Bruce Marshall said on the DIE HARD, SCROOGED, TORA, FAT MAN/LITTLE BOY thread,"call me crazy but I still think a legit, complete release of FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE would be more popular the FAT MAN..)
I couldn't agree more.
For a Few Dollars More has NEVER had a decent release, the first release consisted of 6 tracks (in the UK) coupled with Fistful of Dollars, you got 8 tracks if you lived in Italy or France. There was an extended version that had several tracks ripped from a DVD with the dialogue cut out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally we got the 8 track version released on it's own (in the UK) in mono, why mono for goodness sake?
Surely, someone, somewhere can release a decent version of this score, preferably, before I pop my clogs!
Have all the tapes disappeared or is it just that Ennio doesn't want this released for whatever reason?
An all-singing all-dancing CD would be wonderful. I dont think the tapes are a problem. Previous releases could only put out what they were able to - better than nothing.
However, when asked about this, Ennio has been reluctant. Nobody knows why really. Previously he has been adamant. In recent years, he is softening but still hasnt shown much keeness.
You have to remember, what appears simple to us fans, we don't know behind the scenes what his thinking is, what his reasons are, however odd. We can only speculate. We know he can be a very strange old curmudgeon with some very strange logic and reasoning - something we think is straightforward because we want it, is not possible for a reason important to Morricone but daft to us. He still removes tracks from line-ups because "this wasnt played correctly" or "wasnt how I wanted it". It is crazy to us to deny collectors often what is the best theme, say, from a score, but if he has a bee in his bonnet about it, that's it.
It is what makes him...the lovable old maestro that he is!!
add edit: That said, I do think that, inevitably, we are closer to this release than ever before. As other key scores get releases and the wish lists get ticked off, its one of the few left standing. Morricone gets pressure from his regular CD producers, sometimes he agrees to things he said no to in previous years, other times he is unshakeable in his stance. It's the perogative of an 83 year old fiery Roman, I guess.
The reluctance over this release is odd, but it is Ennio's music so I guess he has the final say over what's released and what isn't.
Bit of a bummer though when you consider all the other Morricone scores being released.
Well I'm off to Rome next January ( an early 60th birthday present from the wife) and we're going on a tour of Cinecitta Studios, it should be fun.
We are going early in the year due to the fact that the wife's Lymphoma is slowly getting worse and once they start "chemo", we won't be able to get travel insurance, so Rome watch out, in January we will be coming to visit you.
Maybe we'll just pop round to Ennio's for a brew!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For a Few Dollars More has NEVER had a decent release, the first release consisted of 6 tracks (in the UK) coupled with Fistful of Dollars, you got 8 tracks if you lived in Italy or France.
That was manna from heaven compared to what we got in the U.S. - a Leroy Holmes knock-off with 6 tracks (17 minutes) re-recorded in Holmes' inimitable style.
For a Few Dollars More has NEVER had a decent release, the first release consisted of 6 tracks (in the UK) coupled with Fistful of Dollars, you got 8 tracks if you lived in Italy or France. That was manna from heaven compared to what we got in the U.S. - a Leroy Holmes knock-off with 7 tracks (17 minutes) re-recorded in Holmes' inimitable style.
"Ennio Morricone: The Legendary Italian Westerns" CD released by BMG in 1991 has 8 tracks from "For a A Few Dollars More" clocking in at 17 minutes. Can be easily bought for $10 or less from amazon. A full stand alone release would be excellent - but this is a great sampling of the music. I believe these are original recordings; if they're not - they sound pretty damn close.
Apparently a few years ago a promo disc was circulated of the expanded score. I think Greg Espinoza may have mentioned it on these pages and it was a promotional item issued when The Dollars trilogy were restored for DVD.
For a Few Dollars More has NEVER had a decent release, the first release consisted of 6 tracks (in the UK) coupled with Fistful of Dollars, you got 8 tracks if you lived in Italy or France. That was manna from heaven compared to what we got in the U.S. - a Leroy Holmes knock-off with 7 tracks (17 minutes) re-recorded in Holmes' inimitable style. -------------------------- "Ennio Morricone: The Legendary Italian Westerns" CD released by BMG in 1991 has 8 tracks from "For a A Few Dollars More" clocking in at 17 minutes. Can be easily bought for $10 or less from amazon. A full stand alone release would be excellent - but this is a great sampling of the music. I believe these are original recordings; if they're not - they sound pretty damn close.
Those are the same 8 tracks that were issued on the French and Italian RCA LPs at the time of the film's release. That CD was the first official U.S. release of those tracks.
I thought I read that there isn't any more music, much was tracked from the first '...Dollars...' movie, and that the album represented all there was. I haven't seen any of the movies (I know, shame on me), so I haven't heard any of the music to picture.
I mean, why would Morricone allow expanded albums of 'A Fistful of Dollars', 'The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly', and 'Once upon a Time In America' and not expand 'For a Few Dollars More'?
There certainly is more music. The major themes are released though, but there are still some interesting unreleased tracks and some suspense in the movie that's not on album.
I have the promo disc and it's one of my most cherished soundtracks. It clocks in around 60 minutes and has a ton of unreleased cues. The disc is mostly solid sounding mono except for the 8 stereo tracks from the original RCA French lp. If you're familiar with the film, you get tracks like "The Sermon," "The Bank Robbery," "Take It To The Station," "Indiscreet," and "Prison Break;" not to mention the film version of the final showdown. After suffering with the terrible LeRoy Holmes covers when I was a little kid, this is the ultimate turn-around.
For a Few Dollars More has NEVER had a decent release, the first release consisted of 6 tracks (in the UK) coupled with Fistful of Dollars, you got 8 tracks if you lived in Italy or France. That was manna from heaven compared to what we got in the U.S. - a Leroy Holmes knock-off with 7 tracks (17 minutes) re-recorded in Holmes' inimitable style. -------------------------- "Ennio Morricone: The Legendary Italian Westerns" CD released by BMG in 1991 has 8 tracks from "For a A Few Dollars More" clocking in at 17 minutes. Can be easily bought for $10 or less from amazon. A full stand alone release would be excellent - but this is a great sampling of the music. I believe these are original recordings; if they're not - they sound pretty damn close.
Those are the same 8 tracks that were issued on the French and Italian RCA LPs at the time of the film's release. That CD was the first official U.S. release of those tracks.
I have an Italian CD on the RCA label (ND 74021), which features 7 cues from 'Fistul of Dollars', 8 from 'Few Dollars More' and 11 from 'Good, Bad and Ugly'. The booklet gives no information about the recordings at all, is this release in stereo? And these are still the only cues available from 'Few Dollars More'?
Composer Cliff Martinez interview about his love of For a few dollars more.
WORDS Thomas Hobbs
Know The Score: Cliff Martinez on For a Few Dollars More
The American musician and composer sings the praises of Ennio Morricone’s iconic spaghetti western soundtrack.
In this new series, Thomas Hobbs speaks to different musicians about their favourite film scores. First up, Cliff Martinez discusses Ennio Morricone’s For a Few Dollars More score.
One of Cliff Martinez’s earliest memories is being taken to a drive-in cinema by his parents to see director Sergio Leone’s iconic spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars. For the musician, who would later play drums with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and end up scoring films including Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, it was a life changing experience akin to seeing the Beatles perform for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show.
“The music just transported you to this other world filled with danger and adventure,” Martinez explains. “I didn’t know a film’s music could be so good. My parents ended up buying me the soundtrack on vinyl and it really was a seminal musical experience for me.”
But if A Fistful of Dollars was Martinez’s entry point into the world of film music, it was the second part of Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, For a Few Dollars More, which inspired him to pursue a career in music. “It was just so much better than the first film,” says Martinez, “mainly because it had much more of a darker edge to it.”
The film stars Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as a pair of sharp-shooting bounty hunters, who must work together to take out the evil El Indio (Gian Maria Volonté) and his murderous gang. The film contains arguably the most sadistic scene in the history of the western genre, when El Indio orders his men to take an enemy’s screaming wife and newborn baby outside of a church, where two gunshots ring out and their cries fall silent.
Still shocking almost 55 years on, the scene, which rejected the unwritten Hollywood rule of not murdering infant children on screen, lent the film a real sense of danger, creating an atmosphere where nothing is sacred and anybody could catch a bullet at any given moment.
“I love how Leone’s westerns branched off from something familiar and did things in such a different way,” says Martinez. “I used to love the old western shows like The Wild Wild West and The Riflemen, but Leone made those worlds so much dirtier and more brutal. It had sexual content, it had flies buzzing around people’s faces, no one shaved, and you could almost smell Clint Eastwood’s sweat. There’s a conspicuous lack of hygiene in For a Few Dollars More. It was just so visceral and thrilling to watch as a kid in the 1960s.”
On the surface, Morricone’s flamboyant soundtrack has all the hallmarks of a Leone western, with twangy Jew’s harps, church organs, guns that whistle and catchy, jangly guitar riffs. But it’s also punctuated by an eerie melancholy that manifests itself in the jingle which plays whenever El Indio opens his musical pocket watch – something he stole from a young woman who shot herself after being raped.
“That is the standout track,” Martinez declares. “There’s something very sinister about ‘Carrilon’s Theme’, the music is like the child lullaby scene from A Nightmare on Elm Street. You realise this is a horror movie, too, not just a western. Music boxes are supposed to be soothing, but Morricone really nails this idea that they’re also really creepy, that there’s a darkness even in something that’s supposed to be light. I didn’t get the sexual undertones of the pocket watch as a kid, but I guess the fact they were present only made the song more creepy.”
It’s clear that Morricone remains a huge influence on Martinez, although he says he wouldn’t dream of trying to imitate the legendary Italian composer’s work. In particular, he loves how Morricone’s music steps into the spotlight and dominates films only when it’s appropriate; knowing when to hold back is something many film composers lack.
“He was a real musical iconoclast,” says Martinez. “His sense of instrumentation was flamboyant and muddy, and I’m influenced by the way he combined pan flutes with an electric guitar or these male vocals, which chant something eerie and unintelligible. That kind of stuff really requires you to stick out your neck musically as a composer. I would never try to imitate Morricone, but these are the aspects of his musical personality that I look at. He is an obsessive composer and you hear stories of him recording weeks and weeks of music for just one film, but that level of obsession is what makes him so brilliant.”
The way in which For a Few Dollars More explores toxic masculinity is something shared by a number of films Martinez has scored, particularly his collaborations with Refn: Drive, Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon. “Ryan Gosling’s Driver wouldn’t exist without Clint Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More,” Martinez suggests. “He was the personification of the strong, silent type.”
But it’s the way Morricone’s music makes the Wild West and its arid setting into a character which is mostly reflected in Martinez’s work. “Sometimes the setting has to be a character itself and music can help emphasise that,” he says. “In Traffic, Mexico was an important character, while the synths in my Drive score were all about reflecting how Los Angeles makes you feel.”
Speaking fondly about Leone and Morricone’s fruitful partnership on the Dollars Trilogy, Martinez concludes: “The reason I like collaborating with people like Steven Soderbergh, who I’ve worked with since 1989, is that he lets you express yourself and only really enters the picture if things go off track. The best directors are the ones that give you complete freedom to run free musically, and Leone understood that with For a Few Dollars More.”
I have a Recording Arts double CD that pairs FAFDM with Danger: Diabolik, I bought off of eBay.
It's a re-recording, but it purports to be complete. Based on the track titles, there isn't much more to the score than those 8 tracks (or themes, anyway), and some source music. The liner notes even mention how there has only ever been the 8 tracks released, paired with AFFOD
