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Posted: |
Feb 3, 2019 - 2:35 PM
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By: |
finder4545
(Member)
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...
No. You were expressing disbelief that Quartet would have recorded "The Bride Wore Black" – something they had already done – instead of "Sahara." It was extremely dismissive of their work, and of anybody who preferred the score you didn't want over the one you did. That's why you got pushback. Please don't play the victim.
SchiffyM, there are ways and ways of interpreting others' thoughts and I think what someone perceived behind my words was exaggerated and completely beyond my intentions. There is no doubt or mistery that, as old aged film music follower, I am willing to see released certain works, but they are NOT by "personal taste", are without any doubt true "Holy Grails" that deserve consideration in any circumstance, are something that an entire community of respectable lovers, enthusiasts, followers, scholars and "old timers" is expecting for years, without seeing the light of a release. Think that month after month, and year after year, while our life goes on, we pass through the sieve the announcements of this board, but for a long time... nothing has come, nothing! The promised vaults of Warner, Paramount, Fox remain closed and the cellars containing those glorious titles seem to go to dust. Even posts of eminent representatives here seem to have disappeared (superfluous to mention the names), and interest seems to have vanished. That said, you can guess how I feel when a new recording comes, and the title seems taken at random, out of every intuitive list! I think there is a moral to respect in our little special world, and the general expectations must not be disappointed, when the money can serve a cause and not a personal will. By now, I think Quartet Record, if willing to continue in recovering our old things, can serve a cause, and my post can inspire a reflection. Subjecting my single words to a trial I think is not correct and productive. My final intention is not to criticize but to improve selection and do better, when possible.
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Think that month after month, and year after year, while our life goes on, we pass through the sieve the announcements of this board, but for a long time... nothing has come, nothing! The promised vaults of Warner, Paramount, Fox remain closed and the cellars containing those glorious titles seem to go to dust. Even posts of eminent representatives here seem to have disappeared (superfluous to mention the names), and interest seems to have vanished. That said, you can guess how I feel when a new recording comes, and the title seems taken at random, out of every intuitive list! I think there is a moral to respect in our little special world, and the general expectations must not be disappointed, when the money can serve a cause and not a personal will.
As a long-time Golden Age collector myself who certainly also has a long wish list with re-recordings of older scores which will probably remain unfulfilled I don´t understand your personal logic at all. I think that you misjudge the current soundtrack market completely and don´t recognize what is possible and what is not because the costs often are simply too prohibitive.
THE BRIDE WORE BLACK has long been one of the last important gaps in the Herrmann discography and in addition it is - above all here in Europe - a well-known and popular film by the renowned French director Francois Truffaut about which quite a lot of articles and essays have been written throughout all the years. Many people - and certainly also what you call "scholars" - have longed for a new recording of this score as the complete original recording doesn´t exist anymore. And as you could see in the thread on this board a lot of people have also been satisified with this re-recording choice. So why on earth should Quartet have favoured a rather unknown Rózsa title like SAHARA over Herrmann´s BRIDE WORE BLACK? Do you really think that there are still thousands of collectors nowadays who would buy a new recording of SAHARA? You can´t be serious about that as those times are over which is also the reason why the labels are so reluctant to release old scores from the 40s/50s now which need a lot of restoration work and are very (or rather too) costly to produce. So it is a small wonder that something like the Waxman CD set from Intrada has still been possible at all more than a year ago.
And don´t you know that about one or two years ago James Fitzpatrick refused to record Rozsa´s THE FOUR FEATHERS as he would simply lose too much money and too few collectors would buy it to even break even? Please keeep in mind that THE FOUR FEATHERS is still a more famous title than SAHARA and it is also a more important entry in Rózsa´s full career. So if James Fitzpatrick doesn´t even want to record FOUR FEATHERS, why then should he consider doing SAHARA? Besides, a suite of SAHARA has already been recorded two times in recent years (on Intrada and on Chandos) so that at least something is available.
But what is more: Apparently you haven´t seeen at all what José Benitez from Quartet Records has written here in the BRIDE WORE BLACK thread: Both Rózsa´s FOUR FEATHERS and Friedhofer´s VERA CRUZ are scores which they at least have on their "wish list" of planned recordings. So why do you not rejoice about such extraordinary plans and instead criticize Quartet for their choices?
"We have our own wish list, which includes “Vera Cruz,” “The Four Feathers,” an album pairing “The Soft Skin” and “Une femme est passé” (Delerue), another devoted to John Addison with “Guns for Batasi” and “Start the Revolution Without Me.” There was also “Murder by Death,” which doesn't make any sense now that Varese has given us the original tracks (at last!) All these are just wishes; nothing is confirmed yet. First, we need to see how our initial titles fare."
https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=4&threadID=132494&archive=0
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Unfortunately, I think the problem might be that Europeans are less familiar with WW2 war era films dealing with the battle against Imperial Japan, although I am sure THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI was a solid hit in Europe twelve years after a smaller production like BLOOD ON THE SUN was made.
Of course, the RIVER KWAI movie was a huge commercial success in Europe at the end of the 50s, but you can´t compare it with the much smaller movies SAHARA or BLOOD ON THE SUN at all. For example, here in Germany BLOOD ON THE SUN is a totally forgotten and lost film and almost nobody - even though you will ask people from an older generation who could still be interested in such films - may know it anymore. SAHARA (despite the popularity of Humphrey Bogart) didn´t even have a theatrical release after WWII here in Germany and was shown for the first time on TV during the mid-70s. But the German dubbing replaced most of Rózsa´s score - as the music & effects track was no longer available for the dubbing at such a late time - so that the score is also more or less unknown here.
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Posted: |
Feb 5, 2019 - 8:00 AM
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By: |
finder4545
(Member)
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...
But what is more: Apparently you haven´t seeen at all what José Benitez from Quartet Records has written here in the BRIDE WORE BLACK thread: Both Rózsa´s FOUR FEATHERS and Friedhofer´s VERA CRUZ are scores which they at least have on their "wish list" of planned recordings. So why do you not rejoice about such extraordinary plans and instead criticize Quartet for their choices?
Clearness and wiseness. Thank you, Stefan. As always, very helpful your post. You were right: yes, I made the mistake to access the BRIDE thread at page 26, showing my unhappy feeling "at that moment", unaware of the things already said and happened, and above all the Quartet's statement of possible future recordings of such titles as FOUR FEATHERS and VERA CRUZ, the tops in my mind. So I have to recognize that the label had plans for the Golden Age and didn't deserve any complaint. My appreciation for Quartet remains intact and I see it opens a new door on our passion. My copy of BRIDE obviously is coming and I would never bypass this new Herrmann anyway. I hope to join the general opinion and I'm anxious to see how Velazquez faced the hard task of conducting an Herrmann's score, in my opinion a test for a conductor.
As for BLOOD ON THE SUN, music and movie, here in Italy we were lucky to have a good vision of the US cinema panorama, as nearly anything was imported and dubbed when ME tracks were still available. Problems come in some WW2 propaganda films having sequences involving the national pride or military aspects heavily cut. So to say, in Five Graves to Cairo the character of Fortunio Bonanova, portraying a laughable Italian general, suffered here a bad editing that altered the continuity of the Rozsa score, calling for stock music. By the way we have Rozsa because Wilder, having to give up on Waxman, insisted on him against the opinion of the chief of Param music dept, a certain Victor Young, who disliked Rozsa on this movie! Just to remember another big title involving the oriental ground of WW2, it is worth mentioning THREE CAME HOME by Friedhofer, which is in the Fox catalogue and can be "easily" released in its original tracks.
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<>By the way we have Rozsa because Wilder, having to give up on Waxman, insisted on him against the opinion of the chief of Param music dept, a certain Victor Young, <>
Louis Lipstone was the head of the music department at Paramount at that time, as recounted in the Intrada CD liner notes by Scott Bettencourt.
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Finder4545, are you certain that Friedhofer score can be easily released? Because we know from multiple sources that many of his Fox scores did not survive the ages (or only survived partially — just read the liner notes on some of the FSM and Intrada releases of his Fox scores which you no doubt own, like In Love and War).
Yavar
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