least some support (this makes me very happy and no doubt Steven, too!) I confess I was very surprised that up until you, Angie had no points but Mr. Baseball got points from more than one person.
Yavar
P.S. Thanks David for finding those zooba posts! I guess I'll just have to try and get an interview with Joe Dante to ask his opinions on both scores!
Tough, but thanks so much for waiting! I've been playing through selections all afternoon/evening to help me! Here we go...
1. Matinee - my top choice and one I hope we get someday! 2. City Hall - saw the movie recently and would love to see this complete. 3. Medicine Man - such a beautiful score and interested to hear it in complete form. 4. Looney Tunes: Back In Action - fun and goofy with some similar vibes to "Gremlins 2" (one of my all time favorites!) 5. Angie - beautiful main theme and interested to hear the missing selections 6. Damien: Omen II - thought complete, always happy to have our "audio masters" clean up scores that could use a little extra TLC 7. The Ballad Of Cable Hogue - would be interested to hear the missing cues 8. Love Field - curious as to the unreleased music on this one 9. Mom And Dad Save The World - curious to see how the missing music would change the listening experience on this one 10. The Other - beautiful cues on this one and could use a remaster plus expansion
This is a great Top Ten and I was happy to wait for it! The best part of it is that by including Angie, it means that all of the scores in this poll will have at least some support (this makes me very happy and no doubt Steven, too!) I confess I was very surprised that up until you, Angie had no points but Mr. Baseball got points from more than one person.
Yavar
P.S. Thanks David for finding those zooba posts! I guess I'll just have to try and get an interview with Joe Dante to ask his opinions on both scores!
Thanks Yavar! Angie is a great score and I'm happy to have it one my list!
Yeah I think Angie suffers from being overlooked, more than hated. I think Mr. Baseball actually has a higher profile because of all of the active hate it gets (see also: Criminal Law), so ironically that may actually have helped it get a few more votes!
Ok, initial tally done! Anyone who would still like to vote, please feel free. This is just where things fall right now.
The winner of the ranked choice vote is ... (drumroll please) ...
THE OTHER (1972), with 18 people awarding it a total of 131 points, and 5 of those 18 people selecting it as their #1 priority. It is interesting that even without the ranked-choice system which Tom McGuire requested, The Other still would have won, as three more people voted for it than any other option. (Anyone know what happened to Tom? He hasn't actually participated in this round...and I don't remember the last time I saw him on the board.) This result is also fairly in line with the 2016 poll I conducted, with the top three winners of that all having been expanded since, and The 13th Warrior being the only remaining unexpanded score which placed (in 4th) ahead of The Other (in 5th, but only by a single vote).
It is also notable that in terms of first choice votes (i.e. what people would have selected if they had only been allowed to vote for a single title instead of ten), it also comes out on top but actually is tied by Rudy, which otherwise ranks much lower in both number of total votes and number of points in the ranked-choice system. It seems Rudy fans are particularly passionate, as fully HALF of the ten people who voted for it selected it as their first choice.
The ranked-choice system I devised was more work but achieved a good objective: dealing with ties. To be exact, there was still a prominent tie (for 3rd place), somehow both in terms of points and in terms of votes, but I was able to break the tie by keeping track of how many people voted for a title as their first choice. Here's the full ranking:
1. The Other (1972) - 131 points, 18 votes, 5 first choice votes 2. Love Field (1991) - 108 points, 15 votes, 4 first choice votes 3. The Mephisto Waltz (1971) - 106 points, 15 votes, 4 first choice votes 4. The 13th Warrior (1999) - 106 points, 15 votes, 3 first choice votes 5. Our Man Flint (1966) - 80 points, 10 votes, 3 first choice votes 6. Rudy (1993) - 79 points, 10 votes, 5 first choice votes 7. Matinee (1993) - 78 points, 11 votes, 2 first choice votes 8. Hollow Man (2000) - 72 points, 10 votes, 4 first choice votes 9. In Like Flint (1967) - 70 points, 11 votes, 0 first choice votes (to be perfectly accurate, for one person it shared 1st place with Our Man Flint) 10. L.A. Confidential (1997) - 64 points, 8 votes, 2 first choice votes 11. Medicine Man (1992) - 57 points, 11 votes, 1 first choice vote 12. Mom and Dad Save the World (1991) - 51 points, 9 votes, 0 first choice votes 13. Timeline (2003) - 50 points, 9 votes, 1 first choice vote 14. Along Came a Spider (2001) - 50 points, 6 votes, 2 first choice votes 15. City Hall (1996) - 48 points, 8 votes, 1 first choice vote 16. Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) - 43 points, 8 votes, 0 first choice votes 17. The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) - 41 points, 5 votes, 2 first choice votes 18. Damien: Omen II (1978) - 35 points, 5 votes, 0 first choice votes 19. Raggedy Man (1981) - 25 points, 4 votes, 1 first choice vote (Technically, The 'Burbs being reissued was the first thing they mentioned, but as apparently Robert Townson took the rights to that with him when he left Varese, it's not eligible for this poll.) 20. Malice (1993) - 7 points, 3 votes, 0 first choice votes 21. Angie (1994) - 6 points, 2 votes, 0 first choice votes 22. Mr. Baseball (1992) - 5 points, 2 votes, 0 first choice votes
For those interested, here's the ranking of the top ten scores by pure number of votes (i.e. no ranked choice) -- there's a clear 1st place but the remaining nine scores break out into a series of three ties: 1. The Other (1972) - 18 votes 2. THREE WAY TIE with 15 votes each: Love Field (1991), The Mephisto Waltz (1971), The 13th Warrior (1999) 3. THREE WAY TIE with 11 votes each: Matinee (1993), In Like Flint (1967), Medicine Man (1992) 4. THREE WAY TIE with 10 votes each: Our Man Flint (1966), Rudy (1993), Hollow Man (2000)
Notably, In Like Flint (barely) places higher than the original Our Man Flint, and Medicine Man manages to tie for 3rd place, when before it barely missed out on the top 10 with a ranked choice system. L.A. Confidential, which points-wise had kept it out of the top 10, doesn't even make the top 12 by a pure vote system. The bottom 12 scores by this system each received less than ten votes each and rank as follows:
5. TIE with 9 votes each: Mom and Dad Save the World (1991) and Timeline (2003) 6. THREE WAY TIE with 8 votes each: L.A. Confidential (1997), City Hall (1996), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) 7. Along Came a Spider (2001) - 6 votes 8. TIE with 5 votes each: The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) and Damien: Omen II (1978) 9. Raggedy Man (1981) - 4 votes 10. Malice (1993) - 3 votes 11. TIE with 2 votes each: Mr. Baseball (1992) and Angie (1994)
Finally, for those interested why I wouldn't just ask people what their ONE desired title is, you may be surprised at just how wide the spread is, when limiting the tally to only scores people selected as their first choice: 1. The Other / Rudy (five "first picks" each) 2. Love Field / The Mephisto Waltz / Hollow Man (four "first picks" each) 3. The 13th Warrior / Our Man Flint (three "first picks" each) 4. Matinee / L.A. Confidential / Along Came a Spider / The Ballad of Cable Hogue (two "first picks" each) 5. In Like Flint / Medicine Man / Timeline / City Hall / Raggedy Man (one "first pick" each)
But this isn't really about "first choices", because it's supposed to aid Varese in selecting what to prioritize next. From that perspective, I think if a person included a score in their top ten choices here, they would be likely to buy a new expanded edition of that title, and their vote is useful to know about even if it's their 10th choice.
What about any ranked lower? Is there *any* other of these 22 scores where you'd be interested in a new edition from Varese, even mildly? If so please vote for them.
Lessee...as soon as four other people after you submit new votes (so five new people submitting total), I will do a new tally. Sound good?
Please, folks, if you're inclined to vote please do so!
1. Hollow Man - this is one of my favorite Goldsmith scores, so I'd love to own an expanded edition. 2. The Other - not familiar with this one, but all of the praise makes me curious. 3. The Mephisto Waltz - for me one of Jerry's most scary and bizarre creations. I'd love to hear a restoration of it. 4. Love Field - the original album is great, but also very short. 5. Looney Tunes: Back in Action - his last score deserves to be expanded. 6. The 13th Warrior - really like this one, so 18 more minutes wouldn't hurt. Even better if they'd throw in Revell's unused score. I'd be interested to hear that one. 7. L.A. Confidential - not sure how much unreleased material there is, but this is a good score. 8. Damien: Omen II - this one could do with a new restoration. 9. Matinee - I am quite satisfied with the original album, but it would be nice to see all the Dante scores expanded. 10. Our Man Flint / In Like Flint - they were released together before, so they can round out my top 10 together.
After the top 4 it got a bit difficult, but there it is.
2. The Other - not familiar with this one, but all of the praise makes me curious.
Please check it out! It's a wonderful score, which Jerry wrote for the director of To Kill a Mockingbird (and I think I hear a bit of kinship with that amazing Bernstein score):
Sadly that Main Title is the only bit of the score I can find on YouTube, but it gives you a flavor of the score: beautiful, with a tinge of danger/threat. If you're interested in hearing another great cue of the score in film context of course, I found a clip here:
6. The 13th Warrior - really like this one, so 18 more minutes wouldn't hurt. Even better if they'd throw in Revell's unused score. I'd be interested to hear that one.
I really like it. In some ways it's more interesting than Goldsmith's score because it's a bit more exotic in its sound and less "traditional". I'm a fan of both scores though they are very different, and I'm not usually big on Revell.
7. L.A. Confidential - not sure how much unreleased material there is, but this is a good score.
I think about half is unreleased, judging from the isolated score track on DVD.
9. Matinee - I am quite satisfied with the original album, but it would be nice to see all the Dante scores expanded.
There's actually quite a bit missing from this! Did you check out the unreleased cue Roger posted?
10. Our Man Flint / In Like Flint - they were released together before, so they can round out my top 10 together.
Ok but once again including 11 scores in your top 10 presents a dilemma for me in terms of how to award points in the ranked choice system. 10th place would garner a single point, so do I give each of those scores only half of a point? Is there one of them you like better? (For me it's the original Our Man Flint, because I love the main theme and all its variations, while In Like Flint has an awful lot of the Your Zowie Face theme developed throughout it which I don't like nearly as much.)
Fielding's material at the open and close of BONNER remain the most beautifully poignant Country/Western music I've ever heard.
Well said, Steven! But I suppose the release of the title song is not the beatifully arranged version by Fielding from the movie with his great writing for strings.
I needed to listen to them again to be able to reply, chriss, but you're right: The issued recordings of those Rod Hart songs are certainly not the film versions. If my memory is right here, Fielding's strings were applied (gorgeously) only to Hart's opening song "Arizona Morning," and not to the final one; yet the airplay rendition of "Rodeo Man" just fades out, leaving me pining for Fielding's quick drum roll that closes it in the movie.
Then as a Fielding man, chriss, I wonder if you know of the book JUNIOR BONNER: The Making of a Classic With Steve McQueen and Sam Peckinpah in the Summer of 1971 by screenwriter Jeb Rosebrook and his son Stuart? (It's tiresome that marketing today demands an explanatory subtitle as long as the book itself.) If you don't, I recommend it to you. Rosebrook devotes only two pages to the BONNER composer, yet conveys his admiration for the man himself and for the BONNER score, as well as his indelible memory of attending its recording sessions. Further, in the book's affecting last chapter "Epilogue: a Curtain Call," Fielding receives a final salute of three more paragraphs.
For me it's the original Our Man Flint, because I love the main theme and all its variations, while In Like Flint has an awful lot of the Your Zowie Face theme developed throughout it which I don't like nearly as much.
Yavar
I'm with you there, Yavar. IN LIKE FLINT features some of my favorite renditions of the Flint theme, and the cue "Odin, Dva, Tri, Kick" might be my single favorite between the two scores. But I'll never understand how the "Your Zowie Face" melody escaped getting tossed into Goldsmith's wastebasket.
1. The Other 2. The Mephisto Waltz 3. Hollow Man 4. Our Man Flint 5. In Like Flint 6. Timeline 7. Matinee 8. Love Field 9. Mom and Dad Save the World 10. Medicine Man
Please check it out! It's a wonderful score, which Jerry wrote for the director of To Kill a Mockingbird (and I think I hear a bit of kinship with that amazing Bernstein score):
Sadly that Main Title is the only bit of the score I can find on YouTube, but it gives you a flavor of the score: beautiful, with a tinge of danger/threat. If you're interested in hearing another great cue of the score in film context of course, I found a clip here:
Thank you for those samples, they are indeed lovely. That clip is a bit strange to watch, when i have no context of what precedes it. It does intrigue me. I should check this film out someday. And this score really deserves its own release!
7. L.A. Confidential - not sure how much unreleased material there is, but this is a good score.
I think about half is unreleased, judging from the isolated score track on DVD.
That's a lot of unreleased material! Never thought there would be that much more, then again, I haven't seen the film in years.
9. Matinee - I am quite satisfied with the original album, but it would be nice to see all the Dante scores expanded.
There's actually quite a bit missing from this! Did you check out the unreleased cue Roger posted?
Yes, I checked that out some time ago. Wasn't blown away by it though. The original album just has a great flow to it. But, as I said, it would be nice to see it expanded. Goldsmith and Joe Dante made a great pair.
10. Our Man Flint / In Like Flint - they were released together before, so they can round out my top 10 together.
Ok but once again including 11 scores in your top 10 presents a dilemma for me in terms of how to award points in the ranked choice system. 10th place would garner a single point, so do I give each of those scores only half of a point? Is there one of them you like better? (For me it's the original Our Man Flint, because I love the main theme and all its variations, while In Like Flint has an awful lot of the Your Zowie Face theme developed throughout it which I don't like nearly as much.)
I was afraid I might not get away with that... you can give the whole point to Our Man Flint. It's the one that started it, so that should get priority. I have the Intrada release, but don't listen to these scores often, but when I'm in the right mood they're great fun.
Would anyone else like to chime in with a vote before I re-tally?
Also...got a bit of a bombshell here which might potentially shift a few people's lists (but for my sake, let's hold off on conducting a new poll for another couple years!)
Thanks to film music writer Gergely Hubai, I recently learned that the Varese album of Fierce Creatures COULD indeed be expanded in a new Deluxe Edition! When I spoke with Robert Townson, he told me that the album had the complete score and then some. Which is true, in a way. Jerry wrote and recorded new extended cues based on the thematic material he'd written for the film, as a way to fill out the album because otherwise the complete film score as recorded was too short.
BUT...
It turns out that in some cases, Jerry's new album cues were extended album treatments of shorter film cues...and those film cues (all of which are 40 seconds or less, but there are a number of them) remain UNRELEASED! Basically, what we have here is something semi-akin to Williams's The River -- half the original album was specially recorded FOR the album, and the film versions of certain cues went unreleased until Intrada's expansion. I haven't totaled up the time yet, but Mr. Hubai was trying to make a homemade isolated score track for himself, and was surprised to discover that multiple cues in the film did not exist on the album in their original form/recording, that could match up with the film. So there's room for a new definitive Deluxe Edition for this score after all, and it *should* have been eligible for this poll and previous ones!
(Want to mock up a Deluxe Edition cover, Spinmeister? )