Fried's masterpieces are his Lost in Space score "Collision of the Planets," which sounds like no other score I've ever heard; and his exotica album "Orienta," released under the name of the Markko Polo Adventurers, on RCA.
You can pinpoint his future stamp on the two notorious Desilu series.
While we're at it, speaking of Desilu. The studio did a trio of classic TV shows Fried worked on. Star Trek, Mission: Impossble and Mannix. I hope we will see a release of the Mannix scores in the future, too.
Bumping this thread to remind me that I have to post a rabbit in a few days.
But first just a mini bunny - I received this a few weeks ago. Haven't had time to really get into it yet, but I will. Initial reaction is that I was a bit disappointed in the sound quality for FEAR AND DESIRE and DAY OF THE FIGHT. I managed to watch those two films as well. (Member) is right when he says that FEAR AND DESIRE plays like an episode of "The Twilight Zone". Interesting film. Music is pretty good, with some unfortunate "silly-sounding" moments - which the film did NOT need.
Favourite so far is the rather wonderful score for TO THE MOON AND BEYOND. Is it just me, or does some of this score sound almost exactly the same as one of Fried's "Star Trek" episodes? Other parts on the CD could be straight out of Kubrick's THE KILLING, which in turn sounds like it could be almost exactly the same as anything from THE RETURN OF DRACULA to THE VAMPIRE to I BURY THE LIVING. Buy this double-CD from FSM today! It's great, and since it's been available for 25 years it's sure to sell out soon!
I've said it before until you're all blue in the face - I love Gerald Fried because the stuff he wrote in 1951 is like a thread which weaves itself throughout everything else he ever did - and long may he continue doing so. Is Gerald Fried the composer with the longest-ever career in films?
Stay tuned for more inconsequential rabbits, next week, at the wrong time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The above was me then.
And this is me now.
Excuse me, but I always do this when I'm constructing a rabbit. I bump my own earlier mini-rabbitings so that I can see what I wrote then in order to build the connecting tissue with the goal of creating the perfect rabbit. That does not mean to say that I do not read your own contributions. I do, and I enjoy reading them. I'd like you all to post more. Just like Frankenstein's creation, this could be a rabbit built from many different rabbit sources.
Onya, I had heard that Gerald Fried exotica album before, but it never quite stuck in my mind. The clip you posted from "Lost in Space" may be unlike any other score you've heard, but the notes are unquestionably Friedian - and that's not a slip of any kind.
(Member), your link to the trailer for THE KILLING shows what I hinted at in the original rabbit. That sledgehammer-subtle oxymoronic horror music sure got blasted out across many of his scores of the '50s, scores which weren't even for horror movies (although they all have bits and pieces of the four horror scores heard on the FSM release from donkey's years ago). Sometimes it sounds like a high school band playing, and I believe that in some cases it actually was.
So, it came to pass that lunch was served and I had to finish my Rabbit Part Deux in a slipshod manner. Perhaps I should have started when I had more time. But it was not to be. Thus I shall terminate with some very irrelevant thoughts, occasionally just "re-making" the first (and no doubt best in the series) rabbit.
This, I hasten to repeat, is largely about the Caldera release of FEAR AND DESIRE. Regarding that film, I think that it's much more appreciable than Kubrick himself thought. Yes, the acting is for the most part dire, but I think the "home movie" feel adds to its uniqueness. It looks like it's striving to be Art, hence (maybe) why some call it pretentious. It's almost like experimental film-making, not quite Maya Deren but getting there, albeit accidentally. Love the idea of doppelgangers...or was that just because they didn't have any more money for more actors?
DAY OF THE FIGHT isn't particularly interesting as a film (I ain't into boxing), but in context it's a worthwhile watch.
I never managed to see TO THE MOON AND BEYOND. Produced for the '64/'65 World Fair in New York, I wonder if copies exist.
There you go. Lunch is getting cold and I hardly touched on the music. But I will be back, when you least expect it, with...SUPER-RABBIT.
Meanwhile, what did YOOZ all think of this new CD release?
Bumping this thread to remind me that I have to post a rabbit in a few days.
But first just a mini bunny - I received this a few weeks ago. Haven't had time to really get into it yet, but I will. Initial reaction is that I was a bit disappointed in the sound quality for FEAR AND DESIRE and DAY OF THE FIGHT. I managed to watch those two films as well. (Member) is right when he says that FEAR AND DESIRE plays like an episode of "The Twilight Zone". Interesting film. Music is pretty good, with some unfortunate "silly-sounding" moments - which the film did NOT need.
Favourite so far is the rather wonderful score for TO THE MOON AND BEYOND. Is it just me, or does some of this score sound almost exactly the same as one of Fried's "Star Trek" episodes? Other parts on the CD could be straight out of Kubrick's THE KILLING, which in turn sounds like it could be almost exactly the same as anything from THE RETURN OF DRACULA to THE VAMPIRE to I BURY THE LIVING. Buy this double-CD from FSM today! It's great, and since it's been available for 25 years it's sure to sell out soon!
I've said it before until you're all blue in the face - I love Gerald Fried because the stuff he wrote in 1951 is like a thread which weaves itself throughout everything else he ever did - and long may he continue doing so. Is Gerald Fried the composer with the longest-ever career in films?
Stay tuned for more inconsequential rabbits, next week, at the wrong time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The above was me then.
And this is me now.
Excuse me, but I always do this when I'm constructing a rabbit. I bump my own earlier mini-rabbitings so that I can see what I wrote then in order to build the connecting tissue with the goal of creating the perfect rabbit. That does not mean to say that I do not read your own contributions. I do, and I enjoy reading them. I'd like you all to post more. Just like Frankenstein's creation, this could be a rabbit built from many different rabbit sources.
Onya, I had heard that Gerald Fried exotica album before, but it never quite stuck in my mind. The clip you posted from "Lost in Space" may be unlike any other score you've heard, but the notes are unquestionably Friedian - and that's not a slip of any kind.
(Member), your link to the trailer for THE KILLING shows what I hinted at in the original rabbit. That sledgehammer-subtle oxymoronic horror music sure got blasted out across many of his scores of the '50s, scores which weren't even for horror movies (although they all have bits and pieces of the four horror scores heard on the FSM release from donkey's years ago). Sometimes it sounds like a high school band playing, and I believe that in some cases it actually was.
So, it came to pass that lunch was served and I had to finish my Rabbit Part Deux in a slipshod manner. Perhaps I should have started when I had more time. But it was not to be. Thus I shall terminate with some very irrelevant thoughts, occasionally just "re-making" the first (and no doubt best in the series) rabbit.
This, I hasten to repeat, is largely about the Caldera release of FEAR AND DESIRE. Regarding that film, I think that it's much more appreciable than Kubrick himself thought. Yes, the acting is for the most part dire, but I think the "home movie" feel adds to its uniqueness. It looks like it's striving to be Art, hence (maybe) why some call it pretentious. It's almost like experimental film-making, not quite Maya Deren but getting there, albeit accidentally. Love the idea of doppelgangers...or was that just because they didn't have any more money for more actors?
DAY OF THE FIGHT isn't particularly interesting as a film (I ain't into boxing), but in context it's a worthwhile watch.
I never managed to see TO THE MOON AND BEYOND. Produced for the '64/'65 World Fair in New York, I wonder if copies exist.
There you go. Lunch is getting cold and I hardly touched on the music. But I will be back, when you least expect it, with...SUPER-RABBIT.
Meanwhile, what did YOOZ all think of this new CD release?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All of the above was me then, and all of the below is me now.
And so it came to pass that I really sat down and LISTENED to this properly, with no distractions. What I mentioned earlier still stands - the sound quality is an immediate turn-off... BUT, I went into it this time knowing its deficiencies, and it was much better overall. You just have to accept that it is what it is, listen through the thin, harsh sound, and pick up on what Fried is doing with the music.
I'm a bit mental, quite seriously disurbed, and the way I listened to the CD (we're talking FEAR AND DESIRE here) is by imagining it as two 20-minute LPs. The shortest LPs ever, so maybe some kind of promo of the time. "Side A" would end with Track 6, "Girls Always Love Stories", and that's actually quite a good way to end it, because the moments which I don't like are all included in the preceding ten minutes - the way the Main Titles build to a (calculated?) cacophony... I'm not sure if that dissonance is really just all the musicians hitting the wrong notes at the same time. Then there's the "madness" music. This for me is one of the strongest sequences in the film, thanks to the striking physique and eyes of actress Virginia Leith, and the way Kubrick films it all. I think Paul Mazursky is the actor here who goes nuts. Some of his antics are Chaplinesque, and Fried does some wonky music for that. The climax of the scene (SPOILER---------------- he kills her) is unfortunately scored with a comedy trombone wavering up and down in circus mode. And thus endeth Side A.
From there onwards it's all good. In fact, the bits I didn't like from the early portion of the CD probably amount to about ten seconds in total, but the grating was sufficient to annoy me and magnify its importance in my mind. It really is actually very good. Pure Gerald Fried, and from almost seventy years ago. Can't really go wrong if you like his style(s).
"CD 2" in my tiny mind has DAY OF THE FIGHT as Side A, and it's the one that's really growing on me. It's actually the score which is the most varied of the three presented, surprisingly since it's for a short documentary about a boxer preparing for a fight. "The March of the Gloved Gladiators" does seem to go the Roman route of Rózsa, at least superficially, but there's a lot more to the score than that. I love the brief moments of quiet reflection (which backs the church scene in the film). Best for me is the track "Examination and Preparation", which shows the brothers sharing a bed Morecambe and Wise-style, then giving their dog scraps of the breakfast...all very homely. And the music's great, and uncharacteristic for Fried I think. First I thought it was quintessentially English, then French, and then it started to remind me of Paul Hindemith. Make of that combination what you will. A fine score in all.
"Side B" of "CD 2" (yeah, we get the picture) is a very pleasant surprise in that the sound quality is noticeably better than that of either of the previous scores. TO THE MOON AND BEYOND. And it's probably closest to the Fried we all know and love (?) - I mentioned in an earlier rabbit that a few tracks are EXTREMELY like Star Trek... or did I mean one of the horror scores on the old FSM twofer? I BURY THE LIVING? Anyway, loving this score. Lots of Friedian fugues and that kind of stuff, mostly quite bright and optimistic but with moments of "the loneliness of space" which always reminds me of what Leith Stevens had done before.
I'm glad I've got this CD. I have to try to not focus on the ten seconds of silliness though, and be prepared mentally for the archival sound, but it's worth the effort. At least it is for me. But it's not all me me me (although it does look that way). So what about YOOZ?
And seeing as Zardoz spoketh many moons ago when he opened this topic, I think it's only COMMON DECENCY for cryin' out loud to mention which of the "Fried Collections" is our favourite. Mine would probably be THE BABY. And the film's good too, if you like cheap but imaginative off the wall craziness.
These two scores need more love, and until you guys are willing to give it up for these two scores, I'm just going to assume you're a bunch of poseurs.
I think it's only COMMON DECENCY for cryin' out loud to mention which of the "Fried Collections" is our favourite. Mine would probably be THE BABY.
I haven't yet gotten the most recent albums from within the past 12 months, but my Top 10 Gerald Fried scores below are (thus far) half CD-R private pressings/formally unreleased titles plus - with the other half - officially issued discs by labels other than Dragon's Domain.
Also, first 2 faves are from scripts written by Robert Bloch.
1. Cabinet of Caligari 1962, on FSM 2. "Catspaw" from '67 STAR TREK on La-La Land (tuba, clarinet family, rubber ball rubbed on piano wire ... even a fleeting 5-second motif for Mr. Sulu or his martial arts)
3. Timbuktu 1959 4. The Baby 1973, on Caldera 5. A Cold Wind in August 1961 6. THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.'s "Alexander the Greater Affair" on FSM 7. The Killing of Sister George 1968 (the movie DeVol DeClined - too frank for Frank) 8. I Will Fight No More Forever 1975 TV-Movie 9. "Amok Time" from '67 STAR TREK on La-La Land 10. The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd 1980 TV-Movie
Within the past 24 months, there has been an increase in activity regarding The Gerald Fried Collection with 2 albums being released per year.
Let this thread be for any post about The Gerald Fried Collection. ??
January 2019
The Baby
July 2019
Birds Do It, Bees Do It
June 2020
One Potato, Two Potato
December 2020
Cruise into Terror + Survive!
January 2021
Fear and Desire, etc.
___________________________________________________________ The above was posted by Zardoz itself, on January 25 this year. Now, perhaps I have not mastered the English language to perfection yet, but the way I understand it is that this thread was supposed to be about the two parallel strings of sausage releases (one of them a mere sausage long) called "The Gerald Fried Collection". Many months had I spenteth on the construction of my relevant rabbit and now, years later, Zardoz itself returns and overturns my giant fried rabbit whilst quipping irrelevancies - which go against the parameters initially established by itself (or "himself", if Zardoz be a personage) - simply mentioning the scores written by Gerald Fried, whether they be part of "The Gerald Fried Collection" or not. TV episodes, unreleased scores, you name it and it's somewhere to be found above. But it is ALL irrelevant. Zardoz talks about "This is Good", "This is Evil" add nausea, but he seems to fail to understand his own query.
Many years did I spend constructing The Rabbit. It was a perfect rabbit, perfect in every way. Then you all come along (yes, ALL of you - although Razzle Bathbone can go free for his almost-relevant late goal) and, with Zardoz rebelling against his OWN RULES, angers my beautiful rabbit with his lies and deception. The Rabbit was perfect until you all corrupted his brain. From eating lettuce he suddenly, last night, turned to eating flesh, human flesh, torn from the innocent wenches' bodies in the woods by the river or in the tavern. The Rabbit has now been destroyed. But the mark of his perfection is retained above for all to consult. YOU the jury must decide who is innocent and who is guilty here.
As I walk to my meeting with Madame Guillotine I am filled with a feeling of calm revenge. I will not be defeated. I will begin work on a new rabbit, a better rabbit, the most perfect intelligent rabbit mankind has known. And then, only then, will you begin to understand.
The Gerald Fried Collection did not commence with Caldera, though.
The earliest of the pressings from Mr. Fried's own tapes were produced by David Fuller & SAE over 25 years ago (was it 1994?) with their issuing of The Mystic Warrior & Too Late the Hero.
There have been varying phases of these sorts of private pressings. I got a group of these via Mr. Fuller about ten years ago (late 2011/early 2012) - some did not even have any covers, simply unadorned CD-Rs in clear jewel cases.
David Fuller passed in 2017. While I haven't been keeping myself updated on further issuings, I noticed accelerated activity in this 'collection' during the past 2 years (especially these past 3 months - hence my thread here).
Now I notice many more titles in E-Bay than I had realized were ever done! (notice these are denoted as Original Motion Picture Score/Soundtrack)
So I destroyed the giant fried rabbit in a vat of acid AND got my head chopped off for NOTHING? Your humourless addition to my latest revelations comes late. The rabbit is dead. I am decapitated. But you have not won.
Great-news just found out! Fried releases must have been awkward ones - I always thought he was just overshadowed by other powerhouses Goldsmith etc.. I've loved Caldera's projects this is just as grand. Thanks its on my collection list!
Still curious about "Whatever Happened too Aunt Alice, That's probably another awkward title, i'd love too have that over my promotional copy - which doesn't cover the full-score, & it is a grand musical mixture that ramped-up the tv film with visual chaos!
[FYI, What Ever Happened To Aunt Alice? was my late father's favorite Gerald Fried music]
BSX's Gerald Fried release of CRUISE INTO TERROR seems to be from a different source than Fuller's recording since it's more complete, so there's hope for a more complete AUNT ALICE. Fuller released 12 titles as part of "The Private Issue Collection" cdr promos, before he died. He had alot more than that. He gave digitized copies of Fried's tapes back to Fried, but also shared them on a now defunct website. That's where the ebay scavenger, who I gotta admit makes excellent artwork, got his recordings for a variety of composers. His copy of AUNT ALICE looks to be sourced from Fuller's copy. That said, the ebay seller catfellah probably shouldn't be linked here, given the board rules. I'm only explaining the recordings exist for the benefit of labels and fans hoping for legit releases.
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